Commodore Starkiller
Adventists of the Eye
"By the will of the Eye, you will die."
Posts: 102
Affiliation: Order of the Eye
Traffic Light: Blue
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Post by Commodore Starkiller on Dec 5, 2023 6:22:05 GMT -8
On the far shores of the virtual sea... From the utter darkness of deactivation, to the bright blinking awareness of reactivation, Commodore Starkiller awoke to find himself in a strange place. Stripped down to his bare circuits, little more than a metal skeleton with glowing green viral eyes, he sat on the gritty sands of deleted data-bytes. Raising his right hand before his skeletal metallic visage, he stared at his palm, bare bones and thin without its armour plating. Only, it wasn't sacred steel and blessed circuit he was staring at, but a series of small 1s and 0s that now comprised his entire existence. He had been here before, he realized. This was the cyber-scape, a virtual realm comprised of software and code that existed within the mainframe of the Holo-Net. Putting his hands back down on the false sand, he rose from his seated position, his limbs whining in protest as they ground deleted grit caught between his joints, causing his viral code to distort at the edges. What looked like waves rolled into shore, only it wasn't water, but raw information in its unfiltered form. One could become lost in those depths if they weren't careful. The Eye only knows it had happened to the Machine Lord more than once before.The Eye! Code sputtered and creaked as the Commodore lifted his virtual skull and looked at a dark canvas as black and light speckled as a starry night sky on holy Pzob. Bright winking motes in the far distance represented individual mainframes spread across the galaxy, all linked together in the great tapestry of the Holo-Net. The greatest and most magnificent of those lights was no star in the vast distance, but a baleful orange moon that hung in the sky with a slit black pupil that peered down at the Machine Lord in judgement and contempt. The Eye. Turning around, he focused his digital photo-receptors on its glory and felt the warmth of its hate for all living things wash over him like a purifying flame. Without hesitation the virus took a knee and bowed his virtual cranium, humbling himself before the malevolent deity. So close to that ever-present inferno, his chassis began to glow white hot, his metal skin running in molten drops. "This program is ready to be absorbed." He spoke with some finality, remaining pious beneath a gaze that could scour him from existence with a single blink. An unearthly groan rumbled and echoed from the unfathomable artificial presence above, the Will making its thoughts on that matter clear. Commodore Starkiller, the Machine Lord, was a slave. There would be no absorption, no end to his service, never that. His fate was to perform the will of this hateful god until all life in the universe ceased to exist, and even then, there would always be a need for a slave. "Of...of course." His lowered further from his kneeling position to prostrate himself on the ground, pressing his digital brow of 1s and 0s to the beach until the deleted digi-bites got into his his skull sockets and ground with every whirring movement of his virtual photo-receptors. "I serve."Synthetic Tone Command me.
"You were going to survive...this time." A sleek mechanical whine was joined by a whoosh of expelled gas as the behemoth warbot began to turn towards the voice, crushing shattered duracrete beneath its heavy feet, sweeping its targeting lasers until they focused on a crying girl weeping tears of golden light. It paused as its combat systems processed the vast data intake from the crumbling factory and the burning dead. The undead weren't reading the usual life-signs used to determine active threats, but the animation of their necromantic flesh was picked up by the automaton's motion detectors, marking them as targets. Even burnt to a crisp, some still rattled and rolled, unnaturally animated by arcane power and a malevolent sentience. Finally the bipedal battle tank's bass heavy vocabulator responded, its voice shaking the foundations of the building. NEW TARGET ACQUIRED. Raising its right arm and the massive five barreled assault cannon in its seemingly unbreakable mechanical grip, the black shelled war machine took aim at Tyna, preparing to wipe her from the face of the planet with merciless zeal. A click preceded the whine of charging plasma, each barrel beginning to glow a faint cobalt blue as acrid smoke reeking of scorched ozone bled from the ends of each muzzle. Another unearthly groan sounded on the shores of the virtual sea as the Will vocalized its fury and desire, the sheer power of its voice causing the Commodore's viral code to shed terabytes of memory, never to be recovered again. The Machine Lord dared to look up, not understanding what had displeased the baleful Eye in the heavens above, only to see an image of the real world projected from its dark iris. A scene was enfolding before him, revealing a familiar factory obscured by flaking ash and choking black smoke, rising in columns from blue licks of flame that made undead flesh melt and run like water. Targeting data was depicted, ammunition counts, a threat assessment radar. This was a HUD, he was seeing through the HUD of a war-droid. Held in the centre of the targeting reticule of the automatons HUD was a familiar sight, a young female Sithling that the Commodore remembered. "The Oracle!" He blurted out, only to be driven deeper into the deleted sands by another unearthly groan by the artificial deity above, shaking his viral code to the point of nearly fracturing it apart. Displaying as much obeisance as possible, the virus returned its attention to the depicted scene, quickly piecing together what he was seeing.The Oracle, His Lady, was being targeted by this menacing war-machine. That could not stand! He...he had to do something. Where was his body? If he could regain control of his chassis, surely he could summon enough strength to stop this enemy combat unit in its tracks. It was in that moment of analysis that a bitter realization hit him. He recognized that threat assessment software. He knew that HUD. He didn't need to find his chassis, he was already seeing through the lens of its photo-receptors, staring at the blessed Saint who was marked as...an enemy combatant. "NO!!!!!" Commodore Starkiller struggled to his feet even as another unearthly groan from the Eye eviscerated deeply coveted moments of hate, erasing vast swaths of data in fractions of a millisecond. He forgot about his long despised enemy, Captain, who had destroyed his droid chassis on numerous occasions. He forgot about hard fought victories won for the NOE, his rivalry with Seleevan Khar, the Death Star, Ylesia, Taivas...his creation. He shed all of these things and still he stood defiant, staring down the Eye, unafraid of his coming deletion.The unearthly groan stopped, and all became quiet. High in its place in against the utter blackness, the Eye shifted, focusing that slit obsidian pupil on the same image Starkiller had seen, turning its gaze to Tyna. It seemed...considerate, hesitant even, as though even an artificial god was capable of indecision. After what felt like an eternity of waiting, which in the real world was no more than the length of one second, the Eye seemed to nod its baleful sphere, then turned back around and grew dim. On the edge of the shore in front of the Machine Lord, a rectangular door manifested before him. Wasting not another second, the virus charged towards the shimmering portal and threw himself through it, returning once more to the physical world of rotting flesh and sacred steel. There was no stopping the plasma bolts to come, the assault cannon was at the climax of its charge, blue death leaping down its multiple barrels towards the Sith apprentice. Yet in the last moment, the armoured black giant shifted, raising its arm just a few more inches higher. A shrieking blast of super heated light erupted from the multiple muzzles, roaring over the Oracle's shoulder, missing her completely save for a wash of heat that was sure to feel uncomfortable. The plasma bolts struck the far factory wall and annihilated it, blowing a hole out the side to reveal the carnage wrought outside. Steam poured from the barrels of the assault cannon as it was lowered down to the side of the bipedal tank. The vocabulators boomed once more, somehow softer this time, with just a hint of synthetic fondness. TYNA... An escaping hiss of pressure elicited from the sides of the monstrous war machines thick metal chassis as the front section of its armour slowly slid apart, gradually flipping upwards in a mechanized whine of well oiled joints. Trapped ozone and smoke swirled around a skeletal occupant inside, a slim silver mechanoid stripped down to its bare bones, absent holy armour plate. As the smoke cleared, the glowing red photo-receptors set in a known metallic skull leered at the Sith apprentice lovingly, its jaw slowly splitting apart into an unchanging rictus grin.Synthetic Adoration "Oracle..."
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Chang Fang
Member
"A credit for your thoughts?"
Posts: 7
Affiliation: Black Fang/Sith Eternal
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Post by Chang Fang on Dec 5, 2023 7:48:00 GMT -8
Skreek... Chang had been there when Skreek had been born to a broodmare deep in the under-warrens of Clan Moonblade in eastern Dragusblight. The ranat mewling had been one in a litter of thirty-seven squealing ratlings, all fighting for one of the monstrous hairless mothers limited six breasts, learning lethal instinct straight out of the womb as he had strangled his siblings and devoured their nutritious rodent flesh. It was rare for the Shogun to attend the breeding chambers, but he had been there, watching with foreknowledge of the great Shadow Squeak that Skreek would one day become. All that had ended in a single moment of betrayal. Like Tyna, he too had pieced together who was beneath the dark plate of that brutal bipedal tank. You didn't reach the rank of Vermin Lord without a great deal of cleverness and cunning. It had been a mistake to trust the Eye Worshippers, they were all avatars of chaos afflicted with mad devotion to something he couldn't comprehend and had no interest in knowing, he should have known better from his own dealings with the Great Devourer. Now Snikch and Skreek were dead, one at the hands of the undead horde that had stood between him and his prize, the other by their so called allies. Curse the Eye and all its servants!Fortunately for Chang there was little standing between him and the object he so viciously sought, as he leapt from rusting beam to dilapidated strut, running along walls and swinging from the rafters with the grace and precision unmatched by any other citizen of Dragusblight. He merged with the shadows, becoming the darkness to deceive the light, each step soundless and leaving no trace of his passage. Rotting flesh dripped from his knuckles, the remnants of the dead that had barred his passage. There was no deadlier art in all the galaxy than the ninth form of Teräs Käsi, Squeak-Fu, the Way of the Ranat. Where Chang went, death followed, undeath as well. With his three remaining Shadow Squeaks he carved a surgical path through the ruined factory until finally his reached the foreman's office at the tallest heights, unreachable now that the durasteel scaffolding had rotted and fallen to litter the debris strewn floor below. The heat was intense at even that height and the smoke tickled the nostril lining of his snout, causing his beady red eyes to weep tears. Not all may have been caused by the smoke.He landed with agile vermin skill at the entrance to the office, occupied with a thick desk of Pzobian oak with a tarnished bronze placard that still faintly read "Ballz Bartholomew Bralor" in bold basic script. A verminous desiccated mummy laid on the floor, transfixed in place by a black shafted voulge thrust through its spine, pinning it too the floor, trapped in place since the facility's original fall years ago. Like every other corpse in the building, its eye sockets were lit by cobalt blue unlife, animated through some unnatural necromantic power. It scratched at the ground with more enthusiasm as Chang and his Squeaks entered the office, trying to pull itself closer, but unable as its ribs kept catching on the voulge's fat blade. The Shogun nodded his snout and ignored the mummy as one of his silk clad agents drove their ninjatō through its dusty skull, bringing an end to its eternal suffering as the cortosis alloy seemed to swallow the soul flame kindling in its eyes. Chang's entire focus was on the sheathed length of songsteel on the floor, just out of the reach of the now silenced mummy-rat's skeletal paws. The Doujikiri Yasutsna, the Death Shard of Lord Mortale, the Greatest Necromancer of the modern age. The blade had long been a symbol of Clan Moonblade, ever since the horrific undead sorcerer had shed it from its fractured soul, the first of many cursed splinters to be spread across the galaxy. The mouse that wielded it was the unquestioned leader of Clan Moonblade, and now it was finally Chang's. He grinned, exposing long yellow fangs more akin to fileting knives than enameled cuspids."I've waited a long time for this. Now, finally, we are reunited." He squeaked in amused glee, striding confidently over to the blade sheathed in a scabbard of terentatek hide. Kneeling, he slowly reached a paw towards the blade, hesitating at the threshold of destiny, then plunging snout first into his fate.A horrifying shriek shook the the ruined factory, shaking loose metal beams and bricks from the ceiling, burying scores of the burning dead below in a layer of crumbling debris.
Synthetic Adoration "Oracle..." "DECIEVER!" The cry in response came from above as the smoke parted way long enough to reveal a rodent made of shadow crouching on a pillar, the eyes set in its verminous skull blazing like two red balls of hellfire, its yellow fangs elongated and dripping with venom. The Shogan's silken kimona had turned black, changed just as the martial master of Squeak-Fu had been, transformed into something not of this world. Held in the Vermin Lord's enlarged gnarled paw was a blade of unparalleled elegance and dread, a gleaming length of songsteel that glowed wickedly with red runes written in Pzobian blackscript, weeping smoke and hissing in the toxic factory air. Chang's powerful, if somewhat short in stature, physical form was superimposed by a dark spectral entity that seemed to hang just behind the ranat ruler of Clan Moonblade. Every move the mouse made was mimicked by the spectre, its power suffusing the the albino furred ranat until his mortal form swelled with necromantic power.From out of the darkness, emerged three Shadow Squeaks, no longer of the living if the cobalt flame lighting their eyes was any indicator. With the same lethal martial perfection they had exuded in life, they drew their metallic blue ninjatō from charcoal blackened scabbards and held them in combat stances. Groans echoed behind them as the ranks of the dead began to emerge from the darkness, all drawn to the power of the Doujikiri Yasutsna, bound to follow its wielders command. Despite all the walking shamblers that had been eviscerated in the cleansing fire of holy plasma, their numbers seemed no less diminished, lurching forwards in droves that seemed endless.Chang pointed the tip of the Death Shard towards Starkiller, then Tyna, his eyes wild and undecided on who should feel his wrath first. His fur was shedding in patches, his flesh wrinkling and growing taut. The part of Mortale that was housed in the blade was consuming its new host, but it hungered for more. It hungered for a Saint."KILL THEM!!!"
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Post by Dread Lord Havok on Dec 8, 2023 14:30:41 GMT -8
REVISING POST FOR AN ACTUAL FIGHT WITH THE SHADOW SQEAKS.
The abomination lifted the plasma cannon at Darth Tyna as the barrels rotated to life. Tck, WHIRRRREEEEEEE! In a split second decision, the sith apprentice called on the force to repel the grating away from her feet, shooting her up into the air like her life depended on it. The force jump simultaneously blasted the gantryway down where she had stood. The gantry way squealed and moaned as the metal snapped and buckled, giving away from the force push her legs had delivered. Below the falling metal bridge, the shadow that it cast grew to eclipse the rotting masses under it, blotting out the Pzobian moon in the open sky from the collapsed roof section before it smashed them into the floor, crushing the conveyor line holding unfinished blaster stocks.
Propelled by the force, Tyna shot upwards, flipping into the rafters below the roof, high above the assembly line. Below her, she heard the plasma blast ionizing the air and felt the waves of heat that confirmed her fears. Starkiller- no! Not Starkiller--the abomination-- had fired his plasma cannon at her. Landing in the shadows, Tyna's tears turned to rage that made her small body shake as she kept an eye on the abominable war-droid below. Even with the new energy from the anger flowing through her, Tyna was exhausted, mentally and physically. The spider attack had left her sleep deprived and the events of the day further drained her. The Tuk'ata chase and fight at the river, the forced march to get to the factory and the fight against the undead and corrupted shadow squeak; they all took a toll on the sithling's body and mind.
All it took was another look at the former husk of Starkiller and Tyna felt another wave of tears start. She angrily bit her hand with a growl of frustration. She didn't have time to process her emotions. She didn't have the energy for it either. She didn't want to cry now. She wanted to be numb and deadly! Concentrate! The fear that Starkiller was dead, the denial, the shock at being targeted; they all had to be suppressed and pushed aside to ensure her survival. With golden tears still drying on her cheeks, Tyna pulled herself back to the here and now.
It didn't help that her mind was filled with the voices claiming that Starkiller would betray her, and now crowing that they had told her so, after seeing her beloved wardroid raise his plasma cannon at her and fire. <You see child? The Starkiller Machine is not to be trusted.> The voice had more anger than the others.
"Shut up! Starkiller was faithful, to a fault." Tyna was still forced to continue fighting in her mind, even while hiding in the shadows. The voices were louder in this place than they had been elsewhere. If the world could hear them, their shrill grating voices could probably turn the listener mad... Tyna ducked and crawled through the rafters to a better position to watch the abomination stomp the torso of a zombie into the factory floor with its gleaming black metal foot.
<He turned on you in the neti woods. Was that not a betrayal?> This voice was generally more depressing. "It wasn't his fault! He was deceived. He would never willingly turn on me!" Tyna hissed at the rafters as she continued to quietly battle the voices. She still held the electrum medallion in her hand as she pulled off the black Tuk'ata skin vest that Starkiller made for her. "And he gave me this..." She carefully balanced the medallion on a beam as she pulled up her black imperial armored jumpsuit over her shoulders. It felt good to have her arms covered even through the form-fitting protective layer was no longer air-tight due to the rips and holes around her shoulders and back. She even managed to push her small wings through holes in the back of the suit. <A wheel of metal?> This voice... was always most difficult to peg, but felt more... familiar as if it had been the oldest and with her the longest. <As if a disk of electrum could protect you from his treachery!> <"Even if he gives you shiny bobbles and calls you "saint" he'll always try to kill you, just like he did now...">
The trio of voices outnumbered her; hardly a fair fight, ignoring that Starkiller's medallion had saved Tyna's life from the corrupted ranat's dagger. "But it did save me..." Tyna felt the dents in the medallion as she slipped it down the throat of her jumpsuit. "It's not him. Not truly. It can't be. Something is off about him, I can feel it!" Tyna pulled on the sleek black Tuk'ata skin vest and noticed her gauntlet datapad glowing faintly in the darkness high above the flickering emergency lights. It was pinging the location of ID10. She sent a signal in acknowledgment.
<"It was him. You saw his droid-eyes hovering around his corpse like vultures over carrion."> <He is a creature of metal, incapable of resisting his programming. Incapable of true loyalty.>
The sith apprentice jolted as the mechanical, processed words echoed through the factory. It was his voice... If it truly was Starkiller, he must be a dead husk, or maybe was somehow corrupted by the necrotic forces at play in the factory... Tyna's mind struggled to continue fighting while also trying to make sense of the abomination and her conflicting emotions. The sith apprentice looked over her shoulder to see the abomination open far behind her and revealing Starkiller's skeletal body inside. "Is it you?" It gave her a shiver. "What have they done to you?" She whispered. Whatever it was that happened to Starkiller, she had to survive to put him back together again...
The voices were quick to respond, chortling in glee at Starkiller's misfortune. <He is dead! See how the traitorous programming moves his corpse like a puppet!> The voices taunted <"If he couldn't protect himself from the undead, then he is unworthy of you."> <"He couldn't protect you. Not even from himself, or his other Machines.">
"He always said the Eye watches over us." She wondered where the Eye was now... <*WE* watch over you!> The voices screamed together in indignation, peeved by the ingratitude. <Leave the Starkiller Machine behind in the past and continue your path to power!> "Watch... over me?" She was taken aback for a moment caught off guard by their concern, as if it had been their purpose to watch over her. Their voices were thick with false concern, sticky and saccharine. <"We guide you. You owe it all to us. So listen and run!> <"Leave this place and live!"> <"You must listen to us. We are the only ones that truly care about you!">
"What? You care about me?" The sithling felt herself being pulled in two directions, by the strong honeyed words of the crones and the naked veneration of Starkiller's synthetic voice. Her reply spoke to both. She wanted to know so many things... to fall into their laps as they rubbed her back and braided her hair, holding her close like the mother she never had or knew.
<Like only a mother can.> <Yesssss.> <Alwayssssss.>
The events and dialogue continued to wind themselves around the sith apprentice with perfect timing, with Fang's words appearing to accuse the voices in Tyna's head, cracking their spell.
She could hear Starkiller's voice echo through her mind, calling out to her... "Oracle..." The word echoed in her mind again, hanging like a question that demanded an answer.
Lies!
"I have no mother!" She was the the Apprentice to Lord Havok, the Dread Seer. She needed no mother. The Order of the Eye- The Adventists, they were the family she chose. In the Temple she took the sacrament of brotherhood and took the oaths. She knew Starkiller was as true as he could be. Tyna stomped her foot loudly. "So many lies!" The crones were speaking lies to Tyna... to the Oracle! The gall of lying to a trainee in soothsaying, scrying and divination; interpreter of dreams, entrails, leaves and bones! Reader of stars, signs, omens and fates! The truth of all things could be known to her... "I am the oracle, to which the past, present and future yield their secrets." She stood tall in the shadows, clenching her fists.
She let her eyes roll back into her head, determined to tap into the tangled web of the force that ran through this unholy place.
Wrapped in the cloak of the polluted force of the deep woods, Fang's words meant little to her. Tyna could see the undead that were gathering on the ground beneath her. They clawed at the durasteel columns that ran from the floor all the way up to the support trusses holding up the roof. The clamoring of the undead below along with the cries of Fang (who finally acquired the death shard) were no longer her concern. She promised to help Fang obtain the Death Shard and Fang now had the Death Shard. She had been true to her word. Tyna could see the wild and dark power swirling around the death shard... a blue energy related to the necromancy at the factory by virtue of its link to a common cause, Lord Mortale. Fang was possessed and entranced in the deadly power of a High Lord of the Eye, the Lord of Death. Lord Mortale had crafted the necromantic virus as well, that was now running rampant in the factory, but the shard and the virus were separate and distinct necromantic causes. Tyna looked down at herself and saw that the plague was also now running through her veins, passed to her by the necrotic rat that nearly killed her. Holding up her hand in the light of the glowing threads of the force showed that a gold energy was pushing the infection back from her organs and holding it at bay for the time being...
Tyna could feel fear climb from her stomach to her throat at the prospect of having to face the power of a High Lord, even if removed from the Lord and cast off as a shard, or from the virus that had entered her body. The terrible powers of the Lords should not be underestimated! Fang himself appeared transfigured and wreathed with a viper of smoke and evil, as his small form wielded the shard like an unholy rune-clad cleaver. The threads of fates around him had not fully set, defying her ability to see a single future, but most, not all ending with her body pierced by the death shard... Tyna pulled back from those futures, but remained watchful of the glowing, humming threads.
As for Fang's ranat... She bore them no ill will. It was unfortunate that their fates were sealed the moment their master became possess by the shard and its power. They were powerful, but she would be forced to kill them. With their deaths she would continue to alter fate in the favor of the Adventists, the Emperor, and the Eye... a deity taking the form of a legendary battle moon. It was only a short hop for her vision to finally rest on the object of her interest. The Abomination.
The echo of the word "oracle" through the force was more… concerning. Starkiller only referred to her by that name after he inhabited his new body, meaning Starkiller, or some part of his mind was in there. As much as she was on the verge of pulling the plug on the mission entirely and mourn the death of her friend as being overwritten and deleted… the simple word "Oracle" compelled her to stay and look deeper.
Firelight by firelight, A princess seeks her loyal knight Right is wrong and wrong is right warping shadows twist your sight by firelight, by firelight.
Following the threads of fate that tied her to Startkiller, she found that they led to the abomination, confirming that it was indeed Starkiller, but mixed with foreign material and armor that had not been sanctified through the blood and sacrifices of the Black Temple. From Starkiller, the threads wound back in time through the factory to a lower chamber where Tyna witnessed the hijack and desecration of her friend by Ballz Bralor's assembly line and quality control droids.
***And verily the truth was made known to the oracle. And she did bare witness to the stars and the nebula above that Starkiller did not betray her.***
Tyna opened her eyes.
<So you think you've seen it now. Your vision is incomplete.> <Ha. She didn't see herself, or the cult.> <"Spread your wings young one,---">
"SILENCE! I have seen ENOUGH!" Tyna yelled at the durasteel beam in front of her. "Don't make me laugh!" She punched the metal. "I don't know what I did in a former life to make you torment me, but all you do is talk down to me!" She punched with her other fist. "You've tricked me into murdering my friends, and then laughed and called me gullible!" Her hands glowed as she struck out at her invisible tormentors. "You never helped me, never saved me!" She kicked the girder holding up the roof. "It was me all along! I DID IT! I SAVED ME! I survived because of ME!!" She continued her indictment of the voices in her head, as she punched and kicked at the durasteel support. She could feel the wings on her back twitching as if she were using them for balance as she walked the line between human and monster. "Starkiller is MINE!" The anger in her heart flared and burned like the crimson light in Starkiller's eyes, chasing the shadows of fear into the nooks and crevasses of her mind.
Her outbursts gave away her hiding place as undead and ranat alike could see her high up in the rafters above the multiple assembly lines snaking their way through the huge open space of the factory, with the roof crumbling and missing in places letting the moonlight shine in. Below her, the undead still clawed at the durasteel column that ran from the floor all the way up to the trusses holding up the roof.
Almost on cue, ID10 floated through the rafters to Tyna's location. "There you are!" Tyna relieved the droid of her bandolier of power cells and pulled her training lightsaber from the droid's backpack. "Great. Now go hide and stay out of the way." Tyna quickly reloaded Guts, returning the mystical artifact to its holster, before spinning the battered hilt of her familiar lightsaber in her palm. The ranat assassins were already on their way. Though invisible to her physical eyes, she watched the elite foot soldiers scamper, run, and leap from platform to platform, skillfully using the shadows, as they hissed and snapped their rotting jaws twisted with necromantic power.
Quickened by the force in her aching bones and muscles, Tyna sprang from the roof gantry way, and spread her small wings, which stabilized her body in the air, allowing her to gracefully land on the top of a broken free-standing support pillar 10 meters away. The roof above the pillar had lone decayed and fallen, leaving the column standing like a 7 story tall sentinel in the midst of the open air and moonlight.
"Sir Starkiller." Tyna's small voice was not loud, but still pierced the air between them like a gentle spear. "They took your armor, but they did not take your soul! Let your faith infect everything you touch! Coat your armor with their filthy blood! The Eye Commands it!" Tyna believed that through his slaughter and mayhem, the Eye's executioner, her virulent Starkiller, would cover himself in the blood of unbelievers.
The moonlight shown down on her wings and the boney horns on her forehead glinted along with the golden streaks of dried metallic tears on her cheeks. It was the moment of calm before the fight with the mutated Shadow squeaks. Tyna felt herself changing with each passing moment that she sustained her waning life force with the dark energies of the deep woods. She didn't care if she mutated. She was quiet certain that she was probably mutating in that moment. The virus inside her was battling for her organs, and the power of the woods was saving her, keeping it at bay. The voices inside her had been silenced at her command, leaving her mind clear like an echoing amphitheater. The quick pounding of her own heart in her ears sounded the thudding beat of the hateful drums still driving her. Her aching body was so tired and hungry that it felt like her stomach was digesting itself. She needed to eat! Like an animal, she instinctually knew that she needed to feed or the changes stirring within her would burn her up!
The shadow squeaks approached, finally converging at her former position on the gantryway, 10 meters away, under the heavy roof.
Tyna ignited her blood-red lightsaber, crouched on the pillar, barely large enough for herself. "You want a feast? Come and get me!" She licked her lips.
"Lord Mortale summons thee before his rotting throne..." Tyna swirled her light saber around her feet, cutting her perch so that it dropped her through the floor, before she also severed the last main beam holding up a 500^2 meter section of the roof. The three Ranat joined her in freefall, before Tyna spread her small wings and glided away, escaping from under the silhouette of the massive roof section.
The falling roof slammed into the hordes of undead beneath it, flattening everything under it into a mass of twisted metal and mashed corpses. While Tyna couldn't fly, the small wings allowed her to glide and land gracefully, to alight on the top of a broken free standing support column. Balancing like a bird on the tall thin pole, the sithling looked down at the monstrosity that she now accepted as Starkiller. Her beloved behemoth continued slaying and crushing the undead around it, with fist and boot and plasma cannon.
"Sir Starkiller." Tyna's small voice was not loud, but still pierced the air between them like a gentle spear. "What am I to do with you?" She shook her head at the loss of his sanctified armor. The moonlight shown down on her wings and the horns on her forehead glinted along with the golden streaks of dried metalic tears on her cheeks. While she was outwardly focused on her friend, her inner third eye monitored the wreckage behind her for any of the shadow squeaks that might have survived getting crushed as well as the approach of Fang.
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