The Blood, the Mad, and the Ugly [Slade/Ask First]

[Annan Rainwalker]

Jedi Rainwalker gleaned from the Sith Lord's Jar'Kai stance, what the latter had chosen out of the two options given. <"How... unsurprising.>"

The White Jedi felt a flare in the Force mere moments before Lord Blood moved; were it not for that, Annan probably would've been cut through, such was the Dark Lord's speed. Yet, the Jedi reacted in time - Ataru, the Way of the Bat-Hawk, was motion - aggressive, but focused. The White Jedi flipped into the air, somersaulting over the bisecting lightblades and landing in on both feet behind the Sith Lord.

"... Embrace the idea that your whole body is the weapon..." he heard the voice in the Force - ethereal, masculine and experienced - advise him, and Annan obliged.

Opening the floodgates of the Ashla in an instant, the Jedi let the Light Side of Force bathe his entire being in luminescence and augmenting his speed far beyond normal limits. Green lightsaber extended, Annan then spun around so fast he was not more than a white blur as he brought his entire body, led by the green plasmablade, in a wide arc to slice Blood straight through his backside.

"Survival is one step on the path to living," the ancient voice in the Force spake again, and Annan instinctively knew it was time to switch to the one form that came to him even more naturally than Form IV. The voice in the Force changed, now feminine and sagacious, "a true master of Form Three is invincible."

Annan immediately let the Force quell his nerves as he prepared to switch to the Way of the Mynock in preparation for Blood's counterattack. Spinning in a wide arc and bringing his lightsaber down on Blood in a circular slicing motion, Annan was in the perfect position to switch to the 'eye of the storm' movements of Soresu at a moment's notice.

[Slade Xandir]

The ravishing lightsider flashed away from the bisection with a daring flip. Had Blood predicted it, his move would not been to face him, but instead to twist sabers behind him and skewer the bastard where he stood. But a visual creature, he needed to watch his swords enter and fry the Jidai where he stood. He wanted to watch the lithe toy sizzle and break.

Turning to dip left, he only just missed being cut through as the mech faced do-gooder pulled a harrowing cleave where he just stood. He instead took the opportunity and momentum to curl both sabers around the near opponent, the right aimed to push through Annan's front while the left tried to craftily cull Annan's backside, a scissoring motion to end him.
A loving hug from one Sith to his neighbor. Sickening Dark Side energies seeped out from his thick desire to engulf this man in ill intent. It shot out from Blood's grasp in a wave, a blanket to cuddle this callous man with.

Blood hadn't expected the Jedi to be so resilient, let alone have such energy. The opponent was springy, and this would be the first that Blood would have had encountered Ataru, but it would be a learning experience for him to conquer and continue bettering himself with.

[Annan Rainwalker]

Darkness rises, and light to meet it.

A flare in the Force alerted the Jedi a moment before Darth Blood executed the scissoring attack, trapping him between both his blades. Raw, animal instinct tempered by the ethereal light and the nimbleness and agility he had acquired via training all acted in tandem as Annan moved: he crossed his arms, his right hand carrying his blade parrying one of the Sith Lord's weapons while his left palm unleashed a telekinetic push that would force the second Sith weapon back just enough for Annan to have enough time to then twist his entire body around it and to the right in a lateral somersault.

The acrobatic move flip to the side would, naturally, also take the Jedi away from the black waves of the tremendous fear and hate given form that the monstrosity of a Sith Lord had unleashed directly at him. It missed him, but the damage it did to the durasteel walls of the space station was awe-inducing.

<Whoa...> the Temple Guard voice behind his helmet, despite himself. That was one horrific attack, and that had been an awfully close call. It was a blessing he knew Ataru, or he would have never been able to get away in time.

Panting, the sabre-toothed Jedi growled behind his helmet as he flipped his lightsaber around in another Ataru ready stance. Those waves of darkness had immediately apprised the Temple Guard of how deep he was in for it this time. While the Jedi knew he could hold his own, at least for a while, Darth Blood was ultimately toying with him.

The Jedi forced himself to calm, as behind his visor, the nictitating membranes covering his brilliant blue eyes drew back to enable him clearer vision. Holding back in this fight in any way would only be to his own detriment. Still, Annan Rainwalker knew that matter how strong Darth Blood was, he was nothing compared to the Ashla from which the Firrerreon drew strength.

[Slade Xandir]

You don't need to be in love to have a little romance.

The game was cat and mouse by now. With the dancing pest flitting from placement to placement, Slade was growing annoyed at the lack of death taking place on the scene. and from his annoyance grew anger, indignation that this whelp had not been engulfed in the sea shanty of doomed destiny he had taken time out of his day to make for him. It was a debt now, owed in flesh and fire. A saber went silent as his finger slid over the activation scroll with a familiar slip, and soon the other followed. The Jidai wanted space? He wanted to keep avoiding his fate? There would be no escape from the hellish grasp of the Dragon King.

--------------------------------Begin Shadow Strike App--------------------------------------------

Slade kept his sabers in his hand as he concentrated a barely registered reach of his mastery within the Force: Control. He would need to pair it with his current mastery of Alteration. It had become so natural for him to apply it to common practice, but this was an action that would require effort, concentration and concise precision, should he want to accept it as a tool within his belt. His glare loaded a pair of shells into the chamber as his mind immediately went to work designing what he wanted done, and his influence followed suit. He poured his radiant anger, his desire to rend this bold weakling into a hurting shell, into himself as a fluid pass through limb and bone, feeling that heat race through his body faster than blood. It bled into tendons, and washed into muscles that were already high on adrenaline. 'More', he goaded the Dark Side to bid rise to the need to allow full capacity of what was about to take place. His mindset was lethal as he heard the mocking of the enemy before him only moments prior, silly words that either did or even did not exist. And now with his cup full, he drank.

The lava of Dark Side cindered hot and viscous, thickly sloshing as he mentally held it . He wanted the distance between them to be crossed without physically being there, and his urgency and vex would make it so. Muscles tense as they were sprung tightly as rubber bands on prongs wound taunt, his Influence was already malleable at best and readily shot forward at his behest. It traversed the ground between them as swiftly as his mind made it, glare on the nemesis proving the best laser for path taken. He could nearly feel the shift in air as his ability raced forward, and next came his desire to hurt.

That remedy would only be served as he saw fit. And as though he was before the Jedi, personally dealing this awful beating, his reach would be as intimate as what his distance was. There was almost no difference now, as he could almost feel the heart of the organism that dared rise against him, his distinct feeling of range so tender. Knowing this, feeling this, his body obeyed as though he were in the thick of it, right there, right then. That same lava was surged up in a left uppercut, roiling through his forearm with the tenacity of a scorned rancor. He concentrated it, aimed with that very same eye that sought a critical blow on a diaphragm, wrist even curling under in real time as his hit was mentally prepared to lock tightly under the base of ribcage. His eyes caught a slight shift in existence as a whole before him. But he did not linger on it long, as his next immediate motive was to issue another stream of vehement influence to his right leg. It moved a bit hastier as gravity allowed a much quicker call upon the limb, and with it to aid him, he only barely turned a bit to his right, and launched a side kick from his left leg with a bit more force and Force as he had the uppercut. Mentally, he braced himself for resistance, a residual instinct as his mind told him he was landing actual hits, but his body denied him the resistance that would have been the Jedi physically giving away beneath his booted heel. The air even shifted with this effort, the fresh breeze following towards the Jedi as though he were performing this violent maneuver right there.

---------------------------------End Shadow Strike 612/500-------------------------------------------

[Annan Rainwalker]

Annan's green-grey eyes snapped open as he realized what had just happened only a moment too late. The astral blows connected with all the scathing heat of the Dark Side of the Force. The Temple Guard hacked out a small spit of argentine blood the moment he felt his diaphragm erupt with pain, and he couldn't even reorient himself before the second blow connected with his right leg.

<"Aah!">

Violently thrown back, Annan slammed backside first into the durasteel wall of the ancient, congested chamber behind him. His back left an indentation on the wall as he slid down, growling in pain and snarling at the draconian beast man in front of him, a single hand clutching his epigastrium as he forced himself back onto his feet. Then he almost collapsed under his own weight as the pain erupted in his leg, likely his tibia was gone. Crouching down on his injured leg so that his weight was under his uninjured one, the Jedi's beastial snarl eventually settled into an irritated frown as he took in deep breaths to recentre himself in the Force.

His healing factor, common to all Firrerreo, had already kicked in. The pain in his back had disappeared almost instantly and he could already feel the pain in his leg beginning to fade as the fractured tibia repaired itself, though it would probably be a week before he could put proper weight on it. His diaphragm still ached and he was likely bleeding internally right now considering the vertigo he was still experiencing, but the bleed itself seal over quickly within the next few moments. The pain was going to last a while, though and it would debilitate his performance.

Still, he was a Son of Firrerre. Powering through insane amounts of damage was an inborn trait.

The impact against the wall had damaged his helmet from behind, however, and the Temple Guard decided to get rid of it before the erupting sparks messed with his vision in any way. Reaching behind, he released what was keeping it in place and it fell down with a clang, revealing the Jedi's dichromatic caramel-streaked raven hair falling down to his shoulders, his light gold-skinned, lightly-bearded, green-eyed face now revealed to the Dark Lord befor3 him.

"That was.. wonderful," the Jedi drawled in an annoyed tone, wincing due to his leg. Broken bones took a lot longer to heal than flesh wounds. "But I'm... *cough*... sturdier than I look."

Not willing to allow the Dark Lord a reprieve that the latter could exploit, the Firrerreo swallowed the pain and opening the spiritual flood-gates and channeling the Force before blurring out of view*, reappearing immediately all the way within Darth Blood's guard, his hissing green lightsaber coming down in a clean, single-handed slice from above the Sith Lord's head. Should that strike miss, the Jedi had already planned another step ahead: he would twist his body around in an aerial 180-degree turn and then stab the Sith Lord from beneath.**

-

*Force Speed
**Skilled Lightsaber Combat

[Slade Xandir]

Clawed toegrips from dragonbone boots dug into the platisteel to balance the weight he needed to block the swift skate of plasma against his own blade, but Danger Sense warned him something would follow up, and it warned him that it was lethal. The Jidai eclipsed over him, but luckily the passing blur of his shadow allowed the Dragon King passage into the Void. Underneath the shadow the felid male cast over him, Slade bled through the results of the silhouette blur on the floor, and slipped from the deadly green swords. Yet from beneath him in the realm of Void, the Hunter couldn't touch anything that had not followed him, and thus decided to use the Jedi's own 180 against him. A Force Jump loomed him from the shadow cast by the Knight's turned back as he rematerialized behind him, aiming a cursedly morbid volley of fire at the unassuming form.

Slade had noticed the man regaining his nimbility after such a harrowing physical blow from earlier, and was wondering if there was some hidden bacta on the body. Or even on the suit. Or .. What was this man? What creature was he?
Interest began to build.