These Violet Delights Have Violet Ends

[Fromikeable]

A countering hiss announced Vance's failure as Jazen's lightsaber snapped to life. The moment green clashed with blue, Vance pushed to no avail. As Jazen flew enough to gain some distance, Vance was already plummeting back toward the ground, flames following him downward. Twisting in air, a brusque wave of his arm made the flames flare away from him, the heat singing his armor before he met the street below with a hard landing.

Even with his body imbued by the Force, he let out an unhappy groan. If he lived through all of this, there would be hell to pay.

Scrambling up from the newly-formed rubble, Vance looked up in time to catch Jazen making a move, rocketing off. With a few quick breaths, the Force began surging back into Vance as he began to run, his legs growing stronger with each second. As the building before him approached, he charged through, bursting through the wall and into the interior. Running at full tilt, he tried his best to keep up, an outstretched hand bashing through obstacles with bursts of the Force, his Force-imbued body shrugging off whatever he missed. Keeping his presence focused on tracking Jazen outside, he almost didn't notice the situation they were headed toward. Simone on the ground, his presence contorted with misery and pain, Io'an's flaring with a rage Vance had never quite seen, and Ylva's a mix of the two.

Shoring up his shoulders, Vance came bursting through the wall into the street. He only paused long enough to take a quick look, eyes darting from Io'an's clenched hand to Ylva's strained neck. His ears perked at Io’an’s command.

”GO!”

Running up beside Io’an, Vance’s arm cocked back, the Force in the street surging toward his palm. With a thrust, his hand shot out, the Force flowing out of it violently. The push barreled into rubble, into wreckage, into the sides of buildings, and of course toward both Ylva and Jazen; the practiced work of a man who had told many people just the same.

”And stay gone!”

[Meira]

He could smell the iron in the blood on her fingers as they gripped tight on his chin. He tried to jerk his head away but her grip was strong and she held him fast, yanking him back and forcing him to look toward Io'an and Emilio. Cradling the broken arm with his good one, his knee throbbing, Simone had never felt quite so helpless in his life. Helpless, and entirely terrified. He'd seen Ylva angry before any number of times. He'd seen her enraged. But he'd always been just behind that terrible wrath. He'd always been on her side. Never before had she directed all the faculties of her fury toward him, and certainly not while imbued with some perverted version of the force. If she didn't kill him quick, he was sure his own heart would simply explode.

A blur of light caught his eye. He was openly crying now; the whole world was a blur of ash and sudden and violent color. Io'an's lightsaber? Her other hand grabbed at his head, ready for one quick twist. Blood pounded in his ears, blocking out everything else. His heart slammed against his ribcage, a wild-eyed animal with the sent of blood in its nostrils and an overwhelming instinct to flee. He screamed for Emilio to run and clenched his eyes tight, tensing for that sudden jerk before nothingness...

But he wasn't the only one screaming.

His heart beat.

He drew in a ragged breath, sure that it was his last.

She adjusted her grip on his chin.

The air was knocked from his lungs. Her nails raked the skin of his cheek as wind ripped around him. Simone opened his eyes and was sure he'd gone mad with terror. The world was upside down. And then, in a rush of smoke and dust, of searing pain and altogether too much noise, he landed heavily by Io'an's feet. He gasped, coughed, and heaved, clutching again at his broken arm. When he looked up, Io'an stood over him, blond hair whipping in the wind and an arm stretched out. All around him, the world grew dark until it was just him. His eyes, usually such a gentle green, were...

---

They'd ruined it. They'd ruined everything! Stupid, stupid, fucking stupid!

Something sudden and undeniably powerful pulled hard at Simone's body. In a panic, Ylva tightened her grip on his head, nails clawing into his skin in vain as he was ripped from her arms. In rage, in agony, in despair, she reached and screamed for him. But her hands gripped nothing but air. And her lungs, not even that.

The pain started just under her chin. Something... nothing squeezed harder and harder, blocking the blood and the air alike. Her eyes bulged, her arms flailed. Her feet skittered and scraped against the rubble-strewn street and then kicked through empty air. She clawed at her throat, finding nothing to pull away. Her vision popped with bursts of bright white as her whole body began to seize and struggle against nothing. Red bloomed as blood vessels in her eyes burst, ringing her violet irises in crimson. Somewhere, Io'an's voice rang like a bell, almost like the Chorus, in her ears. And then something shifted. She gasped in hardly a wisp of air but she drank it greedily. It wheezed and whistled in and out of her as that grip still clutched her. She fell back to the ground, landing hard on her knees as the command "GO!" burned through her entire being. She'd hardly had time to lift her head when another rush of force blasted her back, tumbling rag-doll back over and over and over again. From her person, items flew in all directions; the comm unit she'd been using smashed against a wall; the folding knife she'd intended to use landed in a burning transport; the oddly shaped blob of credits she'd forced together on Saki arced through the air and landed in a puff of dust on the ground.

Her cartwheeling was stopped when she slammed bodily into the speeder bike she'd brought, practically wrapping around it. The grip on her throat, at least, was gone now and she gulped air in ragged, stinging lungfuls. The world spun when she closed her eyes, and reeled when she opened them. Weakly, she pulled herself up and propped her weight against the bike. Far away -too far, she thought- Arkandri stood by Io'an. Behind them, other Blind Eye warriors were assembling. They'd ruined it, she thought. And there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it now. It was all she could do to pull herself onto the bike and start it up.

"Get the fuck out of here." she grumbled, hoping that Forte was listening in whatever the hell way he did. Gunning the throttle, she sped away in a cloud of dust.

[Jazen]

Jazen arrived just in time to see all hell breaking loose.

He had been aware of Vance hot on his tail, as fast as the man could travel on foot through the wrecked streets while Jazen soared through the air and the building's above. Knew he would have little time to do anything when he arrived at the scene other then to secure Ylva(perhaps Simone if he still drew breath) and get out of there as fast as possible. The Chorus sang in his mind, in his very being, and through it, he felt Ylva's grief, her rage, her pain. Just like he felt the dozens of infected swarming towards the Eye to assist their fellows, the hive mind working at its finest.

He arrived in time to see Simone yanked away from Ylva, that one moment of true anguish on her face before rage settled over it.Then pain of a different sort as something seized her. Now the pain on her was real, as she seemed to struggle for air. Jazen froze at the display of power for a moment...and to who was causing it. Io'an. The surge was coming from him? Passive, calm Io'an? Truly the quiet ones were the worst. And that brief moment of pause cost Ylva again, as Vance appeared and flung what seemed to be the entire street at her. She took it too, took it and landed hard. But within seconds she was rising to her feet, stumbling away to the bike she had slammed into. Staggered onto it and started the engine, and her heard her voice through the Chorus warning him away.

"I'm right behind you." He answered back before he rained grenades down between her and the others, explosive and smoke, to cover her retreat, his retreat. As blasters from other infected started firing, attempting to put a wall between them and Ylva as he fled. Jazen was right on her heel, landing on a speeder bike left by one of the others, gunning after her, a brief glance back towards the Eye as he did. "Till we meet again...my friends." And off he surged after her, wondering how far she'd get before her injuries required her to stop.

[Rugs]

No sooner had Io’an yelled at Ylva to leave than he became dimly aware, in some corner of his mind, of Vance arriving. Vance, he wondered, thoughs thick and sluggish as the Force raged through him, does that mean Forte’s gone?

A blast of the Force erupted from Vance’s outstretched hand, heaving up great chunks of the ruined street and throwing it forward like a great wave breaking onto shore. Ylva tumbled back.

I could have... Io’an felt a drip of something wet and warm on his hand as he lowered it. He squinted dumbly at the red splotch, slick in the light, that had splattered near the base of his thumb. Where did that come from? Why did he taste copper?

I could have killed her

Somewhere in the distance, a speeder revved up, the roar of its engine rumbling across the shattered walkway. It was loud, but strangely muted against the constant dum-dum of blood rushing through his head. Io’an winced without realizing it, putting a hand to his aching head.

Oh Force, I could have killed her.

There was Forte, armor dirtied by battle, throwing down grenades as he followed Ylva into a hasty retreat. Io’an watched them go, too tired to follow and uncaring if they got away, as long as they left the Eye alone. A few stragglers remained behind, firing in their direction, but they too faded into the distance as the Eye’s defenders fought back.

Why did I...? How...?

Io’an stumbled forward, feeling dizzy. His lightsaber, dragging in a loose grip beside him, left a drifting, wobbly trail. Ylva had dropped something. He leaned over to pick it up, squinting. A mass of credits chips? That was odd.

I could have killed her.

Io’an felt suddenly sick. His stomach wanted to turn in on itself, and he blanched as if about to vomit. His lightsaber’s lavender blade blinked away as he dropped the hilt, which clattered to the ground beside him. He half sank, half fell to one knee, feeling tears well in his eyes. Another drop of sanguine red left a wet spot in the busted, tortured duracrete.

The Force sounded like a sea in storm roaring around him, drowning out everything else but the oppressive, unrelenting thumping of his heart pulsing through his ears. Io’an’s breathing grew quick, frantic as he struggled to free himself, to find his center.

In an instant, it was all gone. He released his hold on the Force and it snapped away like a rope under tension. The rushing sound was gone, leaving the unsteady silence that lingered on in this temporary calm around the Eye. But the heartbeat, sounding like a giant’s footsteps, remained.

“Vance,” he said, as the strain on his weary body came rushing to him all at once. “Vance, I...”

Io’an’s surroundings blurred abruptly as the sidewalk came up to meet him. The last thing he heard, as the world faded to darkness, was the Chorus laughing quietly.

“You have talent, child, though this song was beyond you. Fear not; we will teach you.”

[Fromikeable]

The street cleared as the wave of the Force barreled through, smashing against the street itself, the sides of buildings, and everything between. When Ylva's feet left the ground, Vance spread his fingers, giving the push the extra burst it needed to ensure she went head over heels. Taking a second to watch, Vance sucked in a few ragged breaths, his expenditure in the fight starting to catch up with him. But the moment Ylva slammed into her speeder and began to move again, his feet were shuffling forward, pressing through the aches and pains that consumed them to gear up for another charge.

Before he could get back into a sprint, the speeder was starting, and she was rocketing off. Looking upward, Vance was already cocking back his saber-holding arm, getting ready to fling it. Grenades fell to meet him, exploding in clouds of thick smoke. Biting back a grunt of irritation, Vance's free arm waved, the gas being forced to spread out enough to see.

It was only when he saw Jazen already in the distance that he finally slumped, heaving for breath. Deactivating his saber with a hiss, his shoulders dropped as he finally turned around.

"Fuck." The murmur to himself was accompanied by a whip of his head, his hands coming to his hips in a less-than-pleased pose. "Hertz, can you hear me? I need a new squad to Crimson ASAP. Medics too, get another room rea-"

"Vance." Turning to Io'an, an annoyed "what" prepared to jump from Vance's lips when he watched his friend collapse in a heap, a strange amalgamation of credits rolling from his hand to dropped saber.

"Io'an!" Shuffling over, Vance quickly rolled him over. A few quick taps on his suit's wrist displayed the Sephi's biometrics; strained, hurt, but above all, only unconscious. Quickly gathering his friend's saber and newest miniature piece of art, he stowed both on Io'an's belt before picking him up, one arm hooked under his knees, the other under his shoulders.

What few Exchange personnel remained finally emerged from cover. Vance was quick to bark orders. "One of you come with me, bring him." Pointing out the Jolly Janitor with his chin, one of them moved to do so, the rest shuffling and checking themselves. "The rest of you, don't move until you're relieved. Hold the checkpoint."

The man picking up Simone, a young Duro with yellow armor, couldn't help but choke out a panicked response. "WHAT checkpoint?"

With a scowl, Vance closed his eyes and waved a few fingers. The building he had charged through shook before it began to list, the sound of duracrete and durasteel snapping in equal measure. Opening his eyes, the building suddenly lurched, collapsing into the street in a cloud of dust. When it cleared, the street was completely blocked just a block before the still-burning checkpoint, a four story building's worth of rubble forming an obstacle the size of a large hill.

"That checkpoint." Without another word, Vance began marching back to the Eye, Io'an and Simone in tow.