2008-05-29 - Vengeance's Wrath

The holovid message is brief and very dark, the lights flickering on and off in the background. "Haquien Maut," a voice hisses, "you know who I am. I do not think an explanation is necessary. You can sense me as I sense you. I think that it is time for this charade to end, and for one of us to fall, once and for all. You Jedi have been alarmingly unaware of my presence, and this goes against my purpose, and so I've done something to force you to notice me."
The red blade of his lightsaber extends, banishing the shadows to the corners of the room and lighting up the face of Briseis. The blade hovers dangerously close to her face, so that the scalding heat can be felt. "Come to Mustafar and find me within a day or she dies." The message cuts to black. 
As the red of the lightsaber lights Bri's face, it highlights a sudden expression of horror and anger as her head whips sideways to stare at the masked figure who stands next to her. Realization and recognition join in the same instant with decision, and the previously-cooperative Guard Captain moves in the last instant of the message to bend and charge forward, an attempt to drive into the figure's gut with the blunt of her shoulder, an angry howl escaping with wild rage.
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance ignites his red lightsaber.
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> You lash out at Vengeance with your fists!
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance dodges Briseis's attack.
 
Red eyes whir and Vengeance slips out of the way, evading her tackle like the Reggie Bush of the Sith. A hiss escapes him. "What, you /really/ thought I was going to ransom you?" He laughs, a horrible grating sound, reaching for his pistol. 
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance wields his Merr Sonn DSZ Shock Pistol.
Briseis draws back slightly, her heavy armor slowing movement as she finds her balance and eyes the figure before her warily. "What do you want?" she spits toward him in a moment's pause. "I will not-- I will /not/ be used to draw him here!" Her voice rises to a scream at the last, and she rushes forward again, headlong and reckless, with no particular sign of any blows forthcoming - just the rushing tackle.
As she bears down on him, the pistol is calmly set to stun and raised, a stun bolt sent straight at the head levelled at him. "You already have. Now go to sleep," he grates, stepping belatedly out of the way only to be caught on the leg and brought to the ground, hard. 
The momentum of Bri's run carries her forward even after the stun catches her, and her arms wrap around Vengeance in her last moment of consciousness. She sprawls atop him in a heap, boneless and helpless, and does not move. Tears are wet upon her face, making long tracks down the dirty smudge of cheeks. Her breathing settles into something light and even. She sleeps. Of a sort.
Vengeance wriggles out from under Briseis, kicking her stunned form distastefully in vague annoyance and then dragging her across the floor to the wall, where he handcuffs her to a heavy piece of machinery. Then he waits. 
Haquien spends the next hour in contemplation. Eventually, though, he rises. For several hours he is consumed by writing letters, making arrangements, and the like. Tired and bleary-eyed, he finally makes his way off of Coruscant.
In the cockpit he allows his droid to pilot him to the rarely visited system. When the landing cycle begins he awakens, frowning, and pilots the V19 down onto the landing pad. Once there he disembarks, leaving the droid, who whines in complaint and beeps sadly.
The young Jedi walks further inward, his robes swaying behind him in a flurry as hot air blows past him.
Sensing Haquien's presence close by, Vengeance prepares the room, finding another pair of handcuffs to secure Briseis to the wall, and then he steps into the shadows, hiding behind a piece of gutted machinery and pulling out his rifle. 
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance wields his Merr Sonn TM8 Repeater.
Haquien steps to the side of the door when it opens, behind cover. He's quiet for a moment.
Waiting outside, he closes his eyes.
Briseis has long since come to, but after a fast check of every inch of the machine she's cuffed to, she's fallen into a still and helpless silence. Her head lifts instantly as Vengeance approaches, and she does not move from machine to wall without a fight. She twists and buckles, kicks and drags and spits at the mask that covers his face. Her voice is a low, threatening growl in the back of her throat, but in the end she is just as cuffed to the wall as she was to the machine. Her head snaps toward the door, staring as Vengeance disappears into the shadows. For a moment she waits, tense.
After a moment, Haquien speaks, "I know what you want, Petrus. But let her go. This is between us, not her. I have my fighter set to autopilot and it will lead her out of the system. Then you and I can finish our business."
"I don't think so, Maut," the voice hisses from the shadows. "I think that you need some motivation. What better motivation than this?" The voice comes from the shadows, red eyes clicking and whirring from the shadows, something held in his hand. 
At the sound of Haquien's voice, Bri's head lifts instantly. Her voice raises a second later, in a forceful shout that speaks nearly at the same time as the hissing voice from the shadows. "/No/! Go home, Haquien! Turn and go!"
"And I think you know that I'll stay," Haquien replies.
"Besides, if I try and flee, I wouldn't put it past you to just shoot me in the back." He pauses. "Now, let her go. We both know she has nothing to do with this."
He decides, quite simply, to force the issue. "No. You'll have to free her yourself," the voice grates, and something is clicked, beeping rapidly. Vengeance rises from the shadows, flinging the thermal detonator, and it clatters along the steel ground and lands next to Briseis, clicking ominously. Three ... two ... he lifts the rifle again, and perhaps behind the mask, something resembling a smile twists across his face. 
Briseis' hand jerks hard in her cuff, rattling loudly with the clang of metal on metal. "Like /frak/ I don't-- /Haquien/." Her voice is urgent and desperate, shouting toward his unseen position. "Don't you dare fraking ignore me-- go /home/. Haq--- /shit/." Her voice changes at the clatter of the detonator and the clang of metal becomes more frantic as Bri works harder at that cuff, jerking her hand with every intention of outright dislocating her thumb if it will let her hand squeeze through and free. "Shit shit shit," she chants with every tick.
 
Haquien sighs and grits his teeth and then steps forward and reaches out with his hand.
The detonator flies towards him, to the door, and then beyond. A moment after exiting it explodes, sending Haquien flying across the room and sprawling across the floor.
The entryway into the facility is a little wider, and some of the machinery rattles and knocks loose.
Vengeance is remarkably patient, waiting for the right shot; then the rifle comes to life, a red blaster bolt sailing towards Haquien, red eyes clicking and whirring as they follow its path. 
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance fires his Merr Sonn TM8 Repeater at Haquien!
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance's blaster bolt hits and moderately wounds Haquien.
Briseis turns at the explosion, jerking sideways hard enough to wrench her shoulder painfully. "/Haquien/!" Her voice skitters with fear and rage, and her pause lasts only a moment before she turns forward again and grits her teeth, twisting her hand in its cuff.
Haquien presses his hand to the ground and is struck by red laser-fire. He winces and stands, taking out his lightsaber, which springs to life.
With a tired, dull chop he slices through Briseis' bonds, and the machine that keeps her pinned.
"Run," he breathes.
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Haquien ignites his green lightsaber.
 
Vengeance has Haquien where he wants him, and whether or not Briseis is freed is of little importance -- he knows she will be only a distraction for Haquien, or at least, so he thinks. He pulls something else out from under the machinery, activating it and flinging it at them both -- a missile drone!
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance wields his Heat-Seeker Missile Drone.
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance fires his Heat-Seeker Missile Drone at Haquien!
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Haquien raises his hand and deflects Vengeance's rocket.
Briseis pulls her arms free with a sudden stagger and spins toward Haquien. Her braid has long since slipped free from its coil at the back of her head, and it swings around with the force of it. "/No!/" she says, and her eyes widen abruptly as the drone shoots toward them. Instincts have her diving to one side even as Haquien raises his hand to deflect it.
Haquien raises his hand and the rocket stops, then diverts into the wall between the two combatents.
He raises his hand when a wave of fire approaches him and recoils, sighing. "/Go/" he says, again, through gritted teeth.
A moment later he leaps over a bit of malfunctioning machinery and swings his saber at Vengeance.
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Haquien swings his green lightsaber at Vengeance!
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance ignites his red lightsaber and tries to parry!
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance parries Haquien's green lightsaber with his red lightsaber.
The lightsaber leaps into Vengeance's hand, red blade igniting as it is lifted and catches the green, the two blades crackling and hissing together as he struggles for control. He rises out, the red and green light casting a satanic glow over his steel mask, teeth bared behind the mouth-hole of his mask. Hissing, he twists, blade hissing through the hot air in an uppercut swing towards Haquien's legs. 
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance swings his red lightsaber at Haquien's legs!
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Haquien parries Vengeance's red lightsaber with his green lightsaber.
Briseis rolls to her feet, her muscles cramped and slow to respond. Her voice is low and desperate as she stares at Haquien. "I cannot /leave/ you," she says. But neither can she help, lacking blaster or pistol or rocks to throw. For a moment she stares helplessly, half-hidden by some remnant of a machine as she watches red flash after green.
 
Haquien breathes heavily when the two lightsabers meet in an almost familiar way.
Gritting his teeth, he backs away, towards the exit. "I'll be right behind you," he tells her. "AM-21 is waiting, and Dunerunner has weapons onboard. Come on, hurry!"
He steps out through the busted doorway.
<FONT COLOR=#33CC00>FORCE:</FONT> You establish telepathic contact with Vengeance and transmit a calm feeling and a vision: Petrus, in a Naval Uniform, stands beside Stella Tari in an old photograph..
Mustafar: Fiery Chasm
There is a dull roar that comes trembling up from the depths of this great chasm, and it is the sound of hissing violence held in check and raging at its bonds. The fissure plunges down some three hundred feet and the walls reach up, jagged stone piling upon jagged stone to form the inside of a great cone.
This place is lit from below by the seething red light of a lake of magma that boils and froths, sending great splatters of liquid stone and metal striving upwards. Occasionally one of these flares reaches too high, and the annoyed flicker of a deflector shield ripples with static as it throws the super-heated fluid back down into the depths. High up, where even the harsh light of molten rock cannot follow, the pinnacles of the chamber disappear into gloomy, fume-choked shadow, and are illuminated infrequently by the flickering lightning shown through the open crater of the roof.
On the east and western sides small shelves of natural stone have been leveled to make rough overlooks jutting not more than twenty feet from the sloping walls of the cone at their widest. From the center of these shelves a wide, ashen-gray bridge of scored and pitted stone reaches forth to span the hellish drop. There are no walls or hand-rails on the bridge, and despite being twenty feet wide it seems small in the enormity of the chasm.
On the eastern side of the bridge a small tunnel has been bored into the living stone and it reaches upward immediately in a flight of uneven steps. On the western side stand the mouths of two tunnels: one which continues straight west and downward, and the other which goes off at an angle before turning a corner to drive due south. Next to this southern tunnel stands a simple control panel with a single display screen, the whole of which is obscured with grime and deposits from the thick, harsh atmosphere.
HAZARD: Vengeance suffers the severe heat of the Fiery Chasm! The hazard moderately wounds him.
At first, Vengeance is calm, striding after them quickly with his hand disappearing into his robes to pull out another heat-seeking drone; then he suddenly stops, teeth gritting beneath the mask, red eyes for a moment blank and unmoving. Then a roar of hatred escapes his mouth and he hurls the drone, not directed at Ha ... but at the bridge beneath them! It buzzes and explodes in a flash of heat and force against the bridge, and stone splits and cracks, the bridge shaking, the side connected to the laboratory snapping as it starts to fall downwards into the chasm...
Now he follows, running up the stone bridge, targeting shifting...
Briseis moves the instant that Haquien does, booted feet pounding against the room's surface with an empty echo. She nods breathlessly, glancing only briefly over her shoulder toward Vengeance as she moves at a full sprint to catch up with Haquien. She staggers at the first shake, then falls heavily forward, catching herself on her hands. She's up again with quick reflexes, gaze lifted urgently to find Haquien again as she pushes upward against the tilting bridge, feet climbing at an urgent pace that's nowhere near fast enough.
Haquien falls and takes hold of a hand grip, then stands, leaning forward.
He speaks into his comsystem while he moves up, then says, to Briseis, "You're going to make it through this." The bridge shifts further, dropping into the lake of lava. It begins to melt and burn. "Trust me."
He looks up again, then moves up towards Petrus' position. "Did that upset you?" he wonders. "Notice how I'm able to save the woman I love, Petrus. You failed your's. Do you ever wonder why?"
<FONT COLOR=#FBB917>COMSYS:</FONT> (all channels) Haquien says, "Yes, we're there. Hurry up."
 
"Really?" the voice hisses from beneath the mask. "What makes you so certain?" The red eyes remain impassive, but his hand drops back and he throws his lightsaber upwards -- but not at Haquien... 
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance throws his lightsaber at Briseis!
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance's flying red lightsaber hits and mauls Briseis.
"The both of us," Briseis replies fiercely as she scrambles upward just as the last of the rock crumbles beneath her feet and falls away. Her hand extends toward Haquien in the moment before Vengeance speaks, and there's a flash of clear and firm belief in her eyes. The lightsaber cuts through the stifling heat, flashing red warning that comes far too quickly to serve Briseis any good. It catches her hard, slicing through the thick protection of her armor as if it's not even there. The blade melts away the flesh and muscle of her left thigh, scoring a thick portion of her leg and revealing the white of bone before it falls with a clatter and rolls to one sigh. Bri's scream fills the air as she falls forward, and the smell of burnt flesh joys the putrid stink of the lava gases in the air.
A small, dark blot appears on the horizon. It swoops down, into the fiery chasm, and moves under Briseis, then rises.. A small, box-headed droid looks up from the front of the ship.
"Boop, boop, bweep!" he proclaims suddenly. The hatch opens and it calls out again, "Woo-wooie weep!"
"She'll live," Haquien assures Vengeance. "You see, I understand something that you don't. You aren't a dedicated man, Petrus." Haquien smiles after he uses the Clone's own words against him.
He whispers something while he continues climbing up.
Haquien whispers, "Your brother's blood runs through her veins." to Vengeance.
Vengeance follows, the red eyes clicking and whirring as the bridge cracks and shifts. "In a few seconds we'll both be dead," he notes cheerfully, blade swinging at Haquien's legs above him as they both climb towards the swiftly separating bridge. 
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance swings his red lightsaber at Haquien's legs!
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Vengeance's red lightsaber meets Haquien's green lightsaber with a crackling hiss. The fighters struggle for the upper hand ... 
<FONT COLOR=#FFFF00>COMBAT:</FONT> Haquien's green lightsaber is struck from his hand and deactivated.
The sound of Bri's voice echoes as she's lifted up and away from the pair, carrying pain and protest and fear in her wordless cry that, on occasion, breaks into Haquien's name. After several minutes it disappears sharply, bluntly cut off as the searing pain of hermanagled leg overcomes all other attempts at protest or movement, and Briseis passes out cold into the only blissful peace she is likely to know for some time.
The lightsaber is struck from Haquien's hand. It tumbles down and thunks onto Dunerunner, where the little, and perhaps annoying droid, grabs it it with an extendable arm.
"Woohoo!" he proclaims triumphantly. Afterwards the hatch closes and locks, tucking Briseis in, and Dunerunner lifts up into the air.
Shaking his head, Haquien says, "You only know betrayal. You betrayed Stella, because you obeyed your master. You betrayed your own brother, Amalfiel, when you fell to the Dark Side. And you betrayed Rem. You, supposedly the most innocent, revered for it, are now nothing but a murderer with a lightsaber."
He stands up and rushes Vengeance. "But don't worry. You'll see her again. I promise."
"I never betrayed her!" Vengeance's voice comes, cracking, becoming all too human even when it comes from such an inhuman exterior. The red eyes betray no emotion, but his voice does -- regret, remorse, a deep sadness ... and resignation. As the shape of Haquien falls towards him, the red blade lifts, a slow simple motion -- the blade between him and Haquien as the two bodies crush together, both men toppling from the cracking bridge and falling, falling ... the man who was once Petrus silent, wordless, emotionless save only a few words: "What's done cannot be undone." 
Haquien doesn't wince when the red blade slices through him, and out his back.
"You did," he whispers when they fall. Air rushes past them, and clouds of ash overtake their bodies while they fall into oblivion.
"Your destiny doesn't shape who you are, Petrus," the Jedi continues. "Remember that."
There's only silence from Haquien afterwards.
Perhaps there was a reply. Perhaps. If there was, it was lost in the black smoke, the ash, the heat. There is nothing now but the dull roar of Mustafar, of the passing of time.
Category:May 2008 RP Logs