Darkness in the desert(buggie)

[Master Buggie]

Buggie's senses perked up; the sentient he was after was moving, and he was moving fast! That was a game that Buggie was equipped to match, though, as leaped over a chasm from one landing platform to another and sped toward along the outside edge of the spaceport toward where he sensed the dark essence that followed the armored sentient. Surely, in a normal setting, this would attract much undue attention, but on a world such as Cato Neimoidia, where one could only see so far as they could throw a stone, no one was any the wiser of the high-speed, Force-fueled pursuit taking place. Buggie ducked and weaved around spaceport cargo containers, landing struts, and other structures in his way, before finally coming to a rope bridge that extended from one craggy outcropping to another. The bridge connected the section of the spaceport where Buggie had landed to the one where his quarry was located. Buggie could feel the presence moving close, and he could almost anticipate being able to intercept the armored sentient on the other side.

Carefully proceeding along the bridge, Buggie did find that the going was more slow, if only because a misstep at that speed could send him careening down into an endless fall. All the while as he proceeded, the dark essence grew nearer. As he reached the center of the bridge, a gust of wind blew him unsteadily toward one side. Grabbing the supports built in to the side of the bridge, Buggie righted himself, but the experience jolted him into being more cautious. Still, Buggie's resolve could not be stronger in this moment. Just a matter of a few dozen steps, and Buggie could be clear of this bridge and confront the dark presence on the other side!

[Neive Undant]

Prazutis jumped down from the rooftops, approaching the landing pad of which he had come onto the planet from. He turned, the Jedi's presence near, but moving slowly. Prazutis narrowed his eyes before he saw a bridge... unstable, hanging on by a few ropes and supports. Just this fact made Prazutis almost laugh to himself. Such a position this Jedi was in, he thought to himself. It couldn't have been more perfect.
The Jedi wasn't too far now, but as Prazutis ignited his blood red blade, he hoped that this act would widen the gap between the two. Pulling back, he gave one swing of his lightsaber, slicing the bridge apart from the platform he stood on. Putting away his lightsaber, he watched the bridge fall as he walked back towards his ship. He doubted that the Jedi would have taken the fall to its demise, but he also didn't think it would be able to make it to his platform, at least not before he was able to leave.

[Master Buggie]

Uh oh, Buggie thought, as a figure emerged from the haze and approached the edge of the bridge he was crossing.

Buggie kept moving forward, still feeling out with his senses to make sure who he thought was standing at the edge of the bridge really was the armored sentient he had been pursuing. Sure enough, with the hallmark snap-hiss of a red bladed lightsaber, Buggie's concerns were verified. The sentient was standing at the end of the bridge, the vibrant blade of the lightsaber casting a red hue around his considerable size.

As the lightsaber rose above the sentient's head, Buggie immediately realized what was happening.

"Oh frak meee!" Buggie blurted, now running full speed as fast as the Force could carry him.

The blade passed through the supports of the bridge, and Buggie already felt the bridge begin to fall out from under him. With his last step, he pushed off with the Force as hard as he could manage, the bridge falling away into the abyss behind him. For that briefest of moments, time seemed to flow at half speed. His limbs still moving as if he were running, Buggie cascaded in mid-air toward the edge of the platform, and, by extension, the man standing at the edge of it, lightsaber in hand. A lightning-quick thought passed through Buggie's mind as he saw himself being bisected before ever gaining his feet on the platform.

Reaching out and feeling the Force, Buggie sent a burst of telekinetic energy coursing toward the armored man, if only to give Buggie some space to hit the ground. The byproduct of this action was that Buggie's momentum was curbed, and he found himself falling short of the platform! Reaching out as the edge of the platform drew near, Buggie grabbed one of several light beacons that were stationed around the landing platform, in order to guide in vessels though the dense fog. While Buggie didn't weigh a lot, the force of his arms grabbing the light beacon and his body wrenching it sideways as he impacted the side of the platform loosened the beacon from its moorings.

With a cry, Buggie felt the beacon give way, toppling off the side of the platform and taking him with it into the obscurity below.

[Neive Undant]

Prazutis had just started to step away when he saw the ridiculous image of the verpine almost running on air towards the platform. He had to think on his feet to keep him from getting a clear balance on the platform. Rather than using his lightsaber, his hand shot out, a wall of telekinetic impetus pushed towards the Jedi, only to be matched with on of his own. The shock from the meeting of forces knocked Prazutis back a bit, but as he noticed, also cost the verpine whatever chance of landing he had. Seeing the beacon tear off the side of the platform, Prazutis narrowed his eyes. Walking towards the edge and peering over, he confirmed that the Jedi had indeed fallen into the abyss of fog and rock below.
Upon his lack of vision, he sighed and walked back to his ship, putting away the red blade of his lightsaber and preparing to depart from the Alliance world.

[Master Buggie]

A blaster bolt coursed through the air, traveling directly above the armored sentient's shoulder and slamming against the hull of his starship. Of course, with the strength of modern starship hulls, the blaster bolt didn't do anything except leave a streak of carbon scoring, but it did catch the attention of the Force user who had just attempted to make Buggie fall to his death.

"The next one won't miss," Buggie warned, keeping his blaster raised.

Buggie's sudden appearance might have come as a surprise to the Force user, particularly since it seemed that he had only trusted what his eyes were telling him as he peered over the edge to make sure that Buggie had fallen. In reality, the beacon ripping itself from the deck of the landing pad had nearly cast Buggie down into the abyss. To his fortune, the beacon hanging onto its moorings for the briefest of moments allowed Buggie to concentrate the Force energy within his body. As he slid off the landing pad, Buggie caught just enough of the bottom edge to adhere to the surface, like a reptile clinging to the side of a wall. Once he had secured himself and quieted his mind from the close call, Buggie skittered further beneath the landing pad. By the time the armored man loomed over the edge himself, Buggie was long out of sight.

But now, it seemed the tables had turned!

As Buggie's senses probed at the man, he was surprised to find that the man had a Force aura distinctly different from the dark presence he had sensed upon Tatooine. Had the dark presence merged with the sentient's own Force aura? What was the meaning of this?

"Who are you?" Buggie asked, "Why do I sense you're so strong in the dark side of the Force? What happened to you on Tatooine?"

Buggie made to advance upon the man, but, due to the poor visibility, failed to address the divot in the landing pad's pavement left by the beacon he had ripped out minutes earlier. Tripping, the blaster flew from Buggie's hand and skittered into the murk and out of his line of sight. Buggie scrambled to get back up, getting to his feet, only to realize that he was now at a disadvantage, thanks to a wicked twist of fate.

[Neive Undant]

Prazutis froze as he watched the blaster bolt, slowly turning as his lightsaber hung on his belt loop once again. He quietly heard the man's questioning, before smiling as he watched the blaster fall into the abyss, knowing the gun couldn't pull the same trick as the former holder.
"I'd rather not waste time here... I became more powerful because I needed to. That's all you need to know..." He replied, his golden eyes piercing into the verpine.
"But if you'd like to find out just how strong I am... then I'd be happy to oblige." His lightsaber flew to his left hand, igniting the blood red blade that he had used so many times before.
"You aren't a traditional Jedi... but nonetheless, I've destroyed others like you. You will be no different."
And with that, he pushed off the platform, his back foot propelling him forward to attack the force user

((OOC: equipment

Lightsaber
Mandalorian Armor
))

[Salem Norongachi]

Buggie Wins: 20xp, Minor Wounds.
Neive Loses: 5xp, Minor Wounds.

A guttural roar filled the air as Neive struck, his rage and his blade falling upon the defenseless Verpine Master. The ferocity of the attack could only send Buggie rolling sidewards and he rose to his foe pressing his advantage with impunity. His compound eyes, more adept at reading movement, coupled with the years of Force discipline kept him ahead of the assault. As the blade arced up he dipped below, as it fell, he danced aside.

The sheer fury in his assailants eyes told him that this offensive would never cease, that it was only a matter of time until his step faltered, or his senses betrayed him, before he felt the bite of crimson plasma. A feint right from Nieve swiftly transitioning into a shallow jab toward his thorax confirmed his assumptions, he could still feel the heat of the blade on his side even as they began the slow circling of predator and prey.

He needed to even the odds.

Buggie calmed his mind. Let the Force find him, fill him, cast out all doubt and trepidations and let him touch upon clarity. It took a fraction of a second to achieve this state but so quick was Neive to sense the momentary lapse that his saber was already falling, so close to the Verpines head that the dark eyes seemed to catch fire.

“There is the Force…”

The blade fell and even as the thought fired through his synapses the world became a still. A snapshot of reality of which the Master Jedi was no longer beholden to. He slipped around his fate, squared his footing, and all of time came crashing back down upon them. He threw himself forward, colliding with his attackers midsection and sending them to the ground.

The breath flew from the Darkside adept. He didn't have to time to contemplate why his foe wasn't dead or how he had avoided his blow. There was only the moment and the crack of his ribs and spine as they met the unforgiving stone. The Darkside raged in his mind, a pulsating thump-thump-thump that would never cease, would never stop, until the Verpine was a smear, another casualty of his desire, and it gave voice to a wordless roar. His free hand found those vulnerable eyes and tried to gouge at them while his blade hand attempted to rake the spine of the Jedi. All the while the Verpine thwarted him, the tri-clawed hands found his wrists and wrestled them away. They rolled, fought, grunting as supremacy was sought.

Neive sent all the strength he had into his left leg and brought it up, driving it into the side of Buggie who lay atop him. The wince was all he needed, and he forced the momentum to gain the upper position but was only for a moment and he snarled as the nimble insect reversed their positions once again. He lay there, looking up into that entirely alien face, his heart pounding and his blood turned to acid by his singular desire to erase his foe and felt that desire become manifest in the Force. He drove it up his arm, felt the power in his grip around his saber hilt but rather than use it to propel the blade downwards he broke the Verpines hold and dragged that mandabled face toward his own.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” he screamed before his armoured head and upper body rose up like a piston and drove plasteel into exoskeleton.

Buggie was forcibly thrown by the impact but not before he aimed a fist toward the saber hilt and sent it flying from Neives hand. It was a victory -an important one- but considering the pain in his head and his uncontrolled roll across the ground it certainly didn't feel like it.

Stars greeted him. A dazzling array of them, snapping in and out of his vision before he heard the scuffle of his enemy finding his feet and rose to meet him, staggering as a wave of dizziness washed across him.

They stood facing each other, Buggie clearly the worse for wear in their exchange and he let out a low breath before raising one hand and beaconing the Darksider forward. Neive didn’t disappoint in the challenge and broke into a sprint, closing the half dozen feet between them before launching into a series of short jabs. The Master, his faculties returned, watched impassively. He moved with ease when the blows came, flowed quicker into space, and covered the ground more convincingly. The contest was over, the winner decided.

A haymaker from the right, blocked by a forearm and retorted with a short straight, reinforced by the power of the Force, to the stomach sent Neive gasping backwards. Buggie shook his arm -force or no- flesh was never meant to meet Plasteel.

The Imperial staggered backwards and fell, his armoured knees hitting rock almost as quickly as he threw off his helmet and his stomach contents emptied onto the ground. His pain receptors, his common sense, begged him to call it a day but he threw all of it aside as a gauntleted hand ripped across his lips and he threw a snarl up at the Verpine.

A mailed fist pounded the ground, his ineptitude given form. He rose, with it as an anchor, more than willing to see this confrontation to its bitter end. Then the flickers of light found him, harsh blue bolts of snaking electricity that coiled around his body, forgoing the protection of his armour and leaching into the flesh beneath. The rage, the blessed anger he had felt, used, and manipulated to sustain him began to ebb away under the calm, patient, indulgence of his foe.

Nieve looked up at the outstretched hand, the dancing lances of electricity that found root in his body and grinned a manic smile. While the will was in him, while the battering ram of the Darkside pounded at his soul he wouldn't let it end like this and so he drew up what reservoirs he had, from the depths of his broken psyche, from the recesses of his every black deed and poured them forth from his mouth. He became one with the flame then, a conduit of fire, it roared from his open maw, cascading and flowing over and around him like a seeking serpent to turn his foe to ash. They’d burn, one or both. And he’d win.

The fire lept and snapped at Buggies heels but he didn’t relent, he let his body be a conduit, a living vessel of the lightside, and the coiling fingers of electricity ensnared Neive and what was a wave of flame died down to a trickle and then nothing at all. The Jedi Master breathed a sigh of relief, his body aching with fatigue from the overexertion of the Force and looked down at his foe. Defeated, although bested would be a strong word. A few years later, this could very well have been a different battle, the Verpine thought. He turned on his heel then and felt the earth snatched from beneath him.

Sky became ground and ground became sky, it was only pure instinct that sent his telekinetic powers outwards and he and Neive became a mirror. Arms outstretched, ripping the other from gravities clutches and tumbling over the edge of the docking platform.

The fall was far from pleasant for either and they fell in a jagged parallel until the Master, through luck or skill, found his body slammed against a rock shelf. Neive, his energy spent, fell further still, every crash against the unforgiving rock a reminder that he had failed. Before the river below took his body in its embrace.

[Neive Undant]

shivering...

He was cold.

But who is he?

He is a man with two faces. Each represent the light and dark.

We have seen this before, no?

not like this.

"So... you failed."
Prazutis opened his eyes, the familiar white sky above him welcoming him.
Sitting up, Prazutis saw the Dathomiri fauna, and beside him, a young zabrak looking out past the vegetation.
"I told you... you can't do everything on your own."
Annoyed, Prazutis stood.
"You would have been beaten by him just as I! At least I held my own!"
The zabrak calmly looked up at him, his face neutral.
"Your goal is to steal the crystal from a master... that verpine, although well trained, doesn't even seem like a legitimate Jedi. How can you let yourself be beaten by such squabble?"
Prazutis, enraged, brought out his lightsaber.
"If I can't kill him, maybe I'll just have to take your life instead..."
The zabrak gave an amused smile, and a soft chuckle.
"You know you can't. You've tried several times..."
Prazutis paused. He remembered this man... he remembered who he used to be, at least.
"I thought I had killed you when I exterminated that group of GA members..." He asked, shocked. His mouth was agape, yet it didn't feel like his own mouth. As if the helmet matched his facial expression...
"The force provides everything I need... those people you killed were not lost, but simply became one with the force. I don't mourn them... I miss them, I wish they were alive, but it does not bring me sorrow."
Prazutis narrowed his eyes. When did this man become so disciplined in the Jedi's beliefs? Had he communed with the 2 jedi he had killed? With his former allies? Prazutis wasn't sure...
"Why... why are you here?!" Prazutis shouted at him, enraged, grieving...
"Only giving you warning... One day, you're going to be beaten. And I'm going to fix everything you destroy in this galaxy."
Prazutis narrowed his eyes, igniting the blood red blade of his lightsaber. With a low growl, he stepped into his form. Slowly, he watched the Zabrak rise, bringing out his own lightsaber... a blade as blue as the oceans of Kamino.
With a thundering roar, Prazutis walked towards the man.
"Hear my words, Neive Undant! I will destroy you!"
A bright flash of light crashed from the blades merging, and for a moment, everything went white... then black.


Prazutis opened his yellow eyes once again, looking up at the cliffside he now faced. unfamiliar, he thought for a moment. He had been carried by the river and now sat on the bank. He looked down, against the current, to see that the landing pad his ship sat on was about 3 miles away... how long had he been out, he wondered?
He couldn't move... at least not yet. He needed to go back... for his lightsaber, his helmet, his ship... He couldn't leave them all behind. But he also couldn't stand at the moment, the water making his already aching muscles tense and lock on him. He could only rest for now, let his body catch up with its current state and regain his strength before he moved again.

[Master Buggie]

Buggie coughed an indeterminate amount of time later, sending a plume of dirt and filth over the edge of the outcropping he had been deposited on. Fortunately he had skidded along a rock face, which slowed his descent enough that his body had not sustained serious damage once he impacted the surface of the stone ledge. His head was pulsating with pain; not from catching a stone or two on the way down, but from catching an armored helmet to the face. Armored fingers had probed his bulbous eyes, and while he didn't sustain any serious injury there, the dirt he had kicked up upon landing had settled on his multifaceted lenses, irritating his vision. Most importantly, the tools he would need to climb back up to the landing pad's elevation, his hands, were in a serious amount of pain, and the range of motion of his fingers had been affected by striking the armored plate several times.

Pushing his battered body up from the stone ledge, Buggie coughed again, this time bodily fluid dripping out from between his mandibles. If only he had his blaster, this brawl would perhaps have ended much more painlessly for him...

Looking up at the rock face, or a least however much he could see, Buggie got to his feet unsteadily and sunk his pained hands into the crevices, searching for a manageable hold. It would be a long climb, and the Force Adhere technique came in handy multiple times throughout, but after at least two hours of rigorous climb, Buggie finally had his feet back on terra firma. The exertion left him feeling worse than he had upon regaining his awareness on the stone outcropping, but he was safe, and that was what mattered.

Where once he had cursed the fog that surrounded everything upon Cato Neimoidia, now he was thankful for it. As he shambled back to his ship, Buggie was glad to not have to look upon concerned gazes of those that passed by him. Soon enough, he was alone once more, in the Varsity's small, but useful medical bay. Taking a page from Grand Master Eryk Aiden's own Novalis, the Lambda-class T-4a shuttle sported a cramped medical center attended to by Buggie's worrisome medical droid, Doc. The medical bay was cramped for two reasons: it was made to service only one sentient at a time, and there was a slim form factor bacta tank eating up a considerable amount of room. Buggie's astromech droid could pilot them out of the system whenever Buggie gave the signal, which he was able to do via communication in the native Verpine language using his antennae, since his droid had been tuned to communicate with him that way. He had no need to sit in a pilot's seat; his priority would be submerging himself in the thick, healing liquid for as long as it took for his head to stop pounding.

[Zuno Drallac]

Several hours later, Cato Neimoidia

“Why was Inquisitor Prazutis here,” High Inquisitor Grendam thought to himself as he stood on the edge of the landing pad that held Prazutis’ ship. He had been the closest when the younger inquisitor’s signal went dark a few hours back and had made haste to his last known location with a team of ISB operatives. Using a set of forged credentials they had landed on world with a shuttle and left a frigate in orbit. One of the operatives was prepping the Trilon Aggressor for take off to return it to the frigate in space. A few other operatives were flying a hovervan slowly down the river trying to find one man in the fog.

Grendam stared at the splatter of puke across the landing pad with Praz’s helm a few feet away. With a flick of his wrist he called Praz’s saber to his hand. A brief moment passed as the Inquisitor focused through the Force and saw moments of the scuffle that transpired mere hours earlier. His eyes opened and a curse pierce his lips.

“High Inquisitor,” a voice flared to life in Grendam’s helm. “We found him.”

A deep breath escaped the older man before he replied. “Good, retrieve me and bring me to him.” The High Inquisitor leaned down and grabbed Praz’s discarded helmet. Leaving just a mess of puke on the landing pad.

The hover van floated up and caused Grendam’s red armor to shine in the spot light. He stepped into the vessel before it sped down the ravine for several miles. Soon Prazutis would be blinded by the vans light before it came to a hover inches from the wet surface. The door slid open with a swoosh and without hesitation the High Inquisitor stepped out, throwing Praz’s helm at the wounded inquisitor’s feet.

Giving the Zabrak a once over, his armor was dented and scarred, mud mixed with blood caked his face. Grendam shook his head, “disappointing,” he spoke. Two ISB operatives jumped out and moved to the beaten man.

“Sir his armor has taken serious damaged it’ll probably need to be cut off him,” the agent reported as he moved to help Prazutis to his feet before leading him aboard the van.

“That’ll be easy enough once we are away from this place,” the High Inquisitor responded. “You will get the medical attention you need then you will give me a full report on the happenings of the last twenty four hours.” It was clear in the older man’s tone that he was far from pleased.