Ask Revenge of the Sith: Garden Alight

[Karys]

Param had come to Nar Shadda and tried to act like nothing was wrong. She tried to hand him a flower instead of looking at what she had done. Then, she had tried to take what mattered most to him. Even if she didn’t know it, she had tried to rob him of Azar.

That was unacceptable.

At the club, Karys was too shocked to react to her final betrayal. That wasn’t the case anymore. Karys had returned to Trokien only a short while after Param had apparently left. It didn’t matter, he would leave scars deeper than the ones Azar had. She had tried to take everything from him, but he would take what she loved most.

Karys stood in the midst of her garden before her pagoda. He lit a cigara as he gazed around at all Param’s hard work, the testimony to her craft. Once he appreciated and respected it, now he only saw her weakness. He inhaled deeply, tugging in the delicious smoke before exhaling. He plucked the cigara from his lips and tossed it to the ground before him.

He’d use the Force to stoke the ht ember, ensuring it caught that bed ablaze. Then he’d steadily guide the flames from flowerbed to flowerbed until everything had been burned to the ground. Param had challenged him on Nar Shadda, this was his answer.

He would wait for her in the burnt out remains of her garden and the torched husk of her pagoda. Unlike her though, Karys didn’t run. He didn’t hide. He didn’t fear her weakness. Karys was Sith now.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Param Vour]

Things at the teashop were in order, Bob and Evan had everything handled. It was a relatively good day, had it not been for the alert she got on her EZPhone. It was the one only she would get. A fire in the garden. Param frowned, letting out a deep sigh. One day it was bound to happen. It was just a shame that it happened before she could start charging people for their impromptu visits.

“Get the ship ready, Vee. If anything happens to me, you run,” she said quietly. Vee had all the same information that she did, but to him it was just a fire in a garden; Param knew better. With a dejected series of beeps he hopped off of Param’s shoulder and made his way to her ship where he’d get it spun up and ready to leave. She turned to her employees. “Go home, shop’s closed.”

The drive to the pagoda, or what was left of it by the time she arrived. Everything was burned down to a crisp. The garden, the droids tending that garden, the pagoda and it’s wall of swords and her little nicknacks she’d collected in her room from the places she visited. It wasn’t the worst way to lose the necklace Trael had given her, though.

Param hopped out of the speed, sliding her Force forged sword in its scabbard into her belt on her left hip. A vibro-blade was sheathed at the small of her back, just underneath the wrapped belt that kept her robes together. Beyond that, she brought the Force; a boiling rage barely suppressed by Param’s deadpan expression. Her eyes were a fiery golden as she stopped at the entrance to the garden, finding exactly who she thought would be there.

The Force coiled around her arms. She kept the silence however. Karys hadn’t come to talk.

@Apollyon

 

[Karys]

Karys didn’t have to wait long, he saw the speeder as it zoomed up towards the Pagoda. He knew who was in it. He plucked a vial from his belt, it was the same toxin he’d used on Panatha to decimate the farmlands there. With his other hand he plucked his lightsaber hilt from his belt. As he rose from his sitting position on the steps to her front door, he’d pop the lid of the vial,pour it onto the ground, and drop the container once it was empty.

Param would feel the very earth scream in agony as it died.

“Param.” Karys greeted cooly and calmly. His golden eyes were locked onto her as he reached the bottom of the last step. There was no rage in his voice, no malice in the smooth motion of his action. It was as if she should have expected this as a reaction.

“You tried to take my home from me, so I took yours from you.” He explained, the blood-orange blade of his lightsaber snapped to life with a cruel thrum. “Come little Echani, it’s time to taste true power.” He mocked.

Karys called upon the Dark Side, he was prepared to unleash its might at a moment’s notice. He took a traditional Djem So mid-guard stance just outside of the reach of her blades. The time for talk was over, Karys had come to break his rival.

Vengeance would be his.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Param Vour]

Karys’ words were met with more silence, the earth screaming doing nothing to her. The earth was already dead when he set it ablaze, now it was just ensuring that a small patch of land within a forest world wouldn’t have vegetation. Param’s golden eyes took in the scene of her broken and burnt garden. Embers still lived within the ash. She was still standing outside of the garden, what was left of the fence that had surrounded it lay just ahead of her, Karys on the other side as if it were a line to cross.

It was always the aggressors that seemed to wait for the first move. If Karys was hoping to have Param lash out with her blades, he would be sorely disappointed. The embers he stood amongst had heated the ground and the air above them. A quick flourish of her wrist, and calling the Force through her to the air above the pagoda, cooling it with cryokinesis.

It would be all that was needed for a spiral and rush of warm air rising to create a column around Karys and the burnt garden rushing upwards. Embers from the ground would be picked up, buffeting Karys and anything else within the fence. The size of the garden, and the amount of embers, would turn the inside of the spiral of air into an oven.

Her left hand was poised and ready to lash out with more Force if needed, or to grab the scabbard of her sword just inside the guard to defend herself with a blade. As a good measure, she took a couple of steps back while the ash and ember devil raged around the pagoda, feeling the heat coming off from it.

@Apollyon

 

[Gemini]

Gemini had been asleep within the Pagoda when he was awaken to the roaring of the flames, the intensive heat bringing forth sweat and the smoke filling his lungs having caused the moment to awaken him from his otherwise peaceful slumber. He only had one reaction to this brief moment of history. Make an exit. And the exit ended up being a large gapping hole where a wall had once been as he drove his form outside into the open air.

He coughed profusely, the remnant of the smoke pouring from his lungs in a mucous like fluid as he gagged and regurgitated both it and whatever meal he last ate upon the ground. Lifting his gaze upward, he surveyed the surrounding area through the Force even as his blind eyes burnt with smoke. This was where his gaze fell upon Karys and the strolling up Param.

"Stepbro?" He questioned as the realization of the moment fell upon his waking mind and the looming smoke bellowed from ruined Ash. He couldn't understand, couldn't comprehend. And as the moment settled, anger. "How could you Karys. We were like brothers!"

His anger nearly mimicked Param's own, albeit for different reasons. His life had been attempted upon, and there was no redemption possible in this moment or any going further. Deep within his mind, his echo for vengeance would call at his blackened heart. And there was but one payment in kind that would suffice: The man he cherished so dearly, the man he fought Gemini over at Umbara. Saddened, but vengeful, he knew the repercussions. Azar would be the price.... in due time.

Grabbing a blackened and scorched vibroblade that sat upon the soil from the Pagoda, he rose, dusting off himself as he stood. There would be a firefight.

Theme

​

 

[Karys]

Karys felt the release of power as Param waved her hand. Embers rose and began their swirling pattern around him. But without Param’s direct influence over them, all she had done was arm him. Karys released his own build up of the Dark Side.

The embers meant to swirl and cook him alive would be flung outward by the Force. The embers wouldn’t have the time to build the heat to cook Karys. The embers would be flung in all directions. Countless embers within his vicinity would be hurled at Param. The ashes and wind left behind were no hindrance as Karys marched through through them.

His hate roiled and built, ensuring his connection to the Dark Side only deepened. Karys kept his even pace, even as Param backed away from him. His guard raised and power building within the Force again. Karys’ eyes narrowed as he recognized Param for what she was, she was afraid, she was a coward.

@TheDudeMike @Mythos @Fine Dining Set

 

[Vossari Khaldun]

The Pagoda was not Param's sole place of power. No, an asset of true sentimentality lie elsewhere - the Garden Spot tea shop. Vossari had studied the shop while he trained there. He had worked in the tea shop itself, serving tea to the countless guests. He knew this place.

After Param left to her speeder, Vossari sprung into action. The two brothers were preparing to leave the shop - in fact, one had already made his way outside while the other searched desperately for the keys to lock the doors. Vossari had met them before, when he was employed at the shop. Did they know she was a Sith? Did they know that, solely by their employer's association, their lives were at risk? He strode in, clad in his environmental suit. His lightsaber clung to his waist.

A tilt of the hand tossed Bob back inside the shop, into a pile of boxes, while the Evan tasted the burning plasma of Vossari's lightsaber blade in his gut. Vossari squatted down, eyes burning beneath the faceless mask. A speaker hissed out his voice, now deeper and impenetrable, to the quaking civilian. "You can thank Param for this." He brought his saber down upon the other Devaronian.

While their bodies grew cold, Vossari's remained alight. Now, finally, he felt like a Sith. He turned on the sink - in fact, every sink in the building, while he shoved paper into the drains. Water began to overflow out of the pipes across the entire shop, threatening to drown all the merchandise.

He thought of Param as he scoured the shop for hidden stashes of spice. Whatever sentimentality existed between them crumbled beneath the force of ambition. Vossari would not be the weak, simpering creature that Param had shown herself to be. No, like his new champion, he too would be Sith.

He raised his hands at the water flowed - feeling the water in the way that only an aquatic force-user could. Pressure coiled up within the pipes in the walls, hissing, gathering, until Vossari spit his arms across. From out the walls, water erupted into the shop, as long, metallic pipes jutted into the air. Water flowed everywhere, now pooling above his suit's boots, as it mixed with the flowing Devaronian blood.

Before it got too wet, Vossari grabbed a sword from the wall. His sword. The last thing to do was to find that little fucking rat-droid, Vee.

@Apollyon @Mythos @TheDudeMike

 

[Param Vour]

Param shot her left hand forward, unleashing a push in the Force that would stop some embers in their tracks, but send others flying back into Karys. They were a minor annoyance, to be sure, but minor annoyances would always build up, especially when they seared and buffeted against his Ziosti pureblood skin. She could feel his every foot fall, not from his weight or size, but from her sense of terrakenesis. It was the echani in her that could read the intent behind them.

She drew her sword, holding it in front of her at hip level so that the tip pointed at Kary’s head. Her body was squared up to the pureblood. The Force coiled once against around her left arm. Her feet were shoulder width apart, left leg only slightly rearward of the right leg. Her left hand hovered over the scabbard at his left hip.

---

Vee had left even before Param had. The engines of Param’s ship were starting when his communicator beeped an alarm. There was massive pipe bursts in the tea shop. Vee had his orders from Param, and he would do them. It was clear this was for everything, and through out his extensive time with Param she had put him first.

The little red and silver BD-unit, already plugged into the ship’s controls lifted the ramp. The engines at full power, it piloted the ship out of the bay and into the atmosphere, joining with other light and medium freighters that were leaving. All the mercenaries and workers that knew what a column of smoke at the pagoda and a flooded tea shop meant were skipping out on Troiken. Vee was just one of many.

@Apollyon @Fine Dining Set

 

[Gemini]

As the anger, the dismay, at what Karys had done, flooded his mind and thoughts, Gemini gripped the blade tight and shifted into the stance Param had instructed him in. As fire and flame surrounded them, the trip stood equally apart, Karys more concerned with Param than he. But no. Karys had to acknowledge him. He had to see, and hear, Gemini after this. For Gemini had had it up to his neck with Karys' disrespect.

Reaching up, Gemini unclasped his arm and strutted out if as it fell upon the ground, and very soon, he stepped out his pants as the Darkside swirled around him in outright anger and rage. Blade upon his shoulder, his nude form would be the first to traverse the distance as he closed Karys' gap. With the sling of the blade, he would cross blades with the Pureblood as he set his sights upon vengeance. He would not be ignored.

"Why?" Gemini would demand, his voice guttural with rage and hatred. "Why did you destroy the Marcan. I was trying to get clean you selfish son of a [bleep]!"

Just the thought of the burnt Marcan would send Gemini reeling zealously. To be so selfish, so uncaring, after they bonded so well on Umbara. It was unforgiving. And Azar would know this pain inevitably. This time, Gemini would be the dominant. He didn't care how or when. Only that it would. Grasping the Force that flowed through him, Gemini call it to his form. Breaking the blade's crossing, whether parried or brute strength on either part, Gemini would fall into a squat in his turn and attempt to grapple at Karys.

 

[Vossari Khaldun]

Ransacking the tea shop led to an interesting discovery - batches and batches of spice-spiked tea. Now that was interesting. Maybe he could blow off this whole fight and get high? Let the oh-so-mighty champions just duke it out? Nah. He was here on a mission. Time to practice some discipline & followthrough! And now, with Bob and Evan dead and the room flooding, it would be a pretty shitty time to just get high.

He decided to download as much of the shipping manifests as he could from the computer before the power was inevitably flooded out by the rising tide. With the intel downloaded, Vossari, with a flick of his wrist, took a set of keys from the corpse of Evan to a speeder outside. They flicked open the door, sword and intel in hand, and hopped on the brothers' speeder craft.

They sped off in the direction of the Pagoda, as the flooded Garden Spot became a distant memory.

@Apollyon @Mythos @TheDudeMike

 

[Karys]

Karys’ waved his hands and sent the remaining embers harmlessly off course. Param’s refusal to actually fight was frustrating. Her apprentice however didn’t seem so hesitant. Karys heard him rushing inwards to close the gap and attack him. He glanced over his shoulder, why was he naked?

When Gemini moved to swing his blade, Karys would sidestep to the left, evading the blow. The sword would harmlessly slice through air. The Acolyte wouldn’t get the opportunity to speak. Instead, Karys’ focus narrowed in on Gemini’s dangly bits for a brief moment. Gemini would feel the vice grip of the Force clamp down on his berries and crush them.

Then utilizing some of Gemini’s forward momentum, he would toss the fool towards his Master through the power of the Force. Karys’ slow gait would pick up, his lightsaber dipping into a low guard as he closed the distance. He would slash upwards aiming to carve through Param’s groin to her midsection. Power would build in his off hand, manifesting into a hateful crackle of red lightning that arched between his fingers.

“You chose this buffoon over Vossari?” He asked incredulously as he closed the distance.

@TheDudeMike @Mythos @Fine Dining Set

 

[Karys]

Param brought her blade down to intercept Karys’ own. It was a masterful block that ensured his blade never marked her flesh. She was drawing out her other weapon when pandemonium was unleashed. The crackle of energy was released as a torrent of malice and hate from Karys’ hand.

The crimson Force Lightning poured from his hand, sizzling his own flesh which only served to fuel it further. Karys’ golden eyes grew wide with pain, hate, and rage. The red arcs of destruction made manifest tore into Param and caused her nerves to become alight with anguish and suffering.

This connection of raw destructive power arced between Karys’ hand and Param’s chest. It connected the pair of former friends for only a handful of seconds before there was a thunderous BOOM. Karys watched as Param was flung up, backwards, and away several dozen yards. Her body sailed through the air before it tumbled down and hit the paved duracrete that led up the hill. It bounced off it with a sickening crunch. Karys would watch as she rolled to the base of the hill he’d climbed so often to visit her.

Before Nar Shadda, he would have never dreamed of them coming to blows. He thought that maybe, just maybe there was an inroad back to the way things were before. But her challenge, her meddling in his relationship had killed any notion of that. Karys looked down at her broken body, he was unsure if she was dead or alive. He didn’t care either.

He glanced down at his hand that had summoned the Lightning, the skin had been seared away and flesh lay exposed. He knew it should be causing unimaginable suffering, but he felt nothing. Nothing but contempt for his rival and the rush of true power.

This is what it meant to be Sith.

@Fine Dining Set @Mythos

 

[Vossari Khaldun]

The scent of burning flesh tinged in the ash-coated wind as Vossari arrived to the scene. The crumpled bodies of two Sith lay there. One, his former master. The other, a pasty ginger who was but-ass naked for no discernible reason. Standing tall, proud, powerful was the champion Karys - looking like a fighter just victorious in the ring. Vossari had not chosen his Sith teacher, but he was, apparently, on the right side of history in this conflict.

Victory here tasted bitter, like the poisoned earth beneath them. Vossari had not fought, not felt the rush of victory himself. He had not been able to confront the apprentice Gemini himself, nor his former teacher. But still, in his way, he had struck a permanent blow. Vossari offered the back seat of his speeder, for the two of them to speed to Karys's vessel. Be rid of this planet.

Now, only one question remained.

"Karys, why the fuck is that ginger naked?"

 

[Karys]

Karys hardly had time to truly reflect on his victory when his apprentice pulled up in a speeder bike. Karys pulled the folds of his sleeve over the burnt wreckage of his hand. The silken robes even brushing the exposed flesh and sinew cause Karys to almost flinch in agony.

But his mask of ice held.

Karys’ corrupted golden eyes peered around at the destruction he’d caused one last time. A faint smile touched his lips, all had gone according to plan. He would then stride to the swoop and take a seat behind his Apprentice.

“He doesn’t matter Vossari.” He replied. “Neither of them do.”

Karys would be silent for the ride to his ship. His entire being was focused on embracing the pain in his hand and using it to restore his strength. Vossari had served him well today, he’d warned not only a place at his side but knowledge as well. So, Karys would need every ounce of power he could muster for this lesson.

“Apprentice, go inside and get out of that environmental suit. Shower, change into something comfortable, and meet me in the living room.” Karys instructed as he got off of the speeder bike. “You performed admirably today and so now your true training can begin.”

@Fine Dining Set @Mythos
/endthread