Battle of Coruscant -- The Jedi Temple: Training Rooms

[Alhon]

The beast before Simon was every bit a personification of all he despised about the Sith. Mindless aggression, a lust for violence, a short term outlook and a sub-human mindset. He would not let it live.

The Alliance solider finally drew up beside the padawan, evening the odds, not that the odds had ever mattered to Simon Dram. He was a servant of the light, charged by the Force to put an end to the darkness. He would fight to the last in service of the Force; his rock, his touchstone, his god. He advanced slowly towards the Sith, his steps filled with purpose and resolve. All the while he kept his blue blade ignited, ready to defend against a sudden move by his primitive foe.

He paced before the beast, careful to remain between the Sith and the Alliance soldier; the men and women of the Alliance military were dutiful and courageous, but they were caught in a war between higher powers. Simon would do what he could to protect the man, but if it was a choice between protecting his ally and vanquishing his foe, he would sacrifice the man in a heartbeat. There was too much at stake. There always had been.

His lightsaber hummed before him but he held back from initiating the attack. Though young, Simon was a proficient user of Soresu; his strength here would lie in his ability to defend. While his adversary clearly relied on a powerful offense, his strength would not be inexhaustible; he had already duelled one opponent and every being tired eventually. He expected the beast would play right into his hands, wearing himself down against the Jedi’s blade before leaving himself open to a swift counterstrike.

Yet, the Sith had not yet charged. Like all animals, he would perhaps need some enticement.

Simon raised a hand, motioning to the Alliance soldier to open fire.

 

[Fantasy Liver]

Ike did so, tears still flowing down his eyes as he shot at the personficiation of the evils the Sith had done. He would avenge the deaths of his comrades or die trying. The Ortolan felt as though he had nothing else to live for now.

 

[Wanderer]

Var snorted as the pathetic Padawan acted so calm and superior, motioning to the sniveling soldier beside him to open fire. As the crying man did, Var simply deflected the bolts while smiling cruelly with bloody fangs. This would be even easier than he had thought. When there was a pause in the fire, he hurled one of his warblades, guided by the Force, towards the soldier while moving with surprising speed for his size towards the child playing at being a Jedi. He started to preform a deadly dance as he closed the distance. The blade gleaming in the dim light from still wet blood.

 

[Alhon]

Almost on cue, the beast charged them.

Simon held his ground, resolutely staring down his adversary. The Sith leapt towards him, managing to deflect the blaster fire with his crude bladed weapons. It was a mildly impressive feat, but not wholly unexpected. The Bothan snarled, hurling one of his blades towards the exposed Ike Heeba.

The Jedi’s senses flared, anticipating the blade would strike its target. Simon stood firm, drawing the Force to himself and striking out with his left hand. His force push turned the blade back as if it were mere deadwood against the raging tide, knocking it away and sending it skittering across the training room floor.

Solider saved, Simon had only a moment before the creature was upon him. The Bothan’s attack was a maelstrom of rage and aggression and Simon met it with an implacable serenity. Their blades clashed in a shower of sparks, but the Jedi managed to counter the Sith’s initial strikes, his tutelage in Soresu paying dividends. He moved quickly, working his blade in tight movements that stopped the beast’s every advance, yielding snarls and cries of frustration from his enemy.

If he could only tire the beast, then an opening would present itself. When it did, Simon Dram would rid the galaxy of this monster, once and for all.

 

[Wanderer]

The beast Bothan smiled cruelly. The young worm had some skill, but just like the knight he had felled in mere minutes his only real skill was blocking. He subtly was calling his other blade Limbtaker back to his hand. With sudden and lightning fast movements he was suddenly wielding two massive warblades. He could see the shock that the Jedi could not entire keep from his eyes, he now pressed harder striking from multiple directions in a flurry of movements. He was an aggressive and brutal creature, yes, but even his enemies had to admit the grace with which he used the two swords. It was a dance of death; blood his paint and his enemies the canvas. The boy had some skill, but Var was better. He had trained under a powerful master, faced down an ancient beast, and honed his killing arts for years. This Padawan, however skilled, couldn't last forever. Even he had to know that.

He jumped back, but quickly attacked again to give the boy no time to recover or go on the offensive. This time his opponent would be in for a surprise...one of his swords dug into the ground and tossed a good amount of debris up into the air headed for his face. As that happened he quickly brought his blades in from two different directions, as well as delivering a sweeping kick in his direction. He knew the boy wouldn't be able to stop all four attacks. He was going to receive a wound no matter what. He wouldn't be able to jump away from the assault or dodge/block all of the attacks. Now there were only two questions; Would he stop the dirt and debris from getting in his eyes, the kick, or the blades? And how badly would he be injured?

 

[Alhon]

The beast was both quick and strong. In his initial observation of the Sith’s style, Simon had perhaps assumed too much; believing sheer ferocity to form the basis of the creature’s approach. To some extent that was true, but there was also a reasoning behind the way the Sith swung his blade, an intellect that guided his attacks to where they would be most effective.

Unexpectedly, the beast retrieved its second blade through the Force. Simon cursed for not having thrown it further. Now he defended on two fronts, his blue blade moving almost impossibly fast to block multiple attacks by his opponent. Sweat formed on his brow, but he fought on, faithful that his form was precisely what was needed. Though strong, he got the sense this creature was no master, perhaps not even a crusader. An acolyte still, they were evenly matched on paper and the beast had already expended vastly more energy both in this fight and its previous duel. Still relatively fresh, there was every chance Simon could be victorious in the end.

He decided to improve the odds, motioning quickly for the Alliance trooper to swing round and fire on the Sith from the rear. The creature, no matter how fierce, could not possibly guard itself on all fronts.

Perhaps realising this, the beast suddenly dove a blade into the ground, tearing up chunks of flooring and hurling them towards Simon. He twisted away, leaning backwards so the debris would clear his head. At the same time the Force flared in warning, the Sith’s blades closing in from opposite directions. Simon parried the first and dodged the second, but had barely regained his footing when the creature’s enormous foot slammed into his midsection.

He was thrown backwards, hurtling several feet through the air before slowing his momentum. He landed somewhat unsteadily, but on both feet, retrieving his saber with a flick of the wrist. Reigniting the blade, he stalked forwards, gritting his teeth against the pain throbbing in his abdomen. The Sith’s ferocious attack may have bruised him, but it would take far more to wound him severely. The Sith had to be tiring now and with the trooper on side they may yet overpower him.

Strike quickly the Force seemed to say and Simon remembered for a moment that all around the planet was falling to the conquerors. Imperial reinforcements would not be far away.

They were running out of time.

 

[Wanderer]

Var smiled as the boy was hit by a muscular leg. He had chosen the lesser of injuries, but he at least had several cracked ribs; if not broken. He had been watching the crying soldier out of the corner of his eye, deflecting the erratic shots as they came. But his heightened senses told him the fight was now over. The sound of armored boots beating a path towards the training room were growing louder. Soon even the Jedi would hear them.

"Seems like some friends of mine are coming to join in on the fun." Suddenly as Var finished speaking the door opposite to the entry he was facing blew open from an explosion. As the dust cleared, the Jedi and his weeping companion would notice a battalion of stormtroopers now behind Var and spreading out quickly. If the odds for the small Jedi and his ally had been unfair before, they were now grim. Var grinned, a feral and frightening thing, knowing the odds of them surviving were now bleak. So he offered them their only option and even it wasn't looking good. "Run."

 

[Alhon]

Simon had barely drawn level with the Sith when the door on the far side of the room exploded inwards, a swirl of dust and debris announcing the entrance of dozens of imperial troops.

The Empire had come.

As the stormtroopers spilled into the training room, Padawan Dram had only seconds to make the call. Pain throbbed throughout his lower body, a sure sign that the beast’s assault had dealt the Jedi some lasting damage. Sweat began to pool on his brow and his blade felt heavy in his hand. As always, he felt the weight of the Force behind him, but his eternal companion was strangely silent. What is your will? He asked the shadows. Should he flee or stand and fight?

But the Force was silent. He could not hear its voice he reasoned, not here, surrounded by such darkness. He would have to decide alone. The stormtroopers were taking up positions now, spreading their feet and aiming their rifles, the click of safety catches signalling what was to follow.

In spite of his faith, loyalty and unwavering resolve, Simon Dram was no fool. To stand and fight here was to stand and die.

He drew on all his remaining strength, ducking low and gathering the Force to himself, careful to move quickly before the troopers could fire. He thought of his hatred for the Sith, for the Empire, for the way they had twisted all that was right and just in the galaxy. He focused on his desire to be rid of them, to purge their evil and be divested of its stain. He projected his thoughts outward, forcing his will upon every inch of the surrounding floor.

The effect was instantaneous.

The floor rose at Simon’s command, a line of blocks hurtling upwards, forming an impenetrable wall between himself, the Sith and his imperial allies. Hidden from view, only Simon’s senses told him the beast was still there, mere metres on the far side of the wall.

Padawan Dram did not wait to exchange more hollow words with demons and darksiders. Nor did he spare a glance for the Alliance soldier; the man was on his own now.

Extinguishing his blade, he turned and ran toward the rear exit. He could not save Coruscant today, no more than he could have saved it yesterday. The Dark Side had risen to power once again. It would not hold sway forever however; as had happened a thousand times through the ages, the Light would fight to see it brought down.

Simon Dram intended to live long enough to join that fight.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Across all means of communication, be they nearby HoloNet screens, personal communication devices, military communication systems, and more, a small hologram of the injured Alliance Chief of State, Nathanaeu Bastele, appeared before everyone who could see it. His face was shredded, with one of his eyes practically hanging from the socket. His body was torn apart, with his insides visible. It was a gruesome sight, showing just how bad the battle was. If the Chief of State could be this hurt, anyone could. Anyone could be killed.

But he had a message to send, one more important than what happened to him. It was garbled, with the chaos of the battle and Sith jammers preventing it from fully being reached, but there was enough to understand what Bastele was saying:

"This is Nathanaeu Bastele. A Sith warship… descending… Jedi Temple. I don’t know… planning but... If you can hear… evacuate or head underground… all costs. Coruscant… gone. The Alliance is falling. Save yourselves and… Force… with you."

With that, the transmission faded away. The end of the Alliance had come.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Life itself was dying. Coruscant, in this moment, was the closest any mortal would ever come to understanding what it would be like if Death reached out its cold hands and reaped the Force, or God, or nature, or whatever it was that made the universe spin. On the surface, and even in orbit, every living thing felt the destructive power of what the two tiny figures atop the hull of a Star Destroyer were doing. Life was being drained, sucked into the blackened and decrepit soul of a curse called Skywalker.

Those adept in history might have drawn a comparison to the ancient Dark Lord of the Sith called Darth Nihilus, a devourer of worlds, and life, and all the energy around him. Like that Dark Lord of old, Andraste was a wound in the Force, craving all of its energy and devastating everything in her path. No being escaped feeling its impacts; they felt drained, weak, like even the simplest of tasks required strength of herculean proportions. Escaping Coruscant, or even hiding, would feel like an eternity.

The planet itself was breaking. As the Empress drained the life and energy from all around her, the Dark Lord Vereor was ravaging the surface. A storm of pure Force energy was growing; lightning, real lightning and not artificially created from satellites, struck down from the clouds from all directions, in all streets and crevasses in the city, tearing swaths through buildings and dirt. The energies even reached into space, tearing apart ships and disrupting systems on so many others. The wind howled all through the sky, and tornadoes formed to destroy the artificial world that they were touching down on.

The temperature was dropping. At once it felt sickeningly hot but also colder than the snowy wastes of Hoth. The rain falling from the sky froze, turning into shards of ice as it fell, stabbing through the heads and bodies of countless thousands, if not more. The carefully constructed weather of the once-great capital of the Republic and the Alliance was torn asunder. The planet itself was now just as much the enemy of the Alliance as the Sith.

Yet at the center of all this madness was something beautiful. At the Jedi Temple, above which the Imperial Star Destroyer sat, a beautiful aurora was forming. Dark and dangerous energy collided into a green display of dancing lights, one that could have been a calming sight were it not for the life being drained from everything below it. At the core of this beauty, though, was something rotten, for the light was not a mere byproduct of the attack. It was the attack itself. The dark energies and lightning being displayed was the eldritch energy sucked into the very heart of this labyrinth by the Dark Lord himself, a reflection of the souls being sacrificed for more power.

Anyone with any sort of psychic awareness, be they Jedi or anyone even remotely attuned to the Force, could feel as those souls were taken and twisted into a dark purpose for which the Force should never have been used. It was a warning, a reminder of what the Chief of State said across the HoloNet.

Leave or die.

 

[Kaeb]

Jedi Temple
Half an hour before the Storm...​

Whisper thought she had seen the worst the war had to offer, deep in the bowels of the Underworld, in the dead streets of Monument Plaza and in the blazing ruins of Westport, but then she laid her eyes upon the crumbling towers of the Jedi Temple, and all it represented. Where once it had sheltered those who sheltered the galaxy, now it wasn't capable of protecting anyone and in some ways, neither were the Jedi. Some could not even protect themselves, as ravenous wolves descended upon them in their weakened state. Crippled, broken, betrayed and yet somehow, by either luck or the force itself, some Jedi still stood stridently against their oppressors, against those who wielded darkness as their ally. Everything was falling apart according to plan, and yet the Jedi persisted, as did those few soldiers who still fought alongside them, brothers and sisters locked in combat, not for honour or glory, but simply for the survival of their Alliance. Of their purest way of life. Choking towers of black smoke clung to the Temple, like an apparition of death, an omen that threatened to engulf the morale of all who looked upon it. Not one to bow to the will of an omen, the blue eyed mercenary pressed on, seeking to reach out and grasp the hand of any who still stood in collapsing halls of their once hallowed home. She to save any who still clung to hope, in the midst of all encompassing carnage.

Three ships circled the temple, her own included as they dodged incoming missiles and blaster fire in their attempt to seek out safe areas to land. Cursing to herself, Whisper realized that there were none in sight. This would make things all the more difficult, but not impossible, as she commanded the other unmanned vessels to seek out all balconies around the temple, near their various hangar bays and open causeways. Before the others could even track the hangars down, her ship burst through cloud of smoke and flame to discover the exterior of the Jedi Temple Training Rooms, an area which was somehow still locked in an intense battle despite how long the conflict had now been raging since the onslaught of the Sith invasion. She marveled at the tenacity of the soldiers as her ship hovered above the deck, unhinging it's docking clamps and cargo ramps to welcome onboard all who sought to flee. She broadcasted a dozen different communications in an attempt to signal those who adhered to the Alliance cause of her arrival, choosing to stick to her previous moniker as 'Guardian Angel' on all frequencies. As Imperial troopers stormed her ship, she suddenly clicked three buttons near her command console, which caused the ship to creak as it unhinged two compartments that flanked both of it's sides. The Imperial soldiers were engulfed in toxic sewage, which was soon engulfed in flame once ignited by nearby blaster fire. Apprehending a fleet of sewage treatment vessels in shear desperation clearly had it's advantages. Before she could think on the display any longer, a welcome sight met her eyes. Jedi and Alliance soldiers alike had begun retreating to the ship cargo bays, as her other ships arrived on the deck to meet them. She caught herself smiling as her eyes watered, the levity of her actions and the actions of those who wrought this carnage threatened to overwhelm her. But underneath the sudden burst of emotion, remained a single virtue. Hope. In it's purest form.

 

[Fantasy Liver]

The deflected bolts careened back and hit Ike. As he collapsed, he gave one last sob before he fell. Now he was just another casualty of this horrendous battle. He died without any hope for the galaxy. It was a sad and cruel death for one who had been so happy in life.

Though, as he fell, he still clutched his blaster. Ike Heeba died fighting. He died with honor. He died for the Alliance.