Tarisian Thunder

[Apillis]

There are places within the galaxy were wounds of ancient battles still bleed the world from which they left their scars. There are also those Force-sensitive's who can even feel the wound left by the emptiness of death continue to bleed the world. The bloodletting occurs in more ways than one, the prevention of life from being able to flourish once more is one of the most obvious, another is simply a stagnant presence of hollow death--the sense of nothing, and another continuous misfortune. In a certain regards Taris seems to suffer each of these things in one form or another.

Attempting to rebuild or at the very least give some semblance of recover upon the scorched and ruined earth of Taris left in its state by the wrath of Sith fire and brimstone a few centuries ago. There have been numerous attempts to bring Taris back from its shattered existence, whether it be private industry or government entities, regardless each tends to meet the same result--failure. From the rakghoul plague to simply being too much of a financial burden of an undertaking. The attempts made end in resources lost and never recovered--at least not through the efforts on Taris.

Yet the Republic had been making their own bid for success with Taris, and with it being such a massive governing body spanning numerous systems, they may even prove successful...

However...

Rumblings among those whom are tasked with the enormous feat of reconstructing the ruined world say a Sith has come to Taris...

A task force has been sent to seek and ferret out the dark creature, and they seem to be closing in on the dark one's trail. However, while they were certainly on the chase after the Sith, the fallen creature seemed to do nothing to attempt to hide their presence. Whomever this Sith was--it was almost as if they wanted to be found.

Through the ancient ruins of Taris' grand metropolis--a jungle of wreckage--building cracked and shattered left in pieces covering the landscape with only but rubble to tread upon while navigating the destruction of old. The annihilated remains of an old Hammerhead corvette was where the trail lead them. Broken apart of its pieces small to gargantuan ranged from being a few meters from one another to well over a hundred meters away.

"There used to be a purity to it all, you know...", remarked the husky voice of a woman, and there sitting atop of the broken spire of one the old vessel--part of the 'head' that earned the vessel model's moniker--was the very being the task force had sought.

A tall, slender woman--lanky with long limbs and calloused spidery narrow-fingered hands. The pants she wore were ragged black infantry BDUs with the pant legs tucked into old worn brown leather military offer's boots. She wore a plain halter top under the white cloak of Jedi Archivist, but the cloak was more of an off-white or even a bit grey as it was quite old and worn out with several tatters and tears and frayed edges while possessing numerous carbon scoring and blood stains--some her own--some not. Over the cloak and what also held it closed was a Jedi utility belt that by all appearances certainly had seen much use over time, and dangling from it was an electrum lightsaber that looked like that it was used to repair the broken remains of its current form or the other way around--a previous lightsaber was used to repair the electrum lightsaber. The hood of her cloak was drawn, and covering the lower half of her face was a black mask with monstrous jagged fangs. The woman possessed a ghostly pallor that contrasted with her scarlet hair--a few strands of which dangled before her visage--a visage which had been clearly marked by the dark side's corruption--easily seen even with her hood drawn and wearing that mask over the lower half of her face. But most notably were those intense eyes, like blazing orange-yellow fire surrounded not by white but only pitch black like coal.

She sat, legs dangling off the edge of the spire, "When a line was drawn it was... distinctive. It's purpose was clear. The meaning behind one's philosophy had gravitas and why it needed to be fought for.", she paused for a trice before remarking though in manner as though she were posing a question to be pondered, "Have you ever gotten the sense either side for the last few centuries--especially in our current state of war--that everyone is just going through their own respective dichotomy's motions? It makes one thinking that something needs to be done to make things... a little less routine."

Her eyes narrowed a little from her cracking a smile under her mask, "I am Hervor". she introduced herself, "If I need say anymore to who I am, then you have not been paying attention...". she uttered flatly. Her being there before the task-force was a brazen act, and it had to be ruminated... why stop to reveal herself now?

[Dire Wolf]

Amidst the jagged peaks of wrecked spires a cadre of black clad soldiers silently roamed in search of their quarry. Their movements were as swift as they were silent as they slid through the corpse of the once great ecumenopolis with nothing short of perfect tactical awareness. Among the black cadre was one dressed radically different, though. Stark white plastoid armor gleamed as it passed through the final rays of sunlight that managed to slip through the spaces between the ruined buildings. Dark brown fabric resembling a mandalorian kama hung just below her knees, and served to conceal the lightsaber that had been attached where the pseudo-cloak started. A mop of brilliant red hair had been cut in an asymmetrical style and kept just shy of her chin, and her baleful red eyes darted to and fro.

"Remember," her comm unit's microphone gently rested against her throat, just above the voice box. This way she could communicate with her platoon verbally without speaking louder than a whisper. "This Sith is no joke. Most are pompous though. If there's a monologue do your best to set up flanking positions. Set up explosives at a fall back point so that if they jump at you we only lose one while you fall back, and they'll blow the hell up when they try to pursue."

"What if the Sith just attacks, Gypsy?"

Tali's callsign. Fitting, but irritating. That was probably why it stuck so well.

"Improvise. Alright, FiFe, Fury, Nighthawk, and Sully follow me. The rest of you hang back a ways. Waste anything that isn't us. You all know the codeword if you find anything?"

"Check."

It was prestige. They were all professional enough to know not to say it over the hooks.

Thankfully Tali had kept her presence wrapped as tightly around her as she could, but her proficiency hardly caused her to vanish entirely. To any attuned to the ethereal the white-clad Jedi would feel like a force sensitive with staggering potential at the most. A mere force sensitive at the least. The woman's grip on her blaster carbine flexed as she felt herself draw nearer to the presence, only to round a corner.

A woman. Fear choked the woman's heart when her eyes saw the sitting figure. Curses streamed from her mind in a long, unbroken string as the woman continued to speak, to monologue, and her eyes were locked on the loathsome figure with the pallor of a corpse and the vestments of a warrior. After a long sigh Tali keyed her comm unit, "prestige."

The single red stripe that ran down her right arm lowered and soon the carbine was hanging freely from a three point sling at her front. Hervor. Republic intelligence spoke of her combat skills to be among the best, and she ranked pretty high on the HVT deck of cards, but most of the knowledge came from the Jedi Order. Tali knew that they were for one helluva fight. "I guess its gonna be too much to ask for you to come quietly?"

Hopefully the sniper that should888 have been lining up his shot during the monologue would take his shot soon. If not, it was gonna be a slaughter.

[Moonfire]

The air crackled with electricity, charged all around them as they wandered through the ruins of Taris. This squad in particular had been charged with finding a known Sith somewhere among the crumbling towers and jungle-life that had began, slowly at first, to reclaim it. Massive buildings, once the center of galactic commerce lay empty and ragged, vines netting over the steel, trees sprouting up through the cracks in the streets. The similarities between Taris and Coruscant were not lost on Sgt. Styles as she tromped with her squad towards their goal.

It was queer, how a once bustling world could be left so devastated, the ghosts of its people still lingered in the corners, the shadows stirred with the shells of broken lives, the world merely a mausoleum, and they were the grave diggers. Here to disturb the bones in search of a more abiding evil than rakghouls or urban decay.

"This Sith is no joke. Most are pompous though. If there's a monologue do your best to set up flanking positions." Came the Jedi's voice, clear as day through the comm-link built into Lila's helmet, the HUD blipping with information.

"That's alright, if this a*shole starts a sermon we'll just throw FeFi at 'em. She can out talk anyone." Snickered Fury, his voice rugged and cloying in her ear.

"Yeah, it's amazing what a person can do when they use their mouth for more than c*m collection, Fury." The Zeltron grinned beneath her helmet, a wide toothy grin that her squad, her boys, knew all too well. "But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

They were the few of the platoon who came from SpecOps. Fury, a demolitions expert, a dark skinned human who was quick to go toe to toe with Lila, but for the most part was a real teddy bear. Volunteered at shelters, a real sap, but effective. Nighthawke, a zelosian who specialized in tracking, she'd worked with him for years now, long before they were SpecOps, just grunts tromping through jungles not unlike these smoking out pirates and keeping the peace. Sully; another human, but smaller, lithe. He was fast, effective in close quarters and damn good slicer. There was no better group that Sgt. Lila Styles, FiFe; FriendlyFire, could want.

"Woah-ho, calm your tits, Fi. It was a compliment." Fury teased, though it was obvious there was no real hard feelings between the two. This was just how the operated, vulgarities spit out with no true feelings, just a way to occupy the mind, to keep them from stewing in the dread that seemed to float in the heavy, humid air of this dilapidated planet.

"Focus, now's not the time to bicker." Muttered Sully, ever serious.

"You heard him, Fury. Quit trippin' over your d*ck." Lila's smokey voice gave another husky laugh as the air grew suddenly more charged, more tense. They were close. A voice now called to them, husky but crisp. Tali's voice crackled over it.

Prestige. Target was in sight and launching into some monologue about going through the motions. That routine was stagnation or some other philosophical bullsh*t that only people with enough time and comfort to waste time pondering cared about. The people of this world, of Taris sure as hell didn't give a single f*ck about this woman's issues with boredom.

"I guess its gonna be too much to ask for you to come quietly?" Tali asked, with a long sigh.

"Oh, making introductions are we? Lady, if you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." Lila's helmet sputtered out in the eerie rumbling of the jungle. No doubt this would piss off Tali, but Lila just couldn't resist, holding her slugthrower up, holding position as the two force users did their ceremonial pre-conflict movements.

[Apillis]

Hervor pulled back the hood of her cloak, and removed her mask exposing more of the old scars on the left side of her face caused by a shrapnel explosion long, long ago. An amused smile was turned toward a Republic soldier after her commentary, "It's true... None of this will end happily for any of you.", she uttered with an ominous, deadpan tone. Those fiery orange-yellow eyes turned their gaze to the young Jedi in turn, "And if you had any notion that a Dark Lord of the Sith would surrender to you--nevertheless quietly, than either your naivete is extraordinary, or your stupidity is."

With a smooth, graceful poise she rose to her feet upon the spire of the old vessel's wreckage, "So, let me recall protocol here... I suppose you're attempting to surround me with your little over-inflated soldiery... Maybe have demolitionists in hiding? Small artillery? That'd been my personal choice--it's more difficult to avoid explosions than blaster fire."

The Dark Lord closed her eyes, taking a deep breath--it may appeared as though she were babbling on while putting on airs, but there was a purpose behind it. She was reaching out through the Force in all that time--in essence she was stalling while expanding her perceptive awareness through the Force, scanning for any immediate danger to her beyond what she could immediately see with her own two eyes. While her ability with perceiving such things through the Force certainly was not among the best, nor was it certainly not among the worst, either. Thus she needed time to feel about what she faced--what was the greatest immediate threat to her. While it was true she could have done all of this from hiding without ever having had to reveal herself to them, but where would the sport be in that?

The entire she had been speaking--she continued to stretch out her awareness of her surroundings through the Force, "I guess, this is also where the little Jedi tells me something about being an arrogant and prideful Sith--dark side scary-bad--leads to destruction and yadda, yadda, yadda... It's always the same drivel over and over again. The same monotony--the same tired lines--the same crap time and again. It's just all such a blindly followed routine. The same course of action--", within the seeming fraction of time it takes to blink an eye Hervor's lightsaber as drawn and with simple flourish a sniper shot directed at her was not only deflected but directed back at the one who fired it, "--taken each and every time.", Hervor finished saying now with lightsaber in hand and its brilliant orange blade of light ignited.

Those blazing orange-yellow eyes gazing right into the young Jedi's own with an expression that only seemed to say the girl should have known better, "Hm. Should've went with the explosives.", she then canted her head at those she could see before her a little perplexed by some of their expressions, "What? Did you think I was monologuing for your benefit?", she let out a stifled chuckle of a scoff, "Dear Jedi, the predator must first learn where the prey is hiding before the hunt can begin... And I know my prey well, I have hunted it for what is by your reckoning--centuries. Remember well the faces of those in your command this day, Jedi. The memory of them will serve to make you stronger if you manage to survive this encounter."

In the next instant the Dark Lord moved with speeds that by the untrained human eye she was little more than a blur, vanishing into the jungle of ruins and wreckage that served as their collective surroundings. The hunt was afoot. But had the hunters become the hunted? Or were they always the prey from the start...

[Dire Wolf]

"Nah," Tali shook her just after the Emo, the sniper, clicked a conformation over the comms. "I'm not one for redemption. Just reckoning-."

crack

A streak of blue lanced out from a faraway window in one of the more stable buildings overlooking the Hammerhead's crash site, but much to Tali's dismay it only found the blade of Hervor's lightsaber. Half a second later she heard Sledge's rich baritone over the hooks, "Emo's down." Sledge was ever calm. If she knew him at all he had probably already begun to reposition so that Hervor wouldn't find them so easily that time. Unlikely. The monologue had more than one purpose, it seemed. Sh*t. Emo was a damn good sniper and a better man. He'd be missed.

For a long moment Tali merely stood with her head tilted upwards towards the strange creature before her, a stoney expression on her face and fear on her mind. The words she heard Hervor utter were muted, as if heard from a great distance, and her own view of the world seemed surreal. Like a dream.

"F**k," Tali said aloud when she finally regained control of her own body. She chucked the blaster carbine to the side as if it were actually the useless toy Hervor would make it. A shortened lightsaber hilt was pulled from behind her back and a slugthrower pistol retrieved from a thigh holster quickly thereafter. The lightsaber remained unignited, though. If Hervor charged her, which she likely wouldn't until all of her men were dead, she would wait until the last second to activate it. This way the shoto would bypass all effective defenses and pierce that horrendous schutta's cold heart.

And then Hervor was gone. Her men would have merely seen her vanish into a blur, but Tali's trained eyes saw more. Another trice was spent merely staring at where she'd last seen Hervor before she turned to her men. The fear wasn't in her face or her voice, but it was in her eyes. "Everyone rally up. Loose Three-sixty-security. Set up mines with anti-tamper on your way out, but make it snappy. This sh*t is about to get real. Sledge, set up mines and hold onto a grenade. She's probably going for you, and I can't get there in time."

A long series of comm keys told her that her platoon acknowledged the commands. The anti-tamper mines would eliminate the possibility of Hervor turning them against the Fighting Wampas. If moved, they'd just blow up unless handled with inhuman amounts of care. The three hundred and sixty degree security would allow for her men to view everything outwards and upwards in a circular formation. Tali knew who was hunted in this engagement, and it wasn't Hervor.

Without missing a beat she keyed the comm to command, "Sierra-six this is Whiskey-six actual and I don't give a flying bantha frak about radio etiquette. We need immediate air support and emergency evac at grid 4-5-2-5 3-2-8-5. We need those birds five minutes ago."

"Roger Whiskey-six actual, your birds are spinning up now. Over"

"Roger-tango, Sierra-six. Out."

[Moonfire]

"Emo's down" Sledge's voice crackled over the comm in Lila's ear, the grin disappearing almost immediately. A slew rang through the woman's mind, but she remained quiet, slugthrower still griped tight in her hands, trained on the Sith. Hervor had removed her mask, the twisted toothy grin of it had been easier to look at it. Easier to see than the cold face beneath, like she wasn't just looking at you but through you.

The set of lips showed none of the amusement her husky tone gave, no they were like her eyes. Her very posture seemed feral, wild in stark contrast to the posh accent of her voice. The orange eyes still glinted, glowing with the radiance of her lightsaber and bore into them. For a moment, only a moment, Sgt. Styles' heart skipped a beat, watching the figure move with unearthly speed into the rotting jungle of despair and broken concrete.

And then she got p*ssed.

"Sledge, baby, you get yourself and Emo some hella-cover, cause this is one prime-evil b*tch." Lila said, voice sharp over the comm as Tali gave out commands. "I don't like either of you enough to bury you properly, so don't get f*cking killed."

"Love you too, Fi. We're moving now."

Tali though kicked in, using her big girl words and taking control of the situation. Directions, action, movement. That was something Lila could do. Something she could handle. If this b*tch could bleed, and Lila had yet to find one that couldn't, then she could die. And if she tried to f*ck with them before the evac, die she would.

"Alright boys, you heard the lady. Three
-sixty, double time. Fury, mine me, brother." A cock of her head and Lila extended her free hand, letting their resident explosives-phile toss her a couple of the anti-tamper, tossing them down before her as they started to move into formation.

"Get a little closer, Gyps, I don't bite." Lila gave a nod, planting the last of her mines and setting both hands back on the heavy assault rifle, checking Sully to her left.

Sledge's voice crackled back over the comm. "Thats a damn lie."

"Only the one time." Styles laughed, a heady smokey sound beneath the tension. She turned to Tali, her face beneath the helmet in that wide grin again. "Remind me when this is over to tell you that story. Its a good one."

[Apillis]

Hervor held no ability to hide her presence, so she chose to do exactly the opposite--she channeled the dark side through herself to the point her presence was near stifling throughout the area. Letting it permeate like a corrosive miasma while she stalked the soldiery, they would be the first to die. It was not simply because they were easy targets. While there were those who pathetically thought in terms of removing or culling from the herd the weak first. Hervor did not think in such terms, while she was a hunter--a predator, her prey was of a different sort.

But her sadism wrought from the evil that has long settled into the very fabric of who she was and what largely come to define her would not allow her to outright kill what she hunted. It must feel pain as she understands it, and there are few things more harsh than the sting left by the emptiness of death. Sith and Jedi are alike in that they can feel the Force around them--in all life, it is among the first lessons they are taught. But where a Sith revels in darkness left behind by violent death, a Jedi can be scarred by it, and if surrounded by it too much--they can be pulled into the darkness' abyssal depths. Sith know this. Hervor knows this. It is, in fact, how she came to be what she is. And there are few things more satisfying to Hervor than dragging a Jedi to her level, bring them down into the bleak darkness of their despair succumbing to the dark side within them, betraying everything they stood for, and only then bringing an end to their life--leaving them in a sad tragic shamble compared to the beacon of light and hope they once stood for.

It was not some simple-minded act of eliminating the weak first, it was making a Jedi feel the lose of life of whom they are responsible for leading and keeping alive. Nor was Hervor even teaching some lesson--no, this was purely about sating her sadistic bloodlust. There was no nuance or need beyond that, no intellectual pretense regardless of what she may say, nor some arbitrary, needlessly clandestine grand scheme behind it all. This was purely about the light and dark when brought to its core, and that was where Hervor chose to keep it--granting it a purity passed all the posturing and nonsense. Regardless of what she may say, she is running on that base instinct. And she liked it. It had purpose, no matter how simplistic, it had purpose well beyond religious dogmas and believed self-importance, it was how it has always been since time immemorial.

Stalking the soldiery, she watched one speaking over their comlink as she silently approached them, she heard them address the one they were speaking to as "Fi". But all that could be heard over the soldier's comlink was their screams and the loud crackling of lightning, but such was not only heard over the comlink but echoing through the ancient ruins of Taris in which they all stood.

When there was only silence left, though it was only a trice it was a deafening silence, for even the sounds of the creatures far in the distance fell quiet, like many do when perceiving danger--like a far more dangerous predator lurking about. But that silence was ceased over the comlinks as the accented husky tone of a malevolent voice uttered over it, "Fi, Fie, Foe, Fum... it is for your blood that I now come.", though in truth Hervor had no clue which unit was this 'Fi', she did not care nor was that the point, and if the next soldier she targeted happened to be them, then it would be purely by chance or accident, for they were all fair game to her.

It was no more than a minute later when blaster fire could be heard followed by the bloodcurdling screams of yet another soldier within a split second, and the all too familiar hum of a lightsaber being swung could be heard over the soldier's comlink. Whether that was "Fi" or not, Hervor did not know nor care, for as mentioned--they were all equal targets of opportunity. But a moment later over the last dead soldier's comlink, that voice uttered, "No capitulations today, Jedi. Like you... I too am only interested in a reckoning. Many years ago your Jedi ancestors experienced precisely what you are now... but it was not with the Sith of whom I refer... And like now, we held no interest in prisoners."

The communication then ceased, and once more, there was only silence--returning to stalking from the shadows, watching and sensing through the Force the movements of the soldiers seeming to turtle up in a defensive formation.

[Dire Wolf]

Pain. Death. Sledge's life force shrieked out in the Force only to be silenced. Not quickly. Oh no. The last few painful moments of his life ebbed away as slow as the shrinking tide. Moisture gathered in the woman's crimson eyes to the point of the world becoming a blurry mess; a single tear rolled down the woman's cheek once those eyes slid shut. Tali had just felt the death of a second friend in as many minutes. She had stopped mid stride with two fingers on the ear piece when the man began to shriek, but remained frozen still even after his screams fell silent.

And then the strange creature spoke some corny line in some attempt to incite fear in their hearts.

It had the opposite effect. That crackling voice kindled a fire in her heart. The same type of flame that she felt on that lonely rooftop on Nar Shaddaa. Rage caused the woman's jaw to clinch and her eyes to narrow. When Styles spoke cold eyes, not terrified ones, met the amazonian woman's gaze. Or where she guessed it was beneath that helmet. A voice as cold as the ruined duracrete that supported them had replaced the otherwise warm yet powerful one that her subordinates had known. "Turn on your IR. Schutta is fast but that won't matter if you can watch her. We still have stragglers out there. I'm going to get as many back here as I can.

"Fi," Gypsy opened herself to the vile corruption that she felt pouring out of Hervor's form. "Keep 'em safe." It felt as if the woman drunk in the sweetest water one can imagine that had been intermingled with a thin layer of filth. A notable grimace broke that stoney expression just before the Jedi tore off towards the trio that Hervor neared. Despite the overbearing presence of the corrosive wretch Tali could still pick her out as easily as one could see a black hole against the brilliant backdrop of the sun. It was impossible not to miss, really.

Gypsy, though. Gypsy focused every iota of her being into her own presence. It had been wrapped around her form like a tight cloak, and in that moment she became all but undetectable to either the powerful or the very observant. Her footfalls were silent the scurrying of a mouse despite her great loping strides and feats of acrobatics that no human should have a right to attain. Her form was a blur as she ascended the nearest building and disappeared into the night.

Hervor.

Her blisteringly fast pace quickly brought her to the edge of a four story ruin only to fall without even the mere attempt to jump. Wind rushed around her ears for half a heartbeat before she hit the ground with a roll between Hervor and the trio of soldiers. In a flash her slugthrower was up and the resoundingly loud report of 10mm gunshots echoed throughout the area. Brief flashes illuminated the darknening ruin. Four shots passed before Tali whirled around and sent her own men soaring through a window only to land near enough to the group to reach safety.

"Get to the circle you retarded frakers!"

Gypsy's offhand flourished just before the signature snap-hiss of her shoto activating tore across the street. No more of her men would die. Not for another ten minutes. That's all she needed. Hold the b*tch off for ten measly minutes.

Gyps held no illusions though; she'd be dead in less than eleven. "Hervor. The Hervor? I remember you from the stories. They say you killed your friends during the Mandalorian wars. Ripped their heart out and ate them while they still beat between your teeth. I could see it. Betraying your friends, probably lovers, out of some weird spontaneous psychosis. You're definitely crazy enough for it. Always wondered how human heart tasted. Though I'll bet friends taste even better. Whaddyou think, Hervie?"

No such story was held within the archives. Honestly Tali only barely remembered her mention other than she often fought with a group of other Jedi during the last Mandalorian uprising. She knew enough, though. Enough to hopefully get the soulless schutta focused on her for a few minutes until her men could get to safety.

[Moonfire]

Emo's death throws came across the comm-link with startling clarity despite the crackling of thunder. The sizzle of flesh and the breaking of bones was audible as he yowled in pain before suddenly and swiftly silenced. The grip on her gun tightened, stiff and full of hatred. Emo, the quiet gloomy member of the team, barely more than a kid was dead.

"You b*tch," She muttered, "I swear to all the Corell-" But Lila's mutterings were cut off by new screams, just moments after. The growling tone of Sledge's voice off cut by the highness of his screams. That sizzle, the horror of his brutal violent death.

Images flashed through Styles' mind. Sledge's face hazy in the morning with satisfied sleep. Back to back as the pirates around them burned and the sickly sweet smell of singed flesh permeated the jungle air. His hand, heavy and warm at her waist as they cowed the squad in their affable manner. He was a damn good man, and better friend, Sledge was.

And now he was gone.

"Fi, Fie, Foe, Fum... it is for your blood that I now come." Hervor's voice came clear as day over the comm, Sledge's name lighting up in the HUD in her cool, husky taunts.

"Sh*t" Whispered Nighthawke, his helmeted face turning to look at her. "Styles...?"

Tali's voice quickly interceded, informing them to turn on infrared and to keep formation as she ran to get the last of the stragglers before they met a similar fate.

"Fi, keep 'em safe." And then Tali was gone. Off to face the giant.

"You're goddamn right I will." Fefi responded back, before turning back to the boys, her boys. "Alrighty! Ya'll heard the lady, get your f*cking IR up. I wanna see this b*tch coming. Keep circled, tighten up. We've got 10 minutes before evac shows, and ya'll better not disappoint me."

The boys nodded, slapping their visors to activate the heat based vision.

"Fi..? You alright?" Came the smooth, comforting voice of Fury. But Lila was in no mood for comfort. This... this monster had singled her out now. Was taunting her with childrens nursery rhymes.

"Cool as a cucumber, baby. I've got one prime-evil c*nt killing my f*cking men and then taunting me over the comm, totally f*cking okay. Our f*cking Jedi has gone off to face her and now I'm here f*cking waiting for this b*tch to show we can show her what it means to be a Fighting Wampa. If this Sith B*tch thinks she can scare us with a couple of kids rhymes she's got another thing coming." Styles moved as spoke, jumping and writhing in space to keep the stiffness of her rage out, keeping lose as her slugthrower faced the jungle, watching, waiting for anything that might come.

"YOU HEAR THAT, HERVOR? YOU WANNA COME FOR MY BLOOD? WELL COME AND TAKE IT, MOTHERF*CKER!" Fi shouted now into the comm, knowing full well that Hervor probably couldn't hear her. But it felt good to yell, felt good to also taunt. To remind that schutta who was hunting who. They came to Taris for her, for her kind. And they'd leave with her head in a bag for the Senate. That'd be how this played out, she was sure of it.

"Fi, we got something." Sully announced, causing her head to whip around. A faint reddish orange spot in the distance, haloed in yellow, moving fast.

"Rakghoul?" She asked, throat dry and scratchy.

"Too fast. Its her."

Styles nodded, keying in her comm.

"Gypsy, get your ass back here, we got company."

[Apillis]

As she approached she could tell the three she now stalked were aware of her presence. She paused in her steps for a trice, canting her slightly--she gained a small smile of amusement, then continued her approach like a lioness that found her prey's awareness of her presence irrelevant. She had no words for them, for all they were in her eyes were meat to flayed and carved into.

The closer she came, she saw weapons drawn on her. Rifles. Even if they were using carbines, she did not care. Such weapons were clumsy, more so compared to the arsenal she wielded. Her gained a half-lidded gaze as if she were merely carrying out a trite routine she had done one too many times to find even the most minute pleasure in it.

The barrage of fire from their assault rifles came at her. The motions themselves were blurs. One deflection, swat, and block with her lightsaber of a shot fired at her person one after the other with graceful speeds the ordinary human eye was simply not enough to track. Before the nearest soldier to her had any time to react, the assault rifle in his hands was cleft in two with its split edges still glowing from the heat of the blade that cut them in twain. With such speed it almost seemed simultaneous with the destruction of his weapon the Sith Lord's knee was buried well into his gut for a devastating blow managing to even take him a few inches off his feet. In spite of the fiber mesh armor, the air was knocked out of his lungs as he fell flat on his back with a heavy crash upon the unforgiving ground.

The flash of another shot fired while her back was to one of the other soldiers present appeared within her mind a split second before it happened, leading Hervor to spin around in blurred movements as she deflected the shot right back at the one who sought to shoot her in the back. The shot struck the very weapon he fired rendering inoperable, her threw it down and drew his sidearm, but it was too late Hervor was already charging for the woman of the trio.

It when Hervor got ten yards from the soldier woman that the flash of fire erupted within her mind, Hervor's eyes widened in dismay as she abruptly did a leaping strafe to her right, but it even that was a dash too late as a fraction of a second later a fountain of flame burst forth from her weapon. It was then Hervor released she had gotten careless not paying close enough attention to the weapons some of the soldiery were carrying, she should have recognized the woman's heavy weapon right off, but Hervor falling too in line with the routine of it all overlooked that in a severe lapse of judgment and carelessness.

Much of the left of side of Hervor's torso, left arm, and part of the left side of her face was licked by the flames. Set ablaze Hervor belted out a roar in pain that was nearly deafening, not merely within the physical and material existence but through the Force as well. As if like an instinctual survival mechanism the dark side erupted from her being the form of magenta bolts of lightning crawling all over the area within a fifty meter diameter with Hervor at its focal point, they latched onto any living organism they can find, but not to electrocute or scorch, but to bleed--to drain the very essence of their life through the Force and be absorbed back into Hervor herself. This included the three soldiers she faced, through the might of her will she remained standing as if denying her body's succumbing to the immensely grievous injury she had just sustained, while continuing to feed off all life surrounding her--and as mentioned, the three soldiers were not excluded of this.

As she fed upon their bodies through the Force taking their lives into her own, she could feel their life force withering away while that which she took from them gradually healed and recovered her physical being. She watched her the immense severity of her burns on her left arm which matched much of the left side of her body, gradually reduce and heal. But by the time she felt what was the very last meager amount of life left within the soldiers, her wounds had not fully recovered. She needed at least a couple more for full recovery. Hervor turned her gaze upon the three soldiers, each were dead in her eyes, even the two men the Force had been utterly torn from them leaving them as they were little more than empty husks upon the ground.

Hervor with an arched brow and sneer looked upon the lifeless body of the woman, before pressing on. She continued to stalk the soldiers, but no longer was she in the mood to treat this as a game as she did before. Finding yet two more soldiers, she treated them as she did the last three, feeding off of their life, but this time it was not out of desperation to survive, but merely to mend the rest of their wounds. But she wanted the Jedi to feel it as she did, feel the emptiness that will be left from draining their very existence from them to sustain her own. She took her time with them, let their cries of agony ring out into the sky and the Force, pulling away their life as if she were flaying them alive with her bare hands ripping their skin from their bodies. It on until their was nothing--only silence--only oblivion, nothing could be felt from them, even for a non-Force Sensitive to look at them it would be like seeking to find that spark of life within a manikin, there was simply nothing--just a husk, an empty husk.

Though the incredibly severe burns she suffered had been healed, where they once were soot remained from what was once her chard flesh. The entire left side of her body looked as though she had just stepped out of a coal mine. The clothes that covered her torso were little more than scorched rags that were now failing to maintain her modesty, though as an a largely immodest personality and having more pressing concerns, Hervor did not seem to really care.

Having once been one herself, Hervor had an inclination of where she could find the young Jedi. There was a straggler soldier looking to rejoin the group not far from the last two she drained to heal herself. Stepping out into a small clearing amidst the ruins of Taris, Hervor uttered in that husky voice and tone of hers, "It's a vicious sensation isn't, Jedi? Feeling your friends, those of whom you hold close, hold dear--perhaps even love--truly love--not some silly notion of 'compassion' as love, but truly love... having them torn away from your heart through the Force, leaving only an emptiness... a void... that will never be filled again as it their removal removed apart of yourself as well, and only the darkness of their missing light lingers.", Hervor arched a scrutinizing brow, "Did you believe you were ready for such a challenge? Did you truly believe you knew what it meant to wage war as a Jedi?"

[Dire Wolf]

Two more bullets barked out of the slugthrower pistol’s maw only to catch air and the duracrete wall instead of her target. Tali’s jaw tightened to the point of her teeth feeling about ready to explode as the woman darted off again, but not towards the men she’d just saved. Oh no. Back to the group. A curse was barely muttered beneath the woman’s breath before she took off after the she-demon.

The Jedi’s path took her a radically different way than her opponent. Hervor was much faster than Tali, but it was unlikely that she knew how to move in the face of obstacles quite as well. Long strides and longer leaps took her across a shattered rooftop and through a broken office before she threw herself out into the square where she’d left her troops. Cleaved weapons and battered bodies were all that she saw as the wind screamed through her ears and tore at her eyes. If only the wind were the reason for the tears in her eyes.

Many of the men and women below were her friends. Lila, roudy and amazonian. Quick to laugh. Quicker to quip. Fury, dark skinned and remarkably like Lila… only with a certain type of kindness one wouldn’t expect from a man in his position. Sully. Nighthawke. No. Those tears definitely weren’t just because of the wind, or onions. “Talon, she’s coming straight for you.”

Fear touched the Jedi Blade’s voice. Hopefully it couldn’t be heard through the modulated effect that comms had on one’s voice. Tali hit the ground with a roll that barely slowed her down as she tore off towards the Sith b*tch that slaughtered her soldiers. Her friends. That explosive rage had cooled in the time since she’d heard the screams of her second KIA of the day. Cooled didn’t mean vanished, though. This new type of fury was cold. Calculating. Tali couldn’t take Hervor in a straight fight, oh hell no. Tali thumbed the orb capable of producing miniature thermo-nuclear reactions at her belt as she ran; Tinker, tailor, jedi, sith, thermal detonators vaporize without distinction.

“Sierra-six, whiskey-six actual” she was sure to key a separate channel so that the sith whore couldn’t hear, “this isn’t a rescue anymore. We have two survivors, including myself. We won't be alive for long. Activating IR strobes.”

Gunships vaporize without distinction, too.

An eternity of silence passed by on the other end of the comm unit before a voice quietly replied in her ear, “roger, whiskey-six actual. We’ll relay that to the pilots. Bird’s are three mikes out.”

[/color=darkblue]“Tango, out”[/color][/size]

A switch on Tali’s gauntlet pressed in at Tali’s mental prodding. The infrared strobe was invisible to the naked eye, and certainly to Hervor, but the gunships high above could tell. Hervor was fast, but she couldn’t outrun a heavy laser cannon or a concussion missile. Talon wasn’t far away, and thankfully she’d managed to reach the man first. Hervor had likely let her. Twist of the knife and all that. One final hope to salvage what was left of her men. Likely, as Hervor’s sickening presence wasn’t far away. Tali looked directly at the woman, even if she couldn’t see her directly.

“We gon’ fight or are you not done being a little b*tch?”