Attack on the Senate: The Rotunda

[Prudence]

Hanna City, Chandrilla | 3:42, Wednesday Afternoon | Only Open to 2 Opponents | OOC
[theme]​

It was a dreary day in the shining city of Chandrilla. The sun hung high in the sky, but its rays didn't refract off of the buildings as it might on any other day. Instead, on this day, clouds sat low in the sky, almost entirely obscuring the planet's vibrant star. The day seemed to stretch on like time itself had grown bored and sought to damn everyone in the dreary city to a slow work day. The drone of engines filled the busy hoverlanes of Hanna city, accompanied by the occasional horn or shout from speeder pilots. Drawing near to the Senate Building was one of Systech's many bulk transportation freighters, cruising through the priority freight lane. The freighters had become a common sight in Hanna city, as well as countless other cities across the Republic as they had been hired to ship bulk amounts of KO Grenades to the Republic, on behalf of the Grand Army's Supreme Commander himself. The bulk freighters, just as the many that had come before it, and the others present this day, had armored hulls - as to not fall easily to pirates or other attackers, nor to allow a stray signal to somehow detonate their weapons within the ship. Today however those armored sides served to shield the occupants of the bulk freighter from the peering eyes of a scanner. Today Systech did not carry their usual payload... no today Systech was transporting legions of Sith and Stormtroopers directly into the heart of the Republic.

Within the Bulk Freighter's cargo hold sat the Imperial Commander, Kalen Genet. He was dressed in his typical subtle dark silver and red Mandalorian armor with his helmet between his knees. His CZ-6100 was attached to a mag plate on his back, and his XPC-71 was slung on a chest harness, and cradled in his arms. He tapped his boots against the durasteel floor of the transport in an expression of nervous energy that he'd picked up during more than a decade of combat. He tilted his head up, locking his gaze upon the dark and menacing visage of Darth Malon. He'd recently witnessed the man absolutely axe the former Dark Lord of the Sith, and take her position. Mental note, watch that one, takes hostile work environment to a whole new level. Nearby, in a neighboring empty section of space, Genet's flagship, recently christened The Immolator, was ready to jump in and aide or evacuate the Commander should he need.

"Alright, listen up mates. In under a minute we're about to smack this baby right here into the Rotunda. When that happens, we're gonna charge down this ramp feet first into chaos itself. 'Lot of you either studied under myself, or my pops, at the academy. Remember your training, and shoot to kill. Doesn't matter if the enemy is running or gunning, take them out. This is going to get hot, and it's going to get hot fast, and some of you will die. Remember, you are not the Grand Army, you are the 121st, and you will be the last men standing when the weaklings have opted to do the easy thing and die. " As his speech finished the Shock Troopers stamped their feet in unison, chanting "Oya!"

He turned his attention once more to Malon, and arched an inquisitive eyebrow at the man, "I saw you axe the Dark Lord last week, lad. I'll be watching my back, lest you misplace one of those fancy sabers of yours."

Kalen felt the change in momentum as the shuttle changed its trajectory, and slid his helmet on. From the outside the shuttle seemed to be going towards the Senate Docking Bay, atop the Republic Executive Building, however it deviated course at the last minute and began flying towards the Rotunda itself. The freighter was moving at a speed fast enough to breach the ornate windows on the Senate walls, but not fast enough to harm anyone within the ship. The building loomed in sight, and swelled as the sluggish cargo hauler approached it. Surely countless alarms were blaring through the building at this point, but it would do no good. The turbolaser emplacements were surrounding the Senate grounds, but the fateful Systech transports were already within the grounds, and out of their sight. Additionally, the fateful Senate Shield that so protected the building for so long had been destroyed months prior by Sith agents.

He heard, at the last second, the telltale buzzing towards the front of the ship as the shields were diverted to the nose. The sudden deafening crash and shuddering of the cargo hauler indicated to Kalen that they had now broken through the sprawling windows that wrapped around the Senate building. He felt the rattling and heard the scraping as the hauler pressed through the grand entrance, and tore across the opulent Rotunda lobby. The ramp screeched as its hydraulics opened it, and the Sith and Shocktroopers within poured out into the surrounding area. Kalen was up on his feet almost instantly upon their stopping, and was one of the first off, his XPC in hand. He could hear the screams of the Senators and guards as they were mowed down, and he put it out of his mind. The sound of wanton death and destruction did not captivate him, nor did it delight him. Instead the sound that kept him going was the drumming roar of blaster fire, and sizzling lightsabers, the sound of battle.

With a swift movement of his arm, his forearm caught the throat of a Senator running for his life psat him. The vibroblade across his arm caught the man in the throat, and elicited a gurgled scream as the man fell to the ground.

"This is it." Kalen looked soberly across the chaos, "This is the end of the Senate."

@Malon

 

[Malon]

Darth Malon, Dark Lord of the Sith, rode silently inside the cargo ship alongside his men. His thoughts were turned inward, where they belonged, and where he could focus on the power of the dark side. The power he would need in the coming slaughter. They—he and the other Sith gathered on Chandrila—were at the heart of the Republic once again; a heart of a much different sort than Coruscant. Chandrila was the seat of Republic power, the very home of the Republic government itself. If their mission succeeded—if the Republic Senate fell—then the Republic, whose breathing had already become labored with the loss of Coruscant, would finally wilt away and die. More, the Republic's demise would be the ultimate blow to the Jedi, their failure complete in their inability to protect it.

Malon was brought out his thoughts by the voice of Commander Genet, who had just finished giving his men a rousing speech. One week it had been since he killed Darth Vanus, his former Master and the previous Dark Lord, and already word had spread to the troops. Unlike Sith, who were not always known for their candor, the commander was blunt, and Malon would later note that he respected that in a solider.

"Do your job today, Commander," he replied with equal honesty, "and you have nothing to fear."

He braced himself as he felt the ship change course. The cargo ship the Sith Lord and his troops were presently traveling in were inconspicuous and discreet, the result of months of planning, some of which Malon himself had been responsible for. The Republic would have no idea that death was coming until it was too late.

As if on cue, the cargo ship crashed through the defenseless walls of the Senate Building and Malon felt the shock and alarm of the denizens presently inhabiting the structure. In his mind's eye, he imagined the Senate, in session and jarred from their proceedings by the sudden BOOM of the cargo ship penetrating the building's outer walls. He imagined senators scrambling from their pods to safety, the Supreme Chancellor himself calling on them to come to order while the threat was assessed. The fear he sensed fed these images and, more importantly, fed his powers of the dark side.

When at last the ship came to a halt, he unclipped one of the three lightsabers hanging from his belt, his own weapon, and ignited its crimson blade. Towering over Commander Genet, yet standing at his side, Malon prepared to disembark and end the Republic once and for all.

@Wit @Oncaro

 

[Wit]

Annileen had spent years away from the Galaxy at large, she had been content to let the Jedi deal with the Sith while she did what the Force willed. But in a matter of days things had changed. Jedha had opened her eyes to a new reality, and Tython had hammered that point in. The vow she had taken at Jedha drove her now, it was a promise she had made to the Force itself and she was more than willing to put her life on the line upholding that promise.

Having made her face its trials on Jedha, the Force had left her with an image of her sister. She hadn't understood what the vision meant, if her sister was or would be in danger, so the only route left to Annileen was to seek her out. So she had made her way to Chandrila. Deashe, one of the other Jedi who had been drawn to Jedha had accompanied her, and during the trip to the home of the senate had filled her in with what had transpired across the Galaxy in her absence.

They hadn't found her sister, but had managed to walk into a Sith invasion. One of her sister's aides had been telling her how she had returned to the Consortium a day ago when the explosions started. There was a lot of confusion about what was going on, but what the two Jedi had felt in the Force had made things very clear to them. A number of strong Dark Side presences and converged around them, the Sith it seemed were not content with destroying Tython and had made their way to Chandrila as well.

Without waiting for further news, she had run off towards the entrance of the Senate building, where she could sense the strongest of the Dark Side presences. It wasn't long before she turned a corner and found the far end of the corridor blocked by an armored figure, the ground around him littered with bodies. Her eyes wandered from one body to another as she began walking towards the Sith, coming to a stop at the intersection with another corridor. Her lightsaber came flying to her right hand as her gaze moved from the bodies and fell on the Sith.

In that moment more than any she realized why she had been drawn to Jedha, why the Force had pulled the vow from her. This Sith was the very emobodiment of what she needed to fight, what she needed to protect the Galaxy from. The vow resonated within her head as she ignited her lightsaber, its green blade coming to life by her side.

I will protect those who cannot protect themselves.


@Oncaro @Malon @Prudence

 

[Oncaro]

Deashe Devoter had been spending time on her homeworld of Chandrila for the past few days, after the events of her test on Jedha, where she had been confronted by her own fears of falling to the Dark Side in the war against the Sith Empire; though she had passed, like with her current companion she too had seen a vision, of several people: Her parents, Valia Locke, and, most surprisingly of all, Kira Elan, the deceased former Dark Lord of the Sith-- once again she had encountered a manifestation of her former friend, and yet again she had struggled to make sense of it.

She had left for Chandrila not long after, and had spent time with Valia at her home before they felt the destruction of Tython. Dea had remained on Chandrila since, now helping Master Annileen Draay with her own business; partly out of genuine desire to help and befriend the other woman, and partly to try to distract herself a bit from the lingering feelings regarding Tython. But that too had been put on hold as she felt multiple Dark presences near the Senate building, and had run off alongside Annileen to confront them. She turned the same corner as Annileen and saw the exact same sight: a floor littered with corpses, and two figures standing at the other end of the corner, surrounded by a number of stormtroopers and what looked to be Sith Warriors.

One of the two seemed to be a Mandalorian. That was odd, she thought; hadn't the Mandalorians broken away from the yoke of the Sith? The other, towering over the first, she was able to recognize without knowing precisely who it was.

So this is the man who killed Kira... she thought, a frown crossing her face. If this was the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, then they'd need to get through this quickly if they were going to defeat him.

Waiting a moment, Dea began walking toward the group, slightly behind Annileen. But unlike her companion, Dea didn't bring out her saber. Not yet.

"Please, turn back," she called to the intruders, her tone one of genuine warning and concern. "More people are going to die here, and it might just be any of you. Please, don't throw your lives away."

She knew it was the most futile of gestures. But Dea had sworn to herself, long before even Jedha, that she would not give in to the aggressive mindset that had plagued so many of her fellows. She would not raise her saber unless the situation absolutely demanded it. And she knew, sadly, that it would in mere moments. But those moments were still time enough, perhaps.

@Wit @Malon @Prudence

 

[Prudence]

This wasn't even sport, the senators and aides running about were falling faster than more could appear, littering the ornate carpet with bodies. He could hear over the battle comms the chatter of his soldiers as they laid waste to the civilians... no, the combatants. These Senators had blood on their hands, the same as any soldier, they just lacked the spine to carry the rifle themselves. Instead they toted datapads and styluses, ordering other men to do their dirty work. Kalen had yet to see any Senate Guards, but he wouldn't be surprised to find some any moment now. The screaming alarms would be calling them to action, but the triple attack meant they would be divided, and weaker. The sight of the defenseless bodies hitting the ground nearly turned his stomach, but he gritted his teeth and powered through. These were the orders, and this was the mission. They would have done the same to his Moff Council, given the chance.

He heard a voice down the hall, and brought his attention to bear on the source of it. Instantly he clenched his jaw and shook his head, no no no. They were supposed to run, and flee like cowards. "Didn't know they made Senators so good looking these days, but ya see lassie I've traveled a long ways just to turn around. Y'know how long it is from Ziost to Chandrilla? It's a long trip. Darth Friendly Fire here gets grumpy too when he doesn't have much leg room for that long."

It was right after he finished speaking that he saw the saber jump to life from the woman beside the one that'd been talking and he heaved a sigh, "Oh. Jedi. Just fekkin great." Why is it always the hot ones that I've got to come and kill? It makes it even harder.

He shouldered his rifle, aiming towards Deashe, "I'll give ya one chance lady, hands above yer head, and on yer knees," really Kalen, on your knees? That's really what you're going with? Mentally kicking himself he continued, "Or I'm gonna have to kill ya."

 

[Malon]

Darth Malon had expected the frenzy after he exited the crashed shuttle. Senators, aides, and unlucky citizens alike were dead, and many more would be dead by the time he was done on this planet. As he followed Kalen through the bodies, he prepared himself to face Senate guards, but the Force shouted a warning and he very quickly realized that Senate guards were not on the menu today.

There were two of them—two Jedi, and both were female. One spoke, the other did not. The silent one had, sprouting from her fist, a blade of jade fire, and she appeared like a beacon of light in the Force. More, he sensed in her a rather significant shatterpoint. She was no ordinary Jedi Knight. He suspected she wasn't an ordinary Jedi Master, either. Whatever she was, the fate of the Jedi Order, and that of the Republic, currently rested with her. And for that, she needed to die.

The Dark Lord of the Sith stepped passed Kalen a few paces, his dark cape of armorweave dragging the charred floor, while his lightsaber cast a blood-tinted hue along the nearby walls. His Commander—the Grand Moff—was giving them a chance to surrender. Malon would not condone that at all.

"No," he said in a frighteningly mechanical voice. "These Jedi must die. You can have the chatty one. The other is mine."

He didn't wait for a response. He stepped forward towards the woman with the lit lightsaber, but kept his senses sharp regardless. Jedi had a nauseating tendency to protect their own, especially when friendship between the two was involved. He angled his blade defensively as he approached, until he was standing just a few feet away from his soon-to-be opponent.

"Your arrogance has blinded you, Jedi." He spoke now directly to her. "After today, there will be no Republic. The Jedi Order—along with your so-called 'Army of Light'—will follow soon after."

 

[Wit]

Normally Annileen would have smiled at the Sith's statements, but today she was too focused, already too heavily steeped in the Force to have time to be amused. She might not know everything that happened in the war, the mistakes that had been made that allowed the destruction off Tython to become a possibility, but she knew that the Council had been wrong. There was a time for deliberation, to take measure before committing to any course of action, but that was this had not been such a time. They should never have ignored the Sith. The burning of Ithor should have opened their eyes, but they had bunkered down and exiled those they should have commanded and guided.

No, she would not make the same mistakes. They said the Council was gone, but as long as she drew breath the Jedi would not meet the same fate. No more deliberation it was time to face the Sith head on, it was time to take action.

She opened herself fully to the Force, and raised her free hand to point her palm straight towards the Sith. Anyone with any sort of experience fighting a Force user would know what to expect, a push with the Force. But while Annileen had made the decision to act, she hadn't suddenly become stupid. You could take direct action without being stupid, without turning a blind eye to strategy. So even though it seemed like she was about to push the Sith away, in reality she had reached out to the ceiling above him and with the caught it in a grip with the strength of the Force itself. Not waiting for the Sith to react to the lack of a telekinetic push slamming into him, she pulled with all her might.

With a deafening groan the roof shattered and came crashing down on the Sith.


@Oncaro @Malon @Prudence

 

[Oncaro]

She knew it had been useless, but she tried anyway. Or rather, she did what she was going to do, and it simply hadn't worked out. Dea paused as the man spoke to her, and she frowned. She looked over his armor again. The man was a Mandalorian, likely born into one of the clans, based on that armor and his accent. In the tense seconds after that brief exchange, wherein the Dark Lord said the man could "have" her, she looked to him and spoke in Mando'a; a language she wasn't exactly fluent in, but that she at least was able to understand.

"Meg ijaat vaabir gar ganar, ibac gar Ru'kel akaanir adate ibac liser't akaanir gar o'r yaimpar?"

At that moment, the battle was joined as Annileen brought a chunk of ceiling down onto Darth Malon's head, and a half-second later the two Sith Warriors closest to her were leaping, howling in rage and excitement for the opportunity to kill a hated Jedi.

A blade of pink light erupted and met the red, and in a few moments the red sabers shorted out; two pairs of hands went flying, along with two sabers. Reaching into the Force, Dea made a motion with her free hand, hurling the two hard against opposite walls, knocking them unconscious. In that same moment several of the stormtroopers began to fire, only to find the pink blade had become a blur, and their blaster bolts were reflected back at them.

One was hit in the arm, the other a shoulder, still another got hit in the side, still other shots went wild. But perhaps miraculously, none of the reflected shots themselves were fatal, merely incapacitating. And then Dea was fast-walking, allowing herself to glow in the Force much like Annileen, while closing the distance between herself and the Mandalorian who fought for the Sith. And yet even now she turned her lightsaber off, though she kept the hilt in her hand. Her face, unlike her partner's, was not filled with righteous determination, but an odd mix of gentleness and steel. She would fight when she had to, but it would be by her rules, not the dictates of a cruel Galaxy.

@Wit @Malon @Prudence

 

[Malon]

Fool, Malon thought.

The Jedi woman extended her hand towards him as if to push him, but Malon did not fall for the feign. Unlike Kalen, he could feel the Force, and the direction in which the Jedi woman had directed its powers. He did not advert his gaze from her once as the ceiling began to collapse. Instead, he merely raised his free left hand towards the ceiling and stretched out with the Force himself. Chunks of duracrete, durasteel, and marble fell freely, but were instantly stopped in midair, as if held by some unseen force. Gracefully, they floated backwards, and then the Dark Lord allowed them to fall harmlessly to the ground behind him.

"If you are quite done with parlor tricks," Darth Malon said as he lowered his left hand, "then let us begin."

Behind the woman, he eyed the entrance to the Senate Chamber proper. The door had come unhinged when their shuttle crashed into the building and was hanging open. Just enough for—

—and then an idea hit him.

The Sith Lord fell into the dark side, allowing all of his hatred for the Jedi Order to settle into the pit of his stomach, and then he too stretched out a gloved hand towards her. He did not bluff. A blast of Force lightning—which was a malignant shade of violet—burst from his fingertips and aimed to sail passed her raised lightsaber and into her chest. The blast was powerful enough to kill a normal Jedi, but Malon suspected it would not have that result on her. Instead, his intention was to rocket her into the exposed Senate Chamber, where their duel could proceed without the intervention of her Jedi partner or even his own Grand Moff.

 

[Prudence]

From the mouth of the hot looking Jedi came a string of dialect she shouldn't have been able to understand. Kalen cocked an eyebrow at her, utterly confused how that pretty face was speaking in his tongue. He hadn't actually heard someone speak Mando'a, not coherently, in years. He had been in Sith space his whole life, and even more so he had been around the soldiers of the Sith War Machine. While a lot of those were Mandalorians, few clung to their old honor or culture. " See, lady, now you're making me want to know where you learned those words from. Though to answer your question, Mando'ad draar digu. Gar linibar skira."

Mere moments after he had finished speaking he heard a tremendous crash from above. His helmet tilted to see the ceiling coming down, but not before Malon had caught it, and was diverting it to save the both of them. Well she could give a shit less about either of us. Polite. Kalen pressed towards Dea, his XPC raised now and pouring tight groupings towards the Jedi's midsection. He didn't mean to really do damage with the hits, but more end her all to kind rampage towards him, and drive her backwards.

"You mooks go mop up some Senators or something. The misses here will be mine to handle."

Kalen jerked his head towards the Stormtroopers and Sith, and they all begrudgingly nodded towards him and peeled away, leaving Kalen alone with Dea. "I don't suppose you would turnover your lightsaber and make this easier for me? Though I do want to know how you know Mando'a. Your cute mouth almost manages to make it sound like a pleasant language."

 

[Wit]

Annileen had been in enough fights to not worry about her attack not working as she had intended and instead keep her focus on the flow of the fight. So when the Sith drew on the Force himself to stop the collapsing ceiling from crushing him she kept her attention on how he would retaliate. So when he raised his hand and lightning shot out towards her she was ready to retaliate. If the Jedi had been predictable in the past then the Sith had their own predictability. When a Sith held out his hand to you in a battle it was much more likely that he was about to unleash a surge of lightning at you and not asking you to a dance.

But what was surprising to her was the strength of the lightning he had unleashed. This wasn't your run of the mill Sith, even more reason for her to stay alert. She raised her free hand to intercept the lightning, but the strength of it tried to push her back. Her concentration on absorbing enough of the energy within the attack to not harm her, she was unable to counter the physical power behind the attack and was sent flying backwards through the corridor. Knowing when to yield and when to oppose, Annileen let her momentum carry her, switching off her blade and focusing instead on her surroundings.

Bouncing off of the partially ajar door leading into the main Senate Chamber, Annileen came to a tumbling stop which she turned into an acrobatic flip to land on her feet. She looked around to find herself standing at the edge of entrance to the senate pod belonging to the Rodian system. All around her were rings of similar senate pods, filling the interior of the spherical chamber. When she returned her attention to the doors through which she had just flown in, she saw the armored Sith walking down the corridor. The huge senate chamber was empty, if there was to be a drawn out fight between the two of them then this was the perfect location.

She might have not been particularly interested in knowing who she was fighting when the fight started, but that single exchange of blows had made it evident to her that this was someone she needed to pay attention to. When two Rodians warriors fight to the death they begin by sharing names. It is an acknowledgement that they are fighting against a worthy warrior, one whose name is worthy of being remembered. Give me your name Sith, and I will tell you mine.

@Oncaro @Malon @Prudence

 

[Oncaro]

Dea frowned at the man's answer to her question. Revenge? Revenge for what?

She didn't have time to ponder this further, as the man fired several bursts at her which she easily deflected. Seeing the mooks run off, she frowned, and looked to the Mandalorian.

"To make a long story short, I was taught some Mando'a by a very lovely Mandalorian woman. Now, if you'll excuse me--"

She utilized the Force around her, crouching slightly and leaping over Kalen's head, landing behind him and running off to chase the mooks, intending to mitigate what damage they might do. If Kalen were going to fight her, he'd need to chase her.

@Wit @Prudence @Malon

 

[Malon]

Meanwhile, in the Senate Rotunda, the duel of fates was about to begin.

Darth Malon entered slowly, carrying his lightsaber activated and stretched out in a defensive posture. It barely dawned on him that he was now standing in the place of power for the Republic. That if he succeeded, the Republic would fall from a strike at its heart. None of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was this here. This was no longer an internal struggle for Darth Malon. That battle was won. He ruled the Sith now, though not the Empire—not yet. And this? This battle was it: the ultimate manifestation of the war in two beings. The Jedi versus the Sith.

The light side versus the dark.

The Dark Lord considered the woman's words. A warrior, he thought, might consider them honorable. But Malon cared nothing for honor. Honor was for the dead. Still, there was value in knowing the name of the woman, and so he indulged her for the first and last time.

"You have permission to refer to me as Darth Malon," he said, though he enjoyed the next part more than he would ever admit. "I am the Dark Lord of the Sith."

The Lord of all Sith, he thought quietly, only to himself.

And then it happened. The sound of his comlink activating within his helmet, followed by a cataclysmic shift in the Force that he knew the Jedi woman felt. He knew before the voice even began to speak into his ear. Kyuss Thaun was dead. He was the Emperor of the Sith now.

"Malon," said the dying voice of the Emperor. "My time.. it has ended. The Empire no longer—" a rough gasp, like someone drowning trying to get the last bits of oxygen before becoming completely submerged "—needs me. You are their Emperor now. Lead them. Finish.. what we started. Tell Cain to—" a hacking cough, more blood "—to get my body to Moraband."

The communication ended, the mantle had been transferred, and like a wraith descending upon a new host, the dark side of the Force centered all of its unfathomable power like a king's cloak around Darth Malon.

"You, on the other hand," he continued, a malicious grin spread across his face, hidden by his mask, and through the Force he steeled himself, "are already dead."

He leaped and the Force carried him. As he turned into a front flip, his flame-colored blade slashed down at the woman's head. He did not expect it to strike her, but it would ward of her attack, and force her to defend herself. As it happened, he would land on the central most podium—that belonging to the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic—and his elbow would graze a command on the computer terminal. The hydraulics that moved the podium would kick in and the podium would begin its ascent, giving the Jedi woman just enough time to spring onboard and continue their duel.

A duel which would then be fought with lightsabers.

@Prudence @Oncaro @Wit

 

[Prudence]

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that ma'am."

Kalen activated his jetpack and sprang upward into the air. He caught the Jedi by the waist, wrapping his left arm around her, and holding her lightsaber hand with his right. He sailed towards the doorway that Malon and the Jedi woman had just exited through. He hoped that his hand would be able to hold back the woman's lightsaber, and keep him from being sliced up, until they made it into the Rotunda.

"Normally I don't just throw myself on women like this, but I guess I'll make an exception today."

The two of them sailed into the massive room together, and he dropped the girl before killing his jetpack a second later and dropping to his feet. He leveled his blaster rifle at the fallen woman and jerked his head towards her, "Tall dark and team kill says I've gotta kill ya. I'm not here to kill you, I'm here to kill senators. I personally see the value in intelligence gathering. If you'd kindly put yourself in a pair of binders I'd truly appreciate it."

He was content that he was far enough away from Malon who was engaged in combat for the hulking giant to hear him. He fully expected that the man would've killed him for the offer.

 

[Wit]

Annileen, having expected him to be a member of the Dark Council, had not expected the Dark Lord himself. But before she could give further thought to this information there was a shift in the Force. She had been feeling the death of Jedi and Sith all around her since the attack began, but in that moment she felt something more, a presence in the Dark Side that overshadowed even the one she faced. Somewhere close by that particularly powerful had just been vanquished, and the Dark Side had reacted. The balance between light and dark had shifted ever so slightly in favor of the light. The Force helped her connect the dots, the Emperor it seemed had fallen. The man in front of her was the lynchpin holding the darkness together, the counterweight preventing the Force from retuning to balance.

You, on the other hand, are already dead. With every passing moment the will of the Force was becoming clearer to her. Visions flashed before her; her past, the path that had drawn her to Jedha, her present, seeing the face of their enemy, and her future, what the Force needed her to do, to become. She did not ignite her blade as the Sith flew by, instead raised raised her hand ever so slightly as the Force blossomed above her and stopped the blade from receding her. Eyes still closed, she turned around to face the Sith as the podium he stood on started ascending. No, she whispered at last in response to his words, walking to the very edge of the platform she stood on and lunched herself into the air, landing on the edge of the chancellor's podium. I am the Force.

Opening her eyes at last, revealing the glow of the Force within her, she reached out with the Force and grabbed the Sith, pulling him towards her. If that worked and the Sith was within reach, she would complete the attack with a diagonal slash of her blade, cutting him form his left should to his right hip.

@Oncaro @Malon @Prudence

 

[Oncaro]

Dea had hoped the man would chase her-- and chase her he did, but in a way she hadn't expected. He just used his jetpack to catch up to her Force-enhanced run, and he picked her up before taking her away from her intended targets.

A flash, a spark of frustration lit up her mind for a moment as she struggled against him, ignoring his quip about throwing himself at her. Next thing she knew she was in the empty Senate chamber, dropped unceremoniously on the floor before the man again implored her to surrender.

It was at this moment that, like Annileen, she felt the shift in the Force as a being even more powerful than the Dark Lord was killed. She felt the change as the Dark Side of the Force shrank slightly. Just slightly. But after half a decade of pollution, even the slightest change toward proper balance in the Force was welcome. With that shift came a merciful opening up of the cloud in the Force that often frustrated her, and she sensed the feelings of the man in front of her, truly sensed them, for the first time. She looked up to her opponent, a long blonde lock of hair falling over her face.

"Why do you do this?" she asked simply as she stood up, keeping her lightsaber off as she fixed her hair with one hand. "You serve a master that cares little, if anything at all for you, or anyone under your command. The Sith merely use those who cannot sense the Force as fodder for their own goals, it's how it's always been. And you have the gall to declare that you'd rather put me in chains and interrogate me, thinking you're being merciful? Where was the mercy for Saleucami? For Ithor? Billions of innocent people dead. The bacta factories on Thyferra destroyed, preventing an invaluable resource that could help so many in the Galaxy regardless of where they stand in this war from being used. Where was the mercy there?"

Though she tried to keep the emotion out of her voice, it became somewhat difficult to stay calm. Her face, however impassive, belied the intensity in her eyes as she looked to him: A look of conviction, but also of questioning, piercing the man's soul through his helmet.

She began walking toward him, utterly unafraid as the Force flowed out of her like a beacon, much like Annileen; and though the man couldn't sense it, she knew the Dark Lord-- no, probably Emperor now-- would. And she hoped it caused him even the slightest twinge of fear, with two powerful, determined Jedi fully willing to defeat him.

"Where was the mercy for Tython? So many Jedi dead-- Jedi that had refused to get involved in this war, and were no threat to your precious empire. A planet steeped heavily in the Force, destroyed. A blasphemy against the Force of the greatest kind was committed that day, on a world I was happy to call my home. And now..."

She stepped right in front of him, ignoring the clash of Light and Dark going on above them, staring at his faceplate and yet boring into his eyes all the same.

"And now you come to the planet of my birth, a planet of peace, with the intent of killing those who cannot defend themselves, again all for a master that would discard you the moment you become useless, or inconvenient, and replace you with someone else. Just like they did to a woman who was at one point a good friend of mine before she fell to the Dark Side: Kira Elan. You may know her better as Darth Solum. And yet for all that, I sense that you are not just a common soldier, trained to follow orders like a dog. You feel conflicted about yourself, I can sense it. You were trained to obey your orders and yet there are times that you don't know whether you should. Why do you ignore your conscience? All that which tells you that what you're doing is wrong, however necessary it might seem at the time? Is there still a good man underneath the soldier?"

Now she raised a hand, and put it on his rifle, gently turning it away from her-- or either of the other two in the room-- before stepping back several feet.

"I will not and cannot surrender to you. Not while you endanger the innocent. If you attack me, I will defend myself. If you attack the innocent, I will protect them to my dying breath. But you still have a choice. You don't have to surrender to me, and you don't even have to make the choice right now. But I hope someday soon when that choice needs to be made, you know which option to take."

Another look, this one softer, more... quietly inquisitive. And here she asked a final question without using words.

What will you become?

@Wit @Malon @Prudence

 

[Malon]

The Jedi woman was powerful.

However, her Force tug was not uncommon in the Emperor's line of work. Darth Vanus had tried something similar during their duel on Rhen Var and Malon was ready to counter it the moment he sensed her attack coming. Triggering a command on his breastplate with the Force, Malon activated the magnetic cores in his boots, firmly grounding him to the Chancellor's podium. As he did, the dark side of the Force began to build within him; it was wounded from Kyuss' death, but the dark side was a quick-healing thing and it regathered its strength with whispers of murderous vengeance.

I am the Force.

The Emperor was barely able to hold back the sick laugh building in his throat; it was if the very darkness itself was cackling at the Jedi's claim. A bar of plasma the color of flames lashed out and caught her own blade, the color of life, before it could complete its deadly swing. A shower of multi-colored sparks flew off the podium as it continued its ascent, and as the Avatar of the Light struggled against the Dark's deepest Shadow.

Placing both of his gloved hands tightly around the hilt of his lightsaber, the Shadow used his considerable strength to shove the Jedi backwards, breaking their blade-lock. He then swung his own blade in a falling avalanche, bringing it up above his head and then crashing down towards his Jedi foe—the signature move of Form V, Djem So.

As he did so, the Shadow opened his mouth—the human one beneath his mask—but a very inhuman voice proceeded out beyond his lips, beyond the respirator in his mask: "There is no emotion, there is peace."

Their lightsabers flashed again; the Shadow and the Light were even.

"There is no ignorance, there is knowledge."

Sabers whirled—

CRASH

—and the lights in the chamber flickered as both sides of the Force collied with staggering force, blowing out the screens of nearby Senate pod consoles.

"There is no passion, there is serenity."

The Shadow leaped onto the edge of the pod to avoid a low blow at his legs. His lightsaber resumed battle with the Light's—neither side gave an inch, and the clashing of their blades echoed throughout the chamber.

"There is no chaos, there is harmony."

The dark side was recovering with astounding speed now. Its energies were thick in the chamber, but so were that of the light side's. The swirl of Force energy was so intense that it was unlikely anyone but the two beings at the center of the vortex could have stood inside those chambers at that moment.

"There is no death—"

At the critical last moment, the Shadow leaped, backflipped across a vast swath of empty space, and landed flat on his feet in the center of a Senate pod across the chamber. A second later, the metal of two nearby Senate pods began to creak and groan as their connection to the rest of the chamber was broken and they were hoisted into the air by some invisible force.

"—there is only the Force," the Emperor's voice was again his own "and I am its Master."

The pods were suddenly hurled through the air—like deadly disks—towards the central podium where the Jedi woman still stood.

— cPvP: post approved by Wit —​

 

[Prudence]

He hadn't actually expected her to surrender. This woman had likely been raised a Jedi Knight, and as indoctrinated in its teachings as he had been the military. Her response, however, was not what he had expected. Why do you do this? It was the real question wasn't it? Why did anyone do anything? It was a question Kalen had always asked himself, and if he couldn't find a good answer then he usually found himself rectifying the situation. The answer to her question was he was following orders. It was that simple, and it was all the justification that he needed - but it seemed she already knew that. Rather than laying down her sabers, or lashing out at him, she continued talking.

Her words cut through his weak defenses like a hot blade, as her points rang out in his mind like a tolling bell. He knew the truth of the Sith, and their lust for power. He had seen them in action, and no matter how they justified their actions, they would not stop their crusade until all that stood opposed to them fell. Did he have any true loyalty to the Sith Order? No. He could care less for the Sith Order and its prosperity. He had a loyalty to the men and women of the Empire, and the men and women under his command.

If there was one thing that separated Kalen from the ordinary soldier or Sith was his disdain for needless genocide. Kalen understood the need for collateral damage at times, and he understood that war had casualties, but not a whole bloody planet. There was no need to burn the entire surface of a world, nor to completely obliterate it from the fekking sky. The Sith had certainly gone over the top, that was for sure, but where else did he belong? With the Republic? Hah. The Republic was corrupt and decrepit, and would hang him on sight for ever associating with the Sith. With the Mandalorians? His House had committed the Mandalorian version of high treason so many years ago, and were labeled as dar'manda. He wasn't welcomed on Mandalore. Sith space was where he had been born, and the Empire was the only body that would welcome him into its ranks.

He had his rifle brandished at her, and had asked her to lower her own weapons, but of course the damned woman had stepped towards him. She was gazing directly through his helmet, into Kalen's very soul. Every fiber of him screamed SHOOT HER, but the good soldier defied his orders, and let her walk towards him. She continued, discussing Tython now, as he had thought she might. The desecration of the Force meant little to him, as he had no connection to it, but the loss of a home - that was something Kalen understood, at least somewhat.

The revelation that this Jedi had known Darth Solum caught Kalen off guard, but he knew it shouldn't have. Solum had been a Jedi long before she had been a Sith, and likely many of the Jedi he would fight had known her some way or another. Why do you ignore your conscience? All that which tells you that what you're doing is wrong, however necessary it might seem at the time? Is there still a good man underneath the soldier? These three questions were the questions that had plagued his military career, the questions that robbed Kalen of sleep at night, and the insecurities he tried to hide with his humor. How far could he go, justifying his actions in the name of following orders before he became the actions he committed? Was it already too late? Was he already a bad man?

He felt his weapon strain in his hands, as her own soft hands guided it downward and away from her. Her parting words summed up her message neatly, and left Kalen at a crossroads he hadn't felt himself faced with in many years. He had faked justification, looked past the consequences, and ignored morality for this long, could he turn back?

The two of them were situated now in one of the many halls that wrapped around the Senate Rotunda. It had a clear view of the Rotunda through the wrap around windows, and was pierced by entrance after entrance that lead to the personal senate pods. What it meant for Kalen, however, was that Malon was unable to truly see him here. His breathing quickened as he stared her down, his unreadable T-Visor betraying far more of what lay beneath it than he was comfortable with.

Finally he met her gaze and stepped forward, "I have to bring this building down. I have orders." The words felt so hollow in his mouth, so fake. The woman had just poured her heart out to him, and poured his own heart out. She'd called him on the carpet, and that was his best response?

Kalen shook his head and unslung a pack from his back, muttering "Fuck it." . With his right hand he grabbed the saber that he'd removed from Darth Malon, which had previously belonged to Darth Solum. It was his understanding that she'd had the same saber while she was a Jedi, which meant this Jedi woman would likely recognize it, at least the hilt.

He snapped the blade on and cut a hole into the wall, before dropping the pack into the hole. With any luck having the pack in the wall itself would wreak more devastation upon it, and render it more unstable. He gave the Jedi woman one last long look, and then pulled his helmet off. His face was a mask, betraying no emotion - except his eyes. They were hard, boring directly into the Jedi, and betraying the conflict within him. He tossed the helmet towards her, no cares as to if she caught it or not, "Call me."

Kalen spun on his heels and moved towards the door. He drew a secondary comm unit and raised it to his lips "Attention all Imperial Troops. This is Commander Genet. Detonate all explosives immediately."

Stopping in the doorway he turned to face the Jedi woman, "Oh. It would seem I forgot to notify the Dark Lord. The tragedy." He cast a casual shrug towards her before stepping out of the room. He'd give her a few steps before he pulled the trigger on his own detonator, blowing his satchel of explosives. If she were smart, or had any of the natural Force intuition, she'd get away from those explosions. If not... they wouldn't be having a follow up conversation.