Chapter 85: Chapter 73: Die Too Quickly
[ Aldrex POV ]
'The Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities that some consider to be…unnatural.'
The beating of Korriban's dark, shrivled heart thumped in my ears as the lightsaber hummed in my hand.
Though he kept both Olia and I in his field of vision, the Shadow's feet shifted towards what he considered the real threat.
Me.
I could see the moment that my temporary ally realized this. Her shoulders tensed and she bristled in a cat-like manner. If she was angry before at the Jedi's mere presence, she was absolutely pissed at being dismissed as a threat.
Being considered the biggest, baddest thing in the room…it was a heady feeling, like an adrenaline rush. I could feel the corners of my mouth curling up into a smile.
As much as I dearly wanted to bask in the sensation, I crushed it back down. Now wasn't the time to get sucked in by a power high and stumble before victory was achieved.
Raising an arm, I pointed at Garsh, "Kill the Jedi."
The ancient tomb droids clanked and whirred as they charged forwards. Most kept to the ground, but a few started climbing the walls, their metal fingers carving handholds into the stone with hideous screeches.
I didn't join them, content to hang back for the time being. I wanted to see how Garsh would react when he was no longer holding back.
I wasn't disappointed.
The Quarren met them head-on, his saberstaff whirling around him to form a barrier of green plasma. One blade bisected a droid while simultaneously blocking the blade of another before its owner met a swift end. He never paused or stumbled as he surged through their ranks and continued the carnage.
Like Atton said, a double-bladed lightsaber provided "more slaughter per swing," something Garsh was demonstrating with enthusiasm. Before even two seconds had passed, half of my droids were already in pieces, proving no match for a Jedi Knight.
What could I say? They were a thousand years old and probably hadn't seen maintenance since Naga Sadow's tomb was built.
The fact that they were still capable of movement, much less actually presenting a threat to even a half-trained acolyte, was a testament to their construction. Because of that, I could only overclock them so far before the strain would be tearing them apart trying to keep up with the Jedi.
But then, they were meant to be disposable.
I reached out for their behavior cores, forcing their programming to twist to my will. A whine simultaneously echoed from the remaining six droids as their built-in safeties released, followed by a hundred groans as their aged servos protested.
A strike that was about to bisect one was instead stonewalled by a Sith warblade, with another trapping the other end. Skeletal metal hands raised ancient blasters and fired into their bladelocked opponent.
The green lights winked out as Garsh abruptly shut off his lightsaber, freeing his weapon, and threw himself into a forward roll between his attackers. Reactivating the weapon as he passed, he quickly dispatched them and continued on his rampage.
I had seen enough. The droids couldn't keep up with him even when overclocking their servos, only momentarily stall him.
My off-hand, clutching a detonator, depressed the trigger.
...
[ Jedi Shadow POV ]
There was no warning.
One moment, there was only his foes before him and his calm certainty as he dispatched Aldrex's droids. The next moment, his world exploded into white noise as ear-splitting shrieks abruptly filled the air from every direction and smoke poured into the hall.
Though the Jedi's ear canals were hardened by evolution to endure the crushing depths of Dac's oceans, the sheer magnitude of the sounds overwhelmed his tolerance and his eyes instinctively slammed shut in an animalistic attempt to blot out the pain. It was only instinct and ingrained reflexes that kept the droids from taking the opportunity to cut him down.
He could feel liquid dripping from the holes that served as his ears as his hearing failed him completely. Shunting as much of the pain into the Force as he could, he forced his eyes open just in time to watch the two halves of his latest attacker slide to the ground, neatly bisected by his lightsaber.
But the droids were only a distraction. Through the smoke, the red light of Aldrex's lightsaber was still visible, as was the blue of Olia's, though hers was moving erratically. It was likely that she had been just as blindsided as he had been. The inability of the Sith to work together effectively had proven itself once more.
There would be no better moment.
Using the Force to invigorate his body and flush away the disorientation caused by the sonic attack, the Jedi shot forwards, easily sidestepping or sliding in between the four remaining droids. His lightsaber lashed out in a flurry of strikes.
Curiously, the acolyte chose not to defend himself with his lightsaber or even his armor, instead ducking and twisting out of the way of his strikes with Force-assisted movements. A droid tried to intervene, but it was cut down with barely a glance.
Aldrex bent backwards at the knees to avoid a blow that would have separated him from hip to hip, regaining his feet with unnatural grace despite his heavy armor. He juked from side to side to avoid a flurry of vertical slices from both ends of the Jedi's lightsaber.
But such defence would only last so long before a blow inevitably landed.
After but a few moments, the Sith acolyte moved just a hair too slow and the Jedi took advantage of it. A blade of green plasma speared up into a gap in the armor just under the ribs, plunging into Aldrex's lungs and heart and exiting out his shoulder.
But there was no smell of burning flesh nor cry of pain nor slackening of muscles. And there was no wound.
At the point of contact, there was a crackling of energy from his lightsaber and a small distortion.
The acolyte's shoulders shook in laughter just before Aldrex, or rather Aldrex's image, abruptly winked out. An illusion or a hologram, he immediately concluded. It did not matter which it was, the effect was the same.
The Jedi felt something sting his left arm and whipped around just in time to see another Aldrex fleeing into the smoke and deeper into the tomb.
With adrenaline pumping through his veins, he wasted no time in pursuing.
...
[ Olia POV ]
The world seemed to spin in Olia's eyes as she stumbled away from the battle, her balance thrown off by the persistent ringing in her ears. Though her eardrums had burst and blood had leaked out of her ears, the fallen Jedi had managed to repair most of the damage with the Force and regain her hearing.
Some of the old witch's lessons had proven useful after all.
'More than one.' Olia grudgingly admitted as a twinge of pain lanced from her right arm, though it was a far cry from what it had been but mere moments earlier.
She had been expecting treachery from Aldrex at some point, just not quite so soon and not in the fashion that he had employed. When the smoke and sound grenades had detonated, she had been distracted enough by the pain that the son of a Hutt had been able to get close and jab her with some claw attached to the underside of his gauntlet, flooding her body with a massive dose of Sith poison.
Fortunately for her, one of XoXaan's first lessons had been identifying and neutralizing such substances. It had only taken her a few seconds to notice its presence and to flush it from her system, though some lingering effects remained due to the size of the dosage.
Olia had kept a wary eye on her fellow acolyte for months, enough to know that he was cagey at the best of times, bookish, and reclusive. However, she had possessed little idea of how he actually fought. The opportunity to observe his combat tactics had simply never presented itself. Part of the reason she had accepted the temporary alliance had been to get the chance to see him in action.
Though her lack of knowledge was coming back to bite her hard, she had succeeded in her original goal nevertheless.
During the war, she and her Master had fought squads of Imperial commandos on several occasions. Aldrex, despite possessing a lightsaber and the Force, seemed to operate under very similar parameters.
He was an ambush predator. He didn't have the raw experience as a lightsaber duelist that she or the Quarren had, so he wouldn't face either of them head on unless he was absolutely certain that they were screwed beyond all belief. Instead, he would make up for his lack of skill with traps, poison, misdirection, and exotic weaponry.
With that in mind, Olia knew that she needed to get out of the tomb now. Aldrex had had unfettered access to the tomb for at least several days, if not weeks, before he had made contact with her. There were bombs in the walls and possibly more, concealed with either sorcery or simple debris. Additionally, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else as well.
Perhaps it was because of that feeling that Olia managed to move in time. Instead of cracking across the back of her skull as her assailant intended, something hard slammed down on her right shoulder with enough force to break bone, causing her lightsaber to tumble out of her suddenly nerveless grip.
She barely restrained the cry of pain that threatened to escape her lips as the pain from the poison flared up on top of the shattered bones.
She threw herself to the side to avoid any follow-up strike, but none came.
"Damn, I missed." A male voice said, tinged by a strong lower-class Imperial accent. Olia didn't think he sounded very disappointed.
The speaker was a tall man with a lean build, his face tattooed with thick jagged lines around his mouth to make it resemble a snarling maw. He was clad only in a pair of black trousers and boots, his chest bare to show that his muscled torso was likewise adorned with tribalistic tattoos and many, many scars.
He was holding a a dark sock in one hand, one end bulging and straining against the fabric. An improvised sap.
"Aldrex promised me a Jedi." The man smiled, his tattoos making the expression seem more animalistic and wild, "And he has delivered."
Olia didn't deign him with a response. Taking a deep breath, she surged power into her broken shoulder. Sickening cracks rent the air as the bones reset and knit themselves back together.
On the floor, her lightsaber rattled for a moment before shooting into her hand and igniting, bathing the corridor in blue light.
Impossibly, the man's grin widened, "Oh, you're going to be a treat."
The sap fell from his hand. There was a click, followed by a red blade erupting from his right hand.
"Try not to die too quickly now."
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