Combat Master’s Note: Because you are matched against a member of your Clan, this battle takes on a unique format. You will be encountering Darth Necren with an ally. Treat Necren as you would any other ACC opponent. In addition, note that your character, unless he or she has a specific reason for not knowing, should recognize the name and likely the unique weapon of Necren, as she is a rogue Dark Jedi frequently in service to a variety of Dark Councilors. She has made a reputation for herself for her brutal efficiency in fulfilling her missions. Darth Necren is aligned strongly with the Brotherhood and to the Dark Council. You WILL be judged using the ACC rubric, so the person posting the best story will move on to subsequent rounds. If you wish to fight your Clanmate as well, you may, but this is not in any way a requirement.

Begeren. Once a prosperous Sith world, it has been the site of numerous battles throughout the millennia. Grand halls and monuments were torn down and re-purposed by looting Republic forces thousands of years ago, before they were driven from the planet. Isolated settlements still dot the planet's surface, but the inhospitable, craggy, and desert-like terrain, along with the beasts common to many desert and Sith worlds, have kept most humanoids from colonizing. The One Sith’s hold on Begeren is all but broken, though a few small pockets of resistance remain. The Clans and Houses of the Brotherhood now swarm the planet to defeat them, but attention has returned to plunder. Roaming bands of Jedi, adherents to light and dark alike, claim—or destroy—priceless artifacts at every turn. One of the few remaining untouched areas on the entire planet is the Valley of Monuments, so named for its glorious architecture.

The area is impossibly quiet, the air itself seemingly dead. Though you have taken different routes, you find yourself now with an ally from your Clan approaching a massive monument. Both of your perilous treks have lead you to the heart of the Valley of Monuments and to the foot of a massive obsidian obelisk, rising maybe a hundred meters into the sky, each side perhaps ten meters wide. The obelisk is bound by ancient Sith symbols rising more than half way up the ancient monument. Not too far in the distance sits an ancient palace, impressive towers and terraces rising high into the sky. Weapons bristle from the superstructure of the palace far in the distance, large turbolaser batteries easily visible. Yet here, in the courtyard at the foot of this massive monument, the One Sith are nowhere to be seen. To either side of you, a ways in the distance, are impressive cliff walls, faces of long-gone Sith warlords and heretics alike etched into the canyon, preserved in near-pristine condition.

Beneath your feet, the ever-present sands have gradually given way to fine polished granite blocks, some up to a meter in length and width. These blocks form a large pathway leading towards and around the obelisk, then to the palace proper. Both you and your ally are drawn towards the obelisk, your gazes briefly locked on the monument.

The symbols on the obelisk periodically pulse a faint red, all but invisible against the obsidian stone. As they do, power washes out from the obelisk, bathing any nearby with the dark side. You know that on the other side of the obelisk in front of you is a small chamber holding an impressive six inch red crystal, and if intelligence reports are correct, that crystal is likely the source of the energy bound within the obelisk. Some within the Dark Council are desperate for the artifact. It was once a prized possession of Lord Tytonus, though what purpose the crystal held to her is unknown; it was recovered from her fallen corpse after the Sith Empire put her rebellion to rest ages ago.

Before you can even reach the crystal, footsteps upon granite stone tell you that you two are not alone, and you realize that whatever you two were going to do with the crystal, it would have to wait. Someone else has come for the precious artifact.

You turn towards the origin of the sounds and notice a hooded figure wielding a long-handled lightsaber several meters in the distance. Both you and your companion can feel the weight of the her power through the Force, and know you both now stand between her and her likely objective.

She was young, carefree and an incorrigible optimist, always willing to believe the best in people. He was middle-aged, suspicious and a natural cynic, a dour figure who lived for his duties. She was a medic at heart, by nature and vocation inclined to heal and make whole. He was a destroyer, the avenging fist of a Clan short on friends and long on enemies. To her, death was ever the last resort; to him, it was always the first. When they had first met, she had cracked a joke at him and he had almost killed her by way of response.

All taken together, they were the least likely people in the galaxy to bond.

And yet it was the galaxy’s nature to occasionally defy expectations. Their friendship had begun when she had taken his name, and it had been tempered by their family’s shared survival in a war-torn Brotherhood where such a state was precious and rare. They were friends, siblings, and comrades, and there were few things that gladdened him more than seeing his sister alive and bearing her trademark eternal smile.

Yet right now, Timeros wished more than anything that Atyiru was somewhere else.

“You know, Tim, Cethgus has a saying,” the young Miraluka commented as she slid neatly out of her cloak, exposing copper skin.

“Don’t care. Eyes up front.” The Arconae’s voice was curt and sharp, as if he were trying to flense away the tension. His eyes were fixed, like a sandhawk’s, upon their Iktotchi foe. The One Sith returned his look without concern, seemingly eager for the battle to begin. She was circling the combatants, lightsaber hefted in both hands, almost comically large against her diminutive frame.

“I don’t have-“

“Nevertheless.” The Adept took a long step across the stone, placing himself directly between his sister and their enemy. Atyiru cast him an impish grin as he did so, reaching for her lightsaber.

“So anyway,” the Archpriestess continued, turning toward the Iktotchi. “What’s your name?”

The answer came as motion. One moment the woman was still stalking around the two combatants, a horned and menacing visage. The next, she was fluttering robes, a Force-carried bolt of lightning hurtling into the sky.

Timeros replied in kind, whipping up his hand in a gripping gesture, Westar launching from his belt and settling in his palm just as he pulled the trigger. A volley of crimson bolts rose to meet the alien to the tune of a mechanical whine, tearing into the One Sith’s robes and reducing them to flaming rags.

But that was all he did. The burning remains of the One Sith’s clothing fluttered to the ground, quite empty. Before the Adept could do more than notice the discarded garment, the Iktotchi came plummeting down like a howling tempest.

The horned alien fell on Timeros feet first, lightsaber gleaming a murderous crimson. Instantly, the dark side flooded his veins and he surged aside, trying desperately to stop her from landing on his head. She still managed to land on his shoulder, coiling inward and then bounding ahead without a lull in her movement, the sheer momentum of her descent sending the Arconae tumbling to the ground. For an instant the Valley dissolved into wheeling earth and sky and obelisk.

When the Elder regained his bearings he was lying on the ground, face pressed against the granite, blaster gone from his hands. He rose immediately, Force-fueled muscles reacting obediently despite his disorientation, just in time to see the One Sith’s saber scythe down at his sister.

A smooth electric crackle heralded a sudden flash of blue as Atyiru’s weapon unfurled just in time to intercept the Iktotchi’s blow. She parried the attack smoothly, sidestepping as her enemy’s inertia carried her forward before chancing a counterstrike at the woman’s exposed back. The Miraluka’s swing missed its mark, however, as the woman soared into the air again, flipping over the Archpriestess’ strike and coming to a stop meters away.

“I am called Darth Necren,” she declared, her voice a rasping hiss. Without her robes, the Entars could see the carefully crafted Sith glyphs adorning her body, pulsing in eerie synchronicity with the blackened obelisk that framed her. “And you are called ‘dead’.”

Had the situation been less dire, Timeros would have rolled his eyes. As it was, he settled for bolting forward, all thought of grace forgotten, lightsabers jumping to his hands and blazing to life.

Necren was ready for him, surging across the stone just as Atyiru swung for her neck. The self-proclaimed Sith Lord ducked underneath her enemy’s saber then swiveled around in an impossibly extended one-handed stab, mental might steadying her weapon in lieu of strength.

Timeros’ saber bridged the distance between them just in time, stabbing viciously at the Iktotchi’s flank. The One Sith was forced to abandon her attack, swerving away with unearthly grace. She lurched between his blades, gait unsteady yet somehow contriving to retain her footing, saber rushing towards his abdomen.

There was no time to dodge, and so the Elder did not even try. Instead, he hurled his soul at the One Sith’s, battering down the floodgates of her mind and drowning her in loathing.

The effects were immediate. The Itchotki staggered, attack aborted as she flinched away. Then, she disappeared.

Atyiru’s saber reached the One Sith in an instant, tearing through the space she had occupied only moments ago.

Too late. Their enemy was gone.

In their sudden respite, the Arconans shared a look. “Your thoughts?” Timeros finally asked.

She flashed the Elder another grin, her continued cheer distinctly unnerving. “Physically strong. Mentally weak. We can take her.”

At that moment, a diminutive form appeared, meters away. The One Sith’s eyes seemed glazed and frantic, but her grip remained steady, and she bellowed a furious cry at the Entars as she charged.

As the Entars raised their own sabers in anticipation, Timeros finally remembered Cethgus’ fondest saying.

A family that slays together, stays together.

“I’m sure you’re making a very scary face right now, but, see, my brother here, he blinded me with magnificence,” Atyiru sing-songed to the contortionist banshee charging them, grinning as Timeros’ body coiled beside hers. “Don’t look.”

It was her instincts that saved her--and a good deal of prayer to a pair of gods who apparently still found her bad jokes funny.

She ducked when Necren leapt over her head, body twisting. Stepped forward, to avoid the reverse lunge that would have severed her spine. The world blurred with the pivot of her heel as she spun her blade, barely deflecting a strike. She brandished her scintillating weapon, warding back the assassin a hair’s breadth.

For the space of that single heartbeat, it worked. She survived. But she did not win.

Atyiru’s foot slid back across granite too slow, her guard a bit too low, and Necren far, far too fast. The assassin’s fist thrust into her side with incredible strength, breaking ribs. The Miraluka was thrown back with a cry as the world dissolved briefly in a white-hot flash. Then reality crashed back down with the crack of her bones against the rocks as she hit the ground, a different sort of agony jarring through her teeth, and she could hardly move for the pain.

Necren stalked towards Atyiru, encased in a terrible riptide of rage, terror, and darkness, but a figure hurtled at her from behind.

It was Timeros.

-=x=-

The Iktotchi whirled around, sweeping her long-hilted weapon at his throat with a curt, disapproving motion more similar to trimming errant gristle from meat. Timeros lurched back, spine concaving and chin tilting, the searing blade sizzling his skin as it brushed past.

Necren’s momentum carried her forward into another spiral as she twisted back around, lightsaber plunging in an overhead slash. The amethyst tongues of flame he wielded caught the assassin's scarlet lance in a cross, the strike boring him to his knees. The Elder grunted, arms quaking, and stared up into her face, maddened with fear: hollow eyes too wide and teeth bared in a trembling grimace of a smile.

“Die!” she half-snarled at him in that hissing rasp of hers, forcing their interlocked sabers closer, until their incandescence filled his vision. The Force flooded his flesh and blood, shoving back, but still his arms creaked and his shoulders bowed, the blades humming nearer.

“Stop!” Timeros heard his sister screech, sensing an influx of the dark side. “Stop! Stop, Necren!” As he watched, Necren’s burning amber eyes deadened, facial muscles slackening. Her body grew limpid and the weight against his arms dispersed. The Human disengaged without thought, pushing his foe aside. The Iktotchi staggered listlessly, saber wobbling in front of her, as if in drunken stupor.

The Entar’s true-ice gaze studied his enemy with critical dispassion. There was nothing behind her milky-sheened eyes, nothing to her but a gentled sort of instinct that kept her on her feet, dimly aware of the basic necessities of movement and breathing.

It was like peering into a mirror.

“Timmy,” Atyiru said as she staggered with obvious care to his side. “I can’t keep this up for that long. Just knock her out and let’s go.” There was a pause, heavy and resigned. Hopeful. “Please.”

“You’re soothing her,” he observed.

“Everything. All her emotions. It’s just...numbness.” His fellow Entar touched his sleeve, something that would have lead to death by plasma to near any other. “I’ll sedate her. Let’s go.”

“No.” Timeros stated.

He stepped forward and casually plunged his sabers into the Sith Lord’s chest. Necren roused from her state long enough to loose a shriveled scream, a rictus of agony washing across her features. It did not last long though, and she collapsed off his blades shortly.

Timeros deactivated his lightsabers and reholstered his Westar, moving purposefully on to the monument that was a piece of their objective. He kept his eyes fixed ahead, noting the frown the creased his sister’s face and her silenced cheer but feeling nothing for either. There was never time to mourn, but if there was, he would mourn them in their time, later.

Behind him, Atyiru sucked in a sharp breath, evidently still healing her wounds, and trudged after him. They stilled before the obelisk, bathed in a lurid crimson glare. The Elder eyed the crystal housed therein, wary of any traps of Sith magic or alchemy.

“Wish Trouty was here…” the Miraluka at his side muttered.

“Nevertheless, he is not,” Timeros said, reaching for the artifact.

Claws of trepidation scoured down his spine, alighting his nerves with fire and blood as the Force bloomed in his mind.

Across the courtyard, Darth Necren opened furious orange eyes and howled.

Timeros withdrew his hand as though stung, spinning on the balls of his feet. His lightsabers had already jumped to his hands, filling the air with a malignant amethyst glow.

How? I killed you!

“The One Sith,” he stated, perfunctorily.

Atyiru cast him a sideways glance, shaking her head. “Oh, brother,” she chided, softly. “Have you really been in the field this long? This woman serves the Dark Council.”

Wait, we’re fighting against the Council?

Her words made no sense so he ignored them, quelling the confusion suddenly reigning inside him. The dark side raced through his veins like an electric current, but his mind was stilled and serene, enfolded in duty.

I will protect my Clan, what storms may come.

Storm came to the Entars in the form of a lithe and minute woman wielding an over-large lightsaber with a spiked hilt, torn robes exposing recently-healed wounds in her chest. She skidded across the obelisk’s edge in a plume of sand, glaring at the pair with baleful ochre eyes. She met, just for a moment, the Arconae’s cold blue orbs, and he sensed within her not a shred of compassion, mercy or even sanity. Anger was all that remained of her now, a wrath-stoked bonfire that would be doused by nothing less than the Arconans’ utter extirpation. The instant she saw targets upon which to vent her rage, she charged.

Timeros shot forward, propelling his slender physique across the stone in a transition-less shift from standstill to sprint, his swiftness unburdened by conscience or hesitation. Behind him, he was vaguely aware that Atyiru was likewise launching across the canyon, falling rapidly behind.

Necren erupted into crimson fire, washing over the Elder like a wave of lava. The Sith Lord vaulted into a breathtaking leap just before they would collide, her oversized lightsaber plunging down in a sudden aerial stab, just barely cresting his head.

The pale Adept met the Prophet with detached determination, the ice to her fire. He sidestepped her blade with effortless grace then thrust up, sabers ready to skewer the Darth as she descended.

Necren did no such thing, seeming to hang in defiance of gravity, the dark side extending her flight far longer than gravity allowed. His blades missed the amber-skinned waif by inches as she glided to the ground, feet finding purchase only for the moments it took her to reverse course. She lunged immediately, lightsaber extending impossibly far.

Timeros’ lightsabers were little more than a purplish blur as they zipped into place, catching the crimson conflagration and forcing it up and over his head. He stepped closer immediately, amethyst gout of flame uncrossing then leaping for the Iktotchi’s throat.

Necren spasmed, contorting into spine-twisting acrobatics as she managed to somehow vault over his lightsaber and simultaneously jarred loose her own crimson blade. Gone was the grace and elegance, the beauty of the saber fight. The Sith Lord was an emblem of savagery and she fought as such, swinging her lightsaber down like a hammer, the Arconae her anvil.

Her riposte was still-born. As she started moving, the dark side pulsed inside her, its insistent shouts clear to even the Iktotchi’s rage-blurred vision.

The Prophet aborted her attack, ducking implausibly low as an azure lightsaber stabbed overhead, just barely missing the small of her back. The amber-hued berserker kicked up her leg behind her as she dropped, smashing into Atyiru’s wrist.

The Archpriestess gasped as pain bloomed across her hand, lightsaber dropping to the sand. Hissing in satisfaction, Necren reversed course abruptly, spiked hilt springing for the Miraluka to force her back.

Atyiru did not retreat; she sprang forward, impaling the blade upon her shoulder, crying out in pain and shock when the spike pierced her flesh. As she did, the Aedile clenched the saber with exertion-white knuckles, fighting to remain conscious while trapping the Sith Lord’s saber.

For a moment, as the Miraluka’s trap snapped shut, Necren felt something other than rage, her features suddenly rife with confusion.

A moment of doubt was all Timeros needed. His sister could soothe or riot. He now did both, flaying away at the Iktotchi’s soul, tearing away emotion until only emptiness remained, and then filling that void with fear.

Necren let out a long, piercing wail, the sheer force of her sudden agony tearing at the woman. The next instant, she collapsed onto the ground.

Rage, the Elder realized, numbly. * The artifact fueled her rage. When it broke…so did she. I did not feel rage, so I did not benefit. As for Atyiru...*

He turned toward his sister. Somehow, she managed an encouraging smile even as she removed the Prophet’s lightsaber from her shoulder, ignoring the sudden gush of blood.

“I killed her,” he stated, softly.

“Doesn’t look like it,” the Priestess replied merrily, indicating the Sith Lord’s slow breath.

“I mean earlier. She should have already been dead, artifact or no.” His eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. “You healed her.”

Atyiru returned his stare, defiance written in her eyes. “Not precisely. I just… stabilized her a little. Gave her a chance to live. Probably just extended her dying.” She turned, indicating the fallen Darth. “I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right. This was right.”

The Entar regarded his sister silently, studying the gaping wound in her shoulder. Was it worth it, sister? He did not ask the question out loud. Her radiant smile was all the answer he required.

“Very well,” he said, finally. “Obtain the artifact. I’ll keep watch.”

It was testament to Atyiru’s exhaustion that she did not bother to scrutinize his feelings. She trundled away, grasping her shoulder as she tried to stem the flow of blood.

You swore your oaths. I swore mine. I’m sorry, sister.

Timeros watched her leave, suddenly feeling very old. Then, he turned his attention to Necren, thinking of the Council.

His lightsaber tore cleanly through the Prophet’s neck.

The blade lives only as it falls.

Necren’s keening cut through the air like a forge-hot knife. The dark side pulsed and shuddered to the banshee’s tempo, gnawing voraciously along the Miraluka’s skin.

In the stillness of the single heartbeat they still had, the younger Entar turned towards her brother, curtailing hysteria with a sickly smile. “I guess she’s not the kind of girl to go for penetrat--”

“Focus, sister,” Timeros hissed in frigid monotony.

“This is me focusing,” she replied with forced flippancy, moving to draw her saber. Pain split her insides at the motion and her nerves spasmed. “Ah,frak.” Atyiru grit her teeth, abandoning her blade and gingerly unholstering a blaster instead. “These should be healed already.”

The Miraluka sensed her brother’s infinitesimal frown as they carefully rounded the obelisk, weapons ready. Timeros stalked lithely in front of her, every fiber in his body coiled tight to spring--

Necren was again gone. Atyiru strained her senses, but found no hint of the Dark Lord’s presence in the miasmic slipstreams of the Force that writhed around them.

The Archpriestess sagged against the stone monument, folding over with a labored breath. “I can’t find anything. Do you think she’s fled?”

“Unlikely. She is angry, injured, rabid. The more probable outcome will be a frontal assault.” His tone took on the slightest disciplinary inflection. “Get up.”

“Yes, brother-darling,” she replied jauntily, adopting a more combat appropriate stance and doing her best to ignore her fractured ribs with the Force. “I--”

Awareness exploded in her mind like a supernova. Atyiru reflexively turned her face upward, too late, as Necren again plummeted from the sky like the purging fist of a wrathful god.

Between one heartbeat and the next, she knew nothing else: her perspective shifted, crushing down, and there was only the immense power descending towards her that filled her world with radiance, obliterating everything in its terrible light. It was the center of the universe. Light. Heat. Dread. Darkness.

Then Timeros’s foot met firmly with her side. Her flesh gave way to inertia and she was flying, tumbling into the ground, skidding back behind the obelisk just as the Prophet crashed down hard enough to shatter the granite underfoot.

Atyiru did not feel her ribs rebreak or Necren’s saber scouring into her flank, but she felt every second afterward as the sound of screaming plasma filled the air in a maelstrom of blades. The medic clung desperately to consciousness and reached for the Force, whimpering for its relief.

None came.

Why? she thought, sobbing raggedly.

A short distance away, her brother struggled. Necren seemed less consumed than before, but she showed little sign of flagging. Atyiru staggered to her feet, clasping her side with one hand and unbelting her second blaster with the other. Blood and char muddled her fingertips. Her head swam. It was hard to lift her arm, but she managed.

Timeros and Necren separated a hair’s breadth in their fatal melee and, with shaking limbs, the Archpriestess aimed and fired.

The Sith Lord did not even bother to dodge. A few bolts burned across her inked skin, but most went wide, dying quietly in the air. Atyiru watched as the Iktotchi twitched while her lightsaber swept to scythe off her opponent’s head.

She watched as the wounds closed only moments later.

How…? Atyiru’s blaster clattered out of her pallid fingers as her arm failed her. She slumped. Is it her...this place...what?

It was hard to focus. The world tilted on its axis and things went curiously numb.

Disgraceful. What are you doing?

Atyiru startled from somewhere in the haze. Timmy…?

Will you defend them to death? No. I am trying to teach you that sometimes, offense is the only option.

That’s right. Timmy. He taught me to…

The point is not to win. The point is to fight. You want to protect your friends? Avenge them? Then you must fight. Now get up.

Sound, light, and pain returned. Hands twitching, Atyiru pushed herself to her knees, shaking like a windblown leaf. She was dimly aware of fighting still raging nearby, and felt relieved--her brother yet lived.

The Miraluka exhaled through clenched teeth and inhaled the Force, gathering its fulminating claws of dark energy in her palm. She extended her arm--not towards the combatants, but towards the crystal they had come to claim.

Electricity leapt from her fingertips. There was a sound like shattering glass, and the dark side energies that saturated the area imploded.

-=x=-

The Elder felt the shift as something snapped, tiny vibrations reverberating across his senses. A small part of his clockwork mind acknowledged the sensation as the larger portion realized that, this time, as the tongue of his amethyst blade licked across his foe’s flesh, the wound remained.

Necren screeched, some measure of fear rekindling in her lurid gaze. Timeros’s dispassionate eyes narrowed.

He flung his mind into the Force, throwing the horror of his will against the Sith’s mental shores like a searing, polluted hurricane. Necren’s eyes rolled back and she choked around a scream, convulsing. Unflinching, the Human lunged forward and, in one swift motion, relieved her shoulders of her head.

Everything stilled. He breathed hard.

The Arconae deactivated his sabers, taking silent stock of his injuries. “Atyiru?”

“I’m okay,” she called. The young Miraluka trudged slowly out from behind the monument. Her every step carried the weight of ten, but she appeared whole. “I broke our artifact though. I don’t know what sort Sith magic it was, but I think it acted as a siphon, or some sort of augmentation device for healing. Either way, she could rejuvenate faster, and I could barely manage.”

The older Entar flicked critical eyes over the crystal, the battlefield. “Very well,” he stated indifferently. His gaze swiveled to the citadel ahead of them. “Then we move on.”

“Already?” Atyiru complained, but began walking with him nonetheless.

“Yes.”

She grinned. “...can we at least stop for a snack?”

“Atyiru.”

“Fine.”