Uskil Arx 43 ABY
The swamps of Uskil. Again. The marshy ground was hardly a fit for her stilleto heels, but a minor inconvenince at best. Her mask filtered out the murky smell of the swamplands while her suit protected her skin from the oppressive humidity.
She had come to hunt a bounty. The extra credits would help with her latest research project, which involved following up on a disk she had recovered and not reported from her last mission. Could that have been why she was now to be joined on this mission by the Exarch himself?
Why did she always have to work with a Tyris every time she came to this place? Rumor had it Wyndell was busy on Ol'val as the new Blindman. Zig was never very good at secrets, but she would have found out one way or another as she still had a vendor or two she checked in on at the shadowport. So that left her with the boring brother, but one she respected all the same.
Aphotis stood just outside her parked TIE/SB, Sickle I, she did not see Marick’s ship anywhere. As her visor un-tinted, she did notice a lean, hooded Hapan step out from the shadows of the twisted trees and approach her.
“What, did you walk here?”
Marick met Aphotis’ gaze with an almost bored expression as he tapped a button somewhere under his cloak, and the feint outline of the Encanis II shimmered against the tree-line.
“Fascinating,” the Witch replied, tail flicking as she folded her arms across her chest, latex symbiote creaking with the motion. “So you’re not here as Exarch.”
Marick nodded slightly, his eyes and attention already moved on to study the details of the terrain and their surroundings, the Sith’s sculpted, impressive figure a second thought after he’d assessed and filed away her armaments and their respective placements. If she had not known the man better, she might have been offended.
“No. Just wanted to see you in action myself. Reports can be less inclusive.”
.
“Intriguing, both of us know that trust means everything and yet you can not even count on reports. So while Uskil edges these lizards with their hoard, we are here to provide full Scorekeeper denial. I am personally hoping to be inspired by their creativity in traps and trials.” Despite the Sith’s words, there was little enthusiasm in her voice.
A triangular-winged probe droid appeared as Aphotis made a clicking sound with her tongue. Eye-ronic’s big lense saccaded toward the Wolf and back to the Witch several times, before it relaxed its repulsors. Its many smaller remote-droids had been collecting images from around the swamp. Some of its children had not made it back, having been shot down by various sniper fire. A claw on its metal cranium soothed the sad beeps in an attempt to pay respects.
“Quite a number of Trandoshans, indeed. Let me prepare something for this,” her voice seemed darker and lower in pitch.
That same claw slid off Eye-ronic’s head and reached for the crimson vergence amulet on her chest. Doors in her spiritual domain opened up as her consciousness sank deep into something murkier than the swamp they were in. The Garden of Trepidations, a place of tar and sculptures and pure despair. The Sith’s spiritual form hovered from bookcase to bookcase, from urn to urn and finally halted at a shapeless ghost that shifted in size constantly. Thick liquid bubbles frothed underneath it. .
Electric-blue globes flickered as she pulled out a skeletal arm, one tinged with failure, decorated with decaying scales.
‘Never rest, Skishk Urre, you were the most pathetic Trandoshan I have ever met, may your frights empower me, and your name never be forgotten. The Scorekeeper could not be more disappointed. Do you feel her judgement, Skishk? Yes, you, do.’
Hiss
The Sith came up from her nightmarish depths, breathing heavily—an aura of displeasure surrounding her shimmering second skin. Splashes of ink depicted the trauma a Trandoshan goes through when faced with the wrath of the Scorekeeper. Hundreds of Jagganath points wiped away from holo-boards and reset to zero, replayed over and over again.
Marick had been watching the woman scrupulously, leaving a bitter taste on his mouth, even if the dread he sensed from her was tailored for another species.
“Shall we?” Aphotis answered the Wolf’s gaze.
Marick blinked. Everything he felt and sensed, the pure menae of Aphotis’ aura, was wrong. The Arcanist had studied the Force and its spiritual connections on a deeper level than most after leaving the path of the Assassin behind. But even in his awakening, his elevation to being a Lord of the Force, this was different. This was twisted, and dark without any room for a non-binary conclusion.
This was darkness.
Fortunately, beyond the curdling in his stomach, his outward demeanor remained calm and stoic as an old cliffside watchtower weathering the sea at storm. He had survived the ire of Grand Masters, defied Mortis and brought back his wife from the hands of death, created new life in spite of their wishes, and navigated loss and greif and pain better than most.
“Lets,” he replied casually.
His floating polyhedric Envoy droid, Blinx, warbled in binary: I like her. According to my calculations, your survival rate with her joining you is sixty-eight point seven-seven-four-three percent…“
The two waded through the jungle, following Aphotis’ guidance as the towering Sith took point. The only sound was the creaking of her latex suite, her heels tearing through the soft ground before they ended up on a rocky outcropping that overlooked a swamp. Clink clank the stiletto heels came to a stop, in contrast to the Hapan’s silent steps.
The light was fading, which meant his vision was going to be limited. While he had a feeling Aphotis could see perfectly fine, he was not without his own tricks. Focusing his will, his eyes began to glow with a faint white-outline as he augmented his vision through the Force.
Pale green and gray smoke wound its way across the swamp, shrouding tents and makeshift armories and cargo storage that the Transohan’s had used for setting up their encampment. Torches had been lit, to help, as the technology-powered bulbs seemed to do nothing against the smog of the swamp. Sentries were posted at different positions and took turns on watch. These were professionals, not amateurs.
But they were no longer the Hunters.
“Cozy in a way, there is something about fire that is mesmerizing.” The modulated voice was quiet enough to seep in with the song of the avians around the duo.
Eye-ronic had followed them at a much slower pace, its repulsers tired from the scouting that went on before this.
The Hapan did his best to ignore the disregard for subtlety, his eyes darting down, looking for springwires or makeshift lids that could hide explosives.
“Could you play around with one of those torches? See if it lures a lizard out into the open?” Aphotis prodded Marick’s patience once again with her mischievous voice. Her tail flicked around playfully.
Marick blinked once, then glanced into Aphotis’ eyes through her visor, which she had made translucent enough for him to see through. Then, his own glacial gaze shifted towards the encampment as his focus narrowed and a ripple through the Force expanded from where the Hapan was crouched.
He did not lift a hand or gesture. He simply looked at a torch towards the far end, his brow furrowed ever so slightly, and the flame of the torch winked out.
“What wasss that,” one of the perimeter guards hissed, as the illuminated area of the encampent went dark in the smokey fog.
Marick’s attention flitted to the opposite side of the encampment, where another flame was smothered by an unseen Force as matter was bent to the Force Lord’s will.
Then he did raise a single finger. In response, one of the still-lit torches lifted up slowly, as if carried by a specter. More shouts of panic came from the Trandoshan hunters as the torch walked off on its own into the edges of the swamp before disappearing. Patrols broke off as they grabbed weapons but were unsure what was happening.
“Showing off for me? I’m flattered,” Aphotis teased, tail flicking in amusement.
They were alone. No cameras, save for the droids, who both knew better. There was no stage of expectation. Just a pairing with one of the most dangerous members of the Brotherhood, beautiful as she was deadly, testing the permitters of her permission and supervision.
He rolled his eyes, and was pleased to see how the blunt act of emoting or showing his feelings affected the Witch.
“They seem to be cursing the ‘devils’ of the swamp,” Blinx translated from his floating sentry over Marick’s shoulder.
.
Rather than being suspicious of why there would be ‘devils’ the Trandoshans began to argue between each other about curses and their Scorekeeper. Even from far away the dark aura radiating from Tir’eivra seeped through the swamp, affecting their judgement, teasing their hearts. Disappointment from their Goddess, the worst kind, they began to imagine their scores ebbing away.
A red exclamation mark blinked in Aphotis’s visor. It seemed like she had left something unread all this time and it didn’t pop back up on her HUD until Eye-ronic caught up on its Mistress.
The droid began to stream images of the victims of these scaly brutes. Between roots and vegetation, there were corpses of some type of canines. The Witch knew them, their strong bone-structure and massive bodies being quite recognisable. They were also associated with her colleague.
She scraped her throat, with a hiss following from her mask.
“This may be of specific interest to you, Tyris. My droid had picked up a few hints on what I can only assume are Arx Wolves. Quite a number of them, clearly felled by these lizard brains.”
The Sith pivoted her head and her tail flicked with morbid curiosity.
Marick’s eyes met Aphotis’. She was simply reporting the facts, but the Witch knew Marick better than he’d likely have wanted to admit. Through the Force and even through observation, she could see the shift, the subtle change to his eyes. There was nothing obvious or melodramatic. There was no facial tick or tell. But there was something…delicious, in the tug through the Force as something, some kind of balance, was shifted. There was no anger, or rage, but something had changed.
She had no need for balance, but respected those that tried to tow the line. But everyone had their line.
“Leave at least one alive,” was all he said, before he turned from the Sith and…dissapeared from view.
The Force Lord had pivoted, and now dedicated his life to studying the more arcane and spiritual elements of the Force. By whatever power, perhaps left over from the Ethereal Realm, perhaps from the ritual that had once nearly consumed Arx in the “last” battle against the Collective, Magik had become more prominent. While many might have been skeptical, and some, like Aphotis, had taken to it instantly, Marick Tyris had been ready to accept and incorporate these new findings into his studies.
One moment he was next to Aphotis on the rocky outcropping, and the next, he was on the swampy ground of the Trandoshan camp. Shadows wrapped around him from the lack of torchlight as an ebony dagger flashed and a spray of green blood splattered the pale gray rocks dotting the mossy, murky terrain.
A hunter closeby used the dying sound of his comrade to locate the Hapan, and raised a blaster rifle to fire off a salvo. The bullets pierced the darkness, illuminating…nothing where the target had once stood.
Marick blinked into the space right next to the marksman, and placed a flat hand on its chest. At point blank range the bolt of telekenetic energy speared into the Trandoshan, fracturing his ribs and sending him hurling with a gurgling scream into another hunter. Both went down in a messy tumble of limbs.
Three more closed in on his location. He had to trust that Aphotis would handle her end. He knew she could, and honestly, while he had come to see if she could still be trusted as an asset to the Envoy Corps, he did not have the focus for that right now. He had to focus and make sure that a message was sent to any who thought to harass the Brotherhood on its own turf.
The Exarch sheathed his dagger and tossed out a pair of small, cylindrical hilts. The lightdaggers hissed to life, slender blue streaks of plasma illuminating the area as they floated protectively in the air. He did not need his eyes for this, so even with the strain of his nightblindness, he was able to hear and place the position of his attackers.
He palmed his Radiant saber hilt, the wrap molding into his palm as the white-cored black blade snapped to life. The crystal inside of it, the new one he had imbued, seemed to pulse and radiate through the Force. Marick could feel his power climb, just as the two lightdaggers he had cast out floated protectively in circles around him, forcing the Transoshan mob that attempted to surround him back.
He submersed himself in the Force and once again winked out of view before appearing behind a pair of Transohsan’s who startled and tried to spin around with their hunting spears. Marick’s lightsaber cut through the shaft of both. A blur of black and white light and each Trandoshan fell to the floor with blood spewing from their now stumps-for-arms.
Marick pushed with the Force and sent the two hurtling into the others. His telekentic lightdaggers switched from defensive to agressive, and darted through the air to harass and stab into the remaining hunters.
The Force Lord never stopped, never stood still for more than a moment. One moment he was here, the next he was there. And all around him, the moans of pain and the cries of death joined the rising body count left in his wake.
There was no anger. There was no hate. There was only Marick.
With the Old Wolf keeping them busy, Aphotis stepped into emerald smoke, only to emerge in sizzling green at the entrance of the first hut.
Her tall bladed heels were soundless as the floated above the wooden deck. The humming of the repulsor belt drowned away by the gargling sounds of desperate murder lizards.
Electric-blue peered inside. No one.
Fire crackled as another portal opened, burning her second skin as she stepped through. The Sith arrived at the back of the second cabin.
The sound of fighting dimmed at this distance, about a hundred meters away. A piece of metal stuck out from the window. A barrel. The Witch kept her back to the wall, holding her breath as she approached with caution.
A claw snatched the durasteel and yanked at it with the strength of an adult Wookiee. A rifle appeared with a body attached to it.
“There you are!” Aphotis sneered. .
The Trandoshan pried himself off of his sniper rifle and turned to feel the sting of fibronails piercing his scales. The slit pupils of his yellow eyes widened as his life-force ebbed away. The black-clad woman could feel his body stiffen as the taste of his fear dissipating.
“The Scorekeeper will no doubt judge you in the afterlife. Enjoy the Garden.”
Another lizard-head popped out from the panel, this one reeking of salty trepidation. The Trandoshan witnessed his comrade’s demise and tried to retreat as fast as he could. Except, he felt something slippery slither around his neck. His hands grabbed onto Aphotis’s tail, but before his nails could rake into it and pull it away, he was lifted from his feet and slammed against the floor next to his dead buddy.
“Pathetic.”
A heeled boot landed on his chest, the bladed heel burying into his unarmored belly.
“Merccccy! I give up! It'ssss me you wantssss! I, am Rissokt” The Trandoshan gargled and pleaded.
The surprise on the reptile’s face and the pain on his abdomen made his eyes bulge. A shadow was cast over him as he clamped onto the Witch’s heeled boot.
Marick was finished with his skirmish, the mob was no more.
“Is this the one?” The Force Lord inquired, his voice and face lacking any emotion.
“He claims he is and it is the only reason he is still breathing,” Aphotis’s domed visor snapped towards Tyris and then back towards the supposed Rissokt, “get your filthy hands off my boot!” She twisted and pressed down the heel further until he let go.
Marick did not so much as blink at the state of the room prior to his entry. He regarded the Witch calmly, knelt down in front of the Trandoshan and locked eyes with him.
There was no mind games, or manipulation. Just an unwavering aura of indifference. To the Exarch, Rissokt was not worthy of his empathy.
“Your pack has been eliminated by the true apex predators. Your life was not part of the mission, but I will make an exception here. You will walk free, but not out of mercy. You will send the message to all of your kind,” the words did not apply to Trandoshan’s. It applied to any “hunters” that might think to come to Arx.
He rose, ignoring the pleading from the “hunter”. He turned to Aphotis.
“Do as you wish with him. Leave him without enough to get on a shuttle out of the system we’ll arrange for him to be on. I’ll begin the paperwork showing that he was eliminated.”
He did not wait for Aphotis’ response. He turned, cloak trailing behind him, and then blinked out of sight, leaving only the cool air and the hissing of Alaisy’s mask-tank as a dark aura consumed the hut and a Transohan’s screams became slient.