A massive cataclysm has struck the universe, and destroyed most everything in its wake. The survivors are now trying to pick up the pieces, and figure out exactly what has befallen them. Gather together, lightsiders!! The darkness has shattered the peace and calm of the galaxy...and they will do anything to stop anyone from finding out exactly what has been done! This is our first sitewide RP plotline. Lightsiders, you are looking for the source of this massive event. Clues must be found, lackeys tracked down, and bits of memory discovered. Darksiders, you guys don't want that to happen....because of the one behind the whole thing is furthering his ultimate goal. Mandalorians, and non-force users, you guys can decide where you stand on this line....do you side with the Jedi, and try to discover the reasons behind the ruined universe, or will you side with the darkness, and protect those secrets. Will the secret of the cataclysmic reaping be kept under wraps? Or will the Jedi and their allies find out the truth? Your RP and writing will decide the outcome!
BATTLE ARENA
Welcome to The Saga Continues. We have a section called the Battle Arena. Here you can use your characters to fight other characters. Hone your skills and see what you are made of. Don't worry, anything that happens here, does not effect your characters in posts, so if your character dies, you can still use them over and over. Have fun and check it out!
The Saga Continues is the product of the mind of ADMIN ADI; all contents are copyright their original owners. All characters belong to their original creators, and may not be used or replicated without permission. All images are copyright their original owners. This skin Operation Mindcrime was made by pharaoh leap of Pixel Perfect and put together by ADMIN KRYSTAL
"What do I want from you? I beg your pardon but I saved your life!" Andor responded, taking up the posture and facial expressions of someone who was genuinely offended. "Had I not brought you here, you would have been left laying on the ground in that hospital when it self destructed. The Grandmaster, the Zabrak, he left you for dead." For once in his life, Andor was actually telling the truth. There was no need to spin some deceptive web around this one... No, he'd been abandoned by the Jedi, and he would soon realize it. "If you require proof, which I would totally understand, I assure you, I'm sure I can scrounge up some holo footage from one of my troops body cams."
Kirwin's weapons slowly moved through the air, back towards him as Andor offered them back. "Fine weapons. Here, take them. Consider it a gesture of goodwill that I meant no harm, but only to save your life."
Now Andor had Kirwin right where he wanted him. If Kirwin took the weapons back and did not attack, he'd have immediately accepted a position subservient to the Dark Lord that sat before him... And if he decided to attack instead, he'd be giving in to the Dark side and abandoning the values of the Jedi. Either way, for the Lord of Ruin, it was a win-win situation.
“I. He. They, wouldn’t leave me.” Stated Kirwin, less confidently than he wanted too sound. The thought of being abandoned by the Order again struck him in the gut, hard. “You’re. You’re lying. Sith always lie to get their way.” The disbelief and anger rising in the man was excruciating. He had tried so hard to get back to the Order after being exiled from it.
Geir had told him he would help train him to be a better Jedi. But Geir was dead now, and the Jedi left him to die. Did the Grand-master know who he was the entire time? That he had once fallen to the Dark Side and that he was a danger to keep around? Was that Geir’s plan the whole time? Find a way to get rid of him? The irrational questions spun through Kirwin’s head like a cyclone as his weapons floated in front of him.
If he could defeat the Sith from the battle and this Sith, maybe the Order would see that Kirwin was true to the Jedi Order. All he had to do was take his blaster and saber and defeat his opponent sitting in front of him. It didn’t matter if the Sith had weapons or not, they were all too dangerous to be kept alive. Goodwill or not, he needed to die.
Kirwin glanced at the Sith before looking at his weapons. Sweat beaded on his brow, it wasn’t even that hot in the room. But the Jedi had worked himself up again. He lashed out with both hands, left to his blaster and right grabbing the hilt of his lightsaber. Hoping to finish the fight quickly he fired two rounds in quick succession before he attempted to ignite his golden blade.
"As I said, there is footage to prove it." Andor interjected smugly before Kirwin lashed out in grief. The Dark Lord had sensed the inner turmoil, bubbling beneath the surface like a witch's cauldron. But Andor had to admit, it had been easier to fuel it than he had anticipated. As Kirwin spoke of Sith always lying, Andor stayed silent, focusing on Kirwin's emotions and thoughts: thoughts that betrayed him.
"They abandoned you once before, and I assure you, this was no different. The Jedi only care about sharing their knowledge and power with those that fit their perfect mold. A mold that neither you nor me fit." Andor shrugged, "We are both outsiders, forced to find our own meaning in this universe."
Then Kirwin reached for his weapons, his anger besting him. And so, he fell deeper into the darkside, blinded by his hate for the Sith and his longing to be one of the Jedi Order. Andor let him. Kirwin, having just been wrenched from unconsciousness, was slow. His attack was bold, but foolish. Even as Kirwin's hand gripped his pistol, Andor had anticipated his move, the same move in which he had dispatched Abaddon. But it wouldn't work this time. Andor's right hand rose, palm extended towards the barrel of the blaster. Then, there were two flashes of red light, searing across the small space between them in the span of a millisecond, before disappearing into the Sith's hand. "Too slow." The energy in which Andor had just absorbed, flowed relentlessly through his body: and boy did it burn. The pain from taking in a sudden amount of heat energy fueled the Sith's power and immediately, he released it back at Kirwin before his blade had ignited. His hand had leveled out so that his finger tips were pointed at Kirwin, and now there was a blinding arc of purple lightning sizzling directly for his chest. The light flashed across his pale skin, illuminating his crimson eyes and his bleached, razor sharp teeth.
He didn’t see it coming. The Sith reacted quicker than Kirwin had anticipated in his weakened state. Before he could ignite and move his lightsaber into position, purple flashed in his vision, his hands seized around his weapons as he fell to his knees. The pain was excruciating, but he refused to give the Sith the pleasure of hearing his screams of pain.
“You won’t win. You are destined to lose. You always have been.” Said a voice in Kirwin’s head. Not the icy voice of the Sith in front of him, but the angry voice that has plagued his mind since he was exiled. “The power of the Dark Side is stronger than you.”
“I will kill you!” Kirwin screamed through clenched teeth. His good eye which had been clenched shut through the pain flew open to glare at the Sith. An :ERROR!: sign flashed across his vision as the electricity overloaded his cybernetic's circuits, and the violet HUD it displayed went fuzzy before going black. Kirwin finally fell to the floor writhing in pain, but refusing to scream or make any other noise. He would suffer in silence to keep from giving what he thought the Sith wanted: to hear his pain and suffering.
Andor chuckled lightly as Kirwin fell writhing to the ground, yelling and cursing him; screaming hate in four words. Andor could feel Kirwin's inner turmoil, his inner rage as he screamed his vow to kill Andor. And that there, had sealed Kirwin's fate to the Darkness. Andor released his lightning, the purple flashing light immediately disappearing and leaving the duo only visible by the light from the four lit lamps in the room, one in each corner. "You have strong, Kirwin." Andor had waited to drop the man's name. Although they were strangers, during the transit from surface to space, Andor had mediated and focused on the events that had just transpired. And he was gifted by the Force with a single word. Kirwin. Bogan wanted Kirwin, and it was up to the Lord of Ruin to appease the Darkside's hunger. "But only through me can you obtain a power great enough to protect the ones that you care about." Andor's eyes narrowed and he leaned forward towards Kirwin, suddenly taking up a seriousness that he had not held before. His jaw was taught, his right hand clenched tightly into a fist. He stared Kirwin down, "Through me, you will obtain power that could have saved Geir."
“-could have saved Geir.” The words echoed in his head as Kirwin laid on the floor. The pain had stopped, but his body was filled with a dull throbbing from head to toe. This Sith was offering the power to have saved Geir, almost as if he had forgotten already that the Exile had just tried to fill him with blaster holes. Kirwin coughed from his curled position and replied, "You killed Geir, and now you want to give me the power to defeat you. You Sith are dumber than I thought" Kirwin pushed himself back up into a sitting-kneeling position where he released his grip on his blaster and lightsaber. This Sith was powerful, but he didn’t want to kill the Jedi for some reason, even after his attack and threat.
“You are beaten. Give into the Dark Side. It is your destiny. The Dark Side will make you more powerful than you could ever imagine. Give into your hate.” Said the voice in his head again, louder than ever. Almost as if the owner was sitting next to him whispering it into his ear.
Kirwin didn’t have the strength nor will anymore to fight. His anger was slowly collapsing into dismay as he looked at his weapons in front of him. That was when he realized his cybernetic eye wasn’t working. He reached up and dug it out of its home and tossed it away, “That can’t help me anymore.” He thought. Kirwin then dangled his arms to his side as he looked up at the Sith, sitting smugly on his little throne and a thought sprung into his head on how to win this fight.
The motion was very slow and barely noticeable, but Kirwin began began closing his right hand into a fist, summoning the Force around the Sith’s throat. To a Jedi, it was a horrible thing to do. But Kirwin was not fully a Jedi again, yet and he was a wolf that had been cornered. He was willing to do anything he had to, to try to win this fight against a superior opponent. As Kirwin stared at the Sith with his gaping eye socket he attempted to constrict the Sith’s windpipe using Force Choke, “I. Will. Kill. You."
He watched with a hidden fascination as Kirwin reached up and ripped the cybernetic eye from its socket before tossing it away. No hesitation, no difference. It was grotesque. It was primal. A shiver shot down Andor's spine before Kirwin let his arms dangle at his side. For a moment, they gazed at each other in silence. Andor's body wants to quiver, a primal arousal of his own growing deep in his gut. Not arousal in a sexual sense, but an excitement that the Alpha feels knowing that a lesser member of the tribe is about to extended a challenge.
Any second now....
The Force was present around Kirwin, diminished in his weakened state. But even now, powered by Kirwin's boiling emotions, Andor could feel it beginning to swirl faster and faster around the man. "Yes." He thought, "Give in to your anger. Only then will you have the power to kill me." Andor was ready, his body tense, his mind alert, waiting for the Beta to jump into the ring.
And he did.
Kirwin thought he was being sneaky, hoping his slow movements would be enough to bypass Andor's attention. But he was wrong. It was nearly impossible to deceive the Lord of Deception. In fact, this exact tactic was one that Andor had tried himself nearly a half a century ago. In his youthful naivety, he had sought to deceptively strangle his master after a practice session. And it had been a mistake worth a heavy price: his arm to be exact. Now, Kirwin would pay the same price.
Pressure began to sink into Andor's neck, a fast, strong squeeze, its purpose quite evident. Then, Kirwin reaffirmed his vow to kill Andor. This time, the statement was harsher, resentful, burning with hate. Andor shook his head, the rest of his body still as stone "In time." Then, with the speed of a snake striking at it's prey, Kirwin's lightsaber ignited on it's own and with the Force, the extending blade was flicked upward, its burning blade screaming to sever Kirwin's choking arm from the shoulder, coming up under the armpit. "But first, I will teach you how."
His concentration was broken the instant he heard the *snap-hiss* of his lightsaber. Without thinking Kirwin dropped his left shoulder, rotating to miss the golden blade. But his lightsaber was way to close and moving way to fast to safely maneuver away from it. Kirwin’s left shoulder hit the floor at the same time as his right arm, severed midway up the upper arm. The pain hadn’t hit him quite yet as he looked at his right arm with his only eye.
Suddenly his arm erupted into a fiery pain then a couple seconds later burned down to a painful throbbing. Once his mind realized what had happened, he involuntarily let out a pain filled howl that quickly died away. Kirwin rolled onto his back, groaning, eye shut in grimaced pain. He had nothing left, he was finally beaten. He didn’t want to fight anymore, he had already lost everything and now he was even losing parts of himself. All he wanted was the sweet, silent embrace of oblivion.
“Stop toying with me, and just kill me already. I cannot beat you.” He hated the words as they left his throat. Admitting defeat was something he had never done before, and he hated it. But with all his adrenaline, all his hate for the character in front of him, all the skills he had learned as a Jedi Knight, and his time as a bounty hunter he couldn’t win. “I, I concede, to your power.”
The room filled with screams, high and harsh, as the sizzling of burnt flesh was drowned underneath. Andor remained stoic as he watched Kirwin's arm leave his body and thump to the ground. He watched as Kirwin rolled on the ground, his screams dying away, replaced by groans of the defeated: groans of the submissive. He could feel the man, in pain, in despair, broken. Then, he conceded, finally breaking to the might of Andor's power.
At first, Andor didn't respond. He stood up, stretching to his full height. He stepped towards Kirwin, his black cloak lazily brushing the floor behind him, the heels of his boots gently clacking against the floor. Kirwin's ignited lightsaber levitated into the Lord of Ruin's open right hand, and his skeletal fingers gripped around it tightly. He hefted the blade, swinging it deftly around, analyzing its balance and the construction of the hilt. Kirwin could do better.... the blade deactivated, and the hilt was placed on Andor's hilt. Only then, did his attention fall back to the wounded man laying on the ground.
"The man you once knew as Kirwin is dead. From those ashes, a stronger, more powerful man will rise to take his place. You are chained to me, and through me, you will learn to break those chains. Only through victory will your chains be broken." Andor's right hand arched, his fingers spread wide, and another round of purple lightning shot forward at Kirwin. "Your pain, your hate, your anger are your allies now. They are the foundation in which you draw your power." The lightning abruptly stopped. Just as Andor had learned pain from his Master, Kirwin would learn it from him. It was the way of the Sith. "I am your master, and you are my apprentice."
Andor's extended hand clenched into a fist, the Force squeezing around Kirwin's neck in a choke. Then, Andor hoisted his hand upwards, yanking his apprentice roughly to his feet. "You have risen, Darth Bellum."
Another bout of electricity brought Kirwin to screams again, until his throat was clamped shut and he was yanked into the air. He pulled at the collar of the breastplate with his left hand to try to clear the area around his neck. But no matter what he did, his windpipe remained constricted. “The power. I need that power.” Kirwin thought as he stood there held in place by his new master.
“Yes. My. Master.” He forced out, spending precious air from his lungs. The blue in his eye melted away one last time and burned a hot ember red as he allowed his hate for the man in front of him start to consume him. The pain from the electricity started to die away as his mind was slowly filled with a storm. He would learn this power to control others and use it to kill his master.
His new name rolled around and burned his mind, Darth Bellum. He was no longer the weakling who failed to kill an unarmed Sith, now he was on the path to true power. Bellum stopped his struggling, if he was going to pass out, he wasn’t going to do it flailing like a hooked fish. He lowered his arm to his side and glared at his master. Bellum waited for his master to release his grip, and command him.
He released his hold on his apprentice and watched as the Darkside embodied Darth Bellum, his eyes turning to the iridescent and recognizable color of ember. "The Jedi will soon recover from our attack and they will quickly leave Honoghr in search of a new place to call home." He had foreseen this and now, it was all part of the plan. "This gives us a little bit of time to recover ourselves. Find your way to the med-bay and get patched up. Use your feelings and they will show you the path. Come find me when you're done." Andor waved his hand dismissively, "No anesthesia."
Then, he turned his back on his apprentice and moved into his own quarters, letting the doors close behind him. He sat on the foot of his bed and pulled out his comlink. Sending a typed message to the other acolytes he had met on Coruscant, he summoned them to his chambers. Once Bellum was ready to go, he would have everything he needed to begin preparations for the ritual. Soon, the Jedi would be lost forever, and an old ally standing in their stead.
"Mortale," The Lord of Ruin thought, infusing his mental words with the Force. "It won't be long now."
Bellum sneered at the back of his master, he may be his teacher but he didn’t have to like him. “As you command, my Master.” He responded before turning and walking out of the room, he left his blaster on the floor where it laid, he didn’t want it anymore. Bellum was sure his master would give him his lightsaber back in due time, so he didn’t worry about that. As he walked down the corridor toward the med bay, he was accosted by a Cathar soldier. The soldier smiled smugly as him, “Look who it is. The boy who tried to sway us from our master. By your looks I would say you were on the losing side all along."
“Move.” Bellum commanded blandly, he was tired, in pain, and pissed off. He didn’t want to deal with anyone right now.
“You think you can tell me-”
“I said MOVE.” Bellum’s left hand rose up in a clenched fist as he used the force to collapse the throat of the soldier in front of him. The Cathar crumpled to the floor and Bellum continued to the med bay.
Once there he told the medical staff what he required and laid down on the operating table. Not only did they not use anesthetics but they were not gentle about the operation either. As the pain of his arm flared to new heights of fire Bellum wondered, in agony, if the staff were under-trained and the droids had outdated programming. But of course the pain was simply due to the restrictions of medications.
Hours had passed before his new arm was completely installed. Bellum ran through the series of tests required to ensure his new prosthetic worked correctly. After completing the simple movement tests, Bellum inquired about cybernetic eyes, to which he was told there were none currently available on board. He angrily turned and left the cybernetic section of the med bay. Bellum grabbed a dark cloth strip on his way out and covered the empty eye socket with it.
As he grew closer to the quarters of his master, Bellum started to feel a little fearful. He couldn’t quite pinpoint why, maybe the events that had happened to him earlier. He stood outside the door for almost ten minutes before pressing the control panel, opening the door, and walked into the dark room.
The XS Light Freighter, the Wayward Son, drifted warily along its trajectory away from the planet, Fritz had cut the engines and main, nonessential systems moments after Dogma left the cockpit. He was ready to reboot everything at a moments notice if there was any indication that they had been spotted. "And to think we were scott free once we left the planet." He said to himself,
Trying to keep the ship out of range would be difficult with a Bulwark-class and an Imperious-class practically stairing right at them. All Fritz could hope for was that they hadn't been picked up on the sensors yet, and the enemy was preparing to leave due to having nobody else to attack. This escape had turned into a stare down as he hovered his hand just above the engine switch, sweat beaded on his brow as he waited for the perverbial blaster draw.
The sound of an angry female's voice came from behind Fritz in the doorway of the cockpit, "What do you think you are doing in my chair?!"
These were the words that rung through the pain-addled brain of Adieumus Matango. He was beginning to come out of his unconsciousness, his mind coming to grips with the fact that some time had passed since the fight in the hangar with the unknown darksider...and the subsequent hangar collapse. He most certainly wasn't in the RDMC anymore, nor was he dead, as he thought he should have been. There was no way he should be here right now, but the pain from his shattered body told him that yes...he was most certainly in the land of the living. Somehow, some way, he had yet again cheated the reaper. He recognized the med bay of the Wayward Son, and could feel others around him in other places in the ship that he recognized. Still, he kind of ignored them...his head was too fuzzy to deal with talking to anyone at the moment.
Very slowly, Adieumus sat up, and groaned. Even with the pain medication, the ribs and clavicle that were broken ground together. It felt like someone had done some work to get them set, and they were tightly bandaged to prevent movement, but they still moved some. Each breath Matango took was labored, and slow. Why did he always have to play the big damn hero?? All it ever did was get him hurt. One of these days, this jumping in front of danger crap would be the death of him.
Not seeing anyone around him, as they were in other parts of the med bay at the moment, Adi kicked his legs over the side of the bed, and tested to see if they still worked. Gingerly, he put weight on each of them before deciding that neither had suffered anything too traumatic. Ever so gently, he stood, but immediately had to sit back down. Yep...definitely a concussion to some degree. Again, he tried to bring himself to his feet, this time succeeding, albeit a bit shakily. He made his way to the seat by the viewport, and what his eyes fell upon as the city of Nystao came into distant view broke his heart. Where a once proud city had stood, even through the ravages of this plague that they had been working so hard to cure, was a raging inferno. Craters filled the landscape where once stood the defiant people rebuilding their lives. The RDMC was, quite literally, burning to the ground. Where once a beacon of hope, learning, and healing stood....now, it was an altar to the resolve of the darkness to destroy all it touched.
At least Raven had left before all of this madness had started. As far as Adieumus knew, she was safe on Felucia. There had been a bit of a falling out, just a few days before the plague had become widespread news, and she had left for home. Right now, he was kinda glad that she was...at least most of the life on Felucia was immune to the plague. Even still, he felt a bit selfish when he felt himself wishing she was there. They had grown closer since Etti IV, and subsequently Naboo, and she was one of the few people who would be able to understand. He was looking at his entire world in flames....destroyed because someone didn't think it was a good idea that there was an antivirus
And in that, truly, his failure was complete. He wasn't even sure that they were able to use the information that Rai had brought, or retrieve the rest of the data from the RDMC labs. And here he was, broken, beaten, and pretty much shattered. The shadows were longer than in any other time of his life. He had to turn away as the tears began to flow. He realized how completely he had failed the ones he had sworn to protect...the people of Nystao, and Honoghr. Who knew how the Noghri would now suffer? The handful that might have made it through the plague, and bombardment from hell that followed. There was no way to know, nor was there any way to help them...not anymore.
For the first time in his forty two years, Adi was broken...not only physically, but in spirit. The Order of Ruin had done what no one else had been able to do. It was the final straw.
The Arkanian plopped down in the chair, wincing from the momentary shock on his broken bones. His head fell into his hands, feeling the frustration of every single failure It wasn't anger, however that filled Matango's heart...it was sadness. A deep, profound sadness that permeated every single molecule of the former Jedi's body. It was almost overwhelming, and he truly didn't know what to do at this point. Quite literally everything had now been taken from him. It was as if the entire universe was on his shoulders, and with one small misstep, everything had come crashing down. He had let everyone down...and now? His failure had killed countless numbers....
...the fault fell directly on him.
He took a ragged breath as the tears began to slow. What was he going to do now? How could he face anyone after such a stunning defeat like this? To him, he had literally let -everyone- he cared about down. It was a very unfamiliar feeling to him. Sure, he had been defeated before, but the mission was always accomplished, no matter what. This time, when it counted the most...when he was supposed to be at his best, he had not been able to back up his promises. For all his skill, and training, he had come up far short of the goal. This time, Adieumus Matango had not been able to pull out a miracle save at the last moment as he had always been able to do.
His luck had run out...to dramatic effect.
Wiping his puffy, red eyes with his bandaged right hand, Adi closed them, and began to try to calm his weary mind...but to no avail. He couldn't clear his mind enough to get to the proper state. It was as if every piece of him had been broken by the invaders, mind, body, and his very soul.
And right now? There was quite literally -nothing- he could do about it.
Raxxie glared at the trooper sitting in her spot and noticed they where already in orbit. From various parts of the ship she could hear a myriad of voices including that of Loki and other strangers she didn't know. "You need to move, but I appreciate you getting us airborne." she said sardonically. She didn't like anyone flying this ship, not even Adi or Loki, let alone a complete stranger. As she moved toward her chair she pointed to the co-pilots seat which was often as not vacant now that..no best to push that thought away. She gulped and smiled at him he was offered the other chair and looked out at the enemy vessel in the distance. "What to do, what to do.." She muttered to herself and the trooper next to her. "Oh right, I'm Raxanna Vos, and this is my ship welcome aboard." She said a little less sardonically.
Loki smiled as Anna commented on his wound. "Just flesh wounds..Not like Etti IV at all." He said wanly as he looked down at himself a quick jump in the refresher and he'd be right as rain, and maybe some antibiotics. He then realized the Dagger was flaring in his force sight, as though reaching for him or so it seemed. "Anna, how did you get here, I thought you where with Raven?" He then noticed the silvery mass slide into one of the compartments. "Farris!" Loki yelped realizing who he had knocked over. "My apologizes friend!" He said to the closed compartment door. at this point Rai would think him quite mad, talking to half blind girls foretelling the future and empty canisters. Then the most peculiar thing happened. Adi stood, then sat down then got up and walked to the viewport as the passed Honoghr and Nysato and blasted into Orbit.."Adi….." Loki muttered looking at him with true concern. Loki had never had a true home, his ships maybe, he had spent decades on Korriban but did that count? Countless hours of training? Adi's home was burning from the inside out, the plague had caused massive damage but it was fixable, now though? It might as well have been glassed for weeks by turbo lasers and left a shiny reminder. Loki sympathized but lacked the knowledge or ability to be empathetic. To Loki, one place was as good as another, and in this galaxy there where a million places one could call home. Another ship shot away from the fall back point as they broke orbit following their own trajectory.