He wasn't interested in the conflict.  He had already had enough of violence within the Brotherhood.  He snarled underneath the helmet, watching as the big guns fired over their collective heads, trying to bring down transports and the odd fighter. He watched as a shuttle caught one of the ion blasts broadside, tilting in the sky over Mygeeto and struggling to maintain control.  The pilot was good, he had to give him that, but it was already too late.  A second blast tore through the hull and swatted it down like a stinging insect.  The plume of smoke only had a few seconds to rise before the power cells exploding.  He could feel the Force shudder, the echoes of a sensitive's death.

"They will never learn."  Muz didn't realize that he had let the words slip from his mouth until the others turned and looked at him.  The Twi'lek Quaestor and the dark-armored Sith cultist watched him for a moment, waiting to see if he would say anything more.  Muz shrugged it off, activating the HUD on his helmet.  the holographic overlay showed where they were on the map, the path that he would have to take.  

Red Fury had been harassing their flank, and Scholae Forces had taken the Scholae landing zone.  Had the Pirates and Scholae been working together, it would have been a classic pincer technique.  Yet, they still engaged each other in the broken cityscape to the south.  Collusion was not really going to happen now between them.  Absentmindedly, he tapped the belt pouch at his side, feeling the fist sized chunk of stone.  The crystals that peppered the stone were not meant for lightsabers, but they still glowed with an intensity that had drawn attention.  His attention, and others.  He had seen one like it before, and he was not going to leave it behind this time.

Tasha'vel barked orders at the warhost, the mass produced helmet bobbing in response before skittering away.  He watched the man go, listening to the cacophony of the battlefield, letting it wash over him.  

Muz stepped past the border, each stride taking him closer to the madness.  She called out to him, but he was already decided.  

The way out is through.

He really didn't recognize if he had said the words aloud or not.  In the howl of battle, it was hard enough to hear his own thoughts.  He picked his way between bits that used to be buildings, measured and careful strides, walking as straight of a line as he could toward the Landing Zone.  He was not about to sit and wait, surrounded like vermin in a trap, hoping for some eventual mercy.  That was never his way.  

The hairs on the back of his neck seemed to tingle, and his response seemed more automatic than anything.  Turning his body sharply, the disruptor blast screamed mere inches from him, tearing a hole in matter with a hungry sound.  He pivoted, his mind tracing the path backward, seeing nothing but sharp fragments of durocrete and broken timbers.  

Muz focused his mind, letting the patterns flow through his mind as his fingers closed out of habit.  The crack of splintering wood and shattering stone destroyed the sniper's cover, his second shot swaying wildly off course out of surprise and shock.  He scrambled to his feet, arm shielding his face from the debris as he bellowed into a comm.  

Muz's finger twitched.

The commlink snapped, and then the rifle did, shards of plastics and metal peppering the sniper's face with pain.  He tried to blink, but wasn't fast enough, the shrapnel lodging into his eye.  The pain set him to howl, even as he tried to call upon the Force to deaden the pain.

Muz stared at him, the insignia on his shoulder bearing the twin dragons of Scholae's symbol.  Muz turned to walk away, leaving him to pant and groan in the dust.  He moved with purpose, the soles of his boots grinding the rocks and rubble into a satisfying sound.  The HUD showed only a click between him and the Landing zone.  He imagined they would engage him at about half of that.

He allowed himself a smile beneath the helmet.  They would pile up on him, try to gain some measure of love from Pravus for being the one who killed the Lion.  Meanwhile, Tasha would see their movement, and lead a charge to take back their landing zone.  At least, if she had half a tactical mind.  

The distinctive sound of engines approached, a low-flying transport sliding underneath the scope of the anti-air cannons behind him.  It wove between the buildings, another fine display of piloting skill. Muz wondered what they were doing to train their pilots so well as he kept on his course, keeping the transport in his mind as it drew closer.  It was almost open terrain for the next quarter click, what used to be an intersection, maybe a busy street market, it was hard to tell now.  He picked his way down into the middle, careful not to let the gravel slide and drag him down to the ground unceremoniously.  He chuckled at the thought, and it almost caused him to miss the sound.

The click of the trigger was followed by the report of burning energy, rocketing toward him as he raised his hand.  The Force responded like an eager lover, wrapping itself around his hand and deflecting the blast back at the soldier.  The wet thump of flesh hitting firmament was proof enough that he hadn't missed.  He didn't even bother to look, he already knew.  The two others crouching next to him thought they were being clever, thought they were being stealthy.  They had forgotten who it was that they were hunting.

Muz just kept walking.  He paused near the center of the intersection, his mind reaching out around him.  The landing zone lay beyond the edges, a flat enough area, ringed with anti-aircraft and ion cannons, helping to make their skittish pilots feel safer about landing in a war zone.  There were more of them Scholae members and military, sneaking into the burned out husks of the buildings that ringed the clearing like a broken crown.  He felt their anxiety, their pride, and their fear as they took up positions. It was exactly as he had foreseen.

He stopped, resting his hands on the ends of his saber hilts, still encased in their holsters at his sides.  He lowered his head, cracking his neck before raising his voice.

"If any more of you shoot at me, I will get angry."

There was silence for a few moments as the words set in, ushering doubt and fear with them.  

"You'll be dead!" The single voice came from somewhere in front of him.  The echoes of ruins made the bounce harder to track.  "Drop it and leave!"

Muz lowered his head, dropping his weight a little.  "No."

The Force whispered to him, urging him to move, and he never refused her wishes.  He bolted to the side, letting the blaster bolt sear past him, burning a carbon mark into the dark violet of his undercoat.  His eyes narrowed as he reached out, the invisible hand of the Force crushing the pillars of the building behind him, causing the ruin to shake, then shudder as it fell, the sick sound of broken bodies reaching his ears as he felt the next wave.

They watched the building collapse from on top of the building in front of him, murmurs filling the comms on whatever secure channel they used.  It was only a moment before they opened fire in equal parts rage and fear, blasters screaming as his sabers erupted. The beams of light arrayed in defensive velocity to bounce away the bolts even as he bounded up the side of the crater, boots scraping the broken pavement as he leapt up.  

He counted eight.  He released a saber from the back of his belt, the golden beam howling as he sent it on its path, fighting on in flows of the Force. It drank deeply, finding the gap between helmet and chestpiece, burning down through throat and clavicle before screaming back to its master.  Muz ducked, the bolts scorching the air above him, his body moving in staccato and seemingly erratic patterns, dancing between the bolts as fast as they were sent his way.

It was seven now.  They started to fall back, trying to put distance between themselves and him.  Uneven terrain tripped up another, sending him stumbling to his back, the blaster shot going wide and hitting the pillars behind and above their target.  Muz looked at him, and the Force obliged, smashing him back through a decrepit wall, the wet snap of breaking vertebrae seeming to echo louder than the blaster bolts.  He bolted sideways, leaving a trail of scorch marks as their aim had difficulty keeping up with him.  He fell upon the Captain, a shallow slice from hi saber cleaving her helmet open at the face, a fine red burn tracing her skin from chin to forehead.  She all but bounced backwards, laying into the trigger as if it could save her.  The bolts tore into his open hand, scattering at odd angles away from him.  She tried to focus, tried to move her aim to someplace that his hand was not.  When the blade of his saber tore through her leg, she hadn't figured it out yet.  

Five now.  There was a lull in the action, as they hid behind cover, slapping fresh blaster packs into their weapons and minds scrambling for some sort of tactics to use.  The sub-bass rumble they all felt in their chests should have tipped them off, the smashing hand of the Force bludgeoning one of them into the ground. They watched their friend's armor collapse, saw his hands try to get the metal off of him as it compressed him, cutting off his circulation, his breath.  Their medic jumped to him, fingers trying to work the latch to remove the chestplate before she was lifted from the ground, abruptly swung into what remained of a wall until her head went floppy on her body.

He walked forward as they scattered, their blasters held so tightly that their knuckles shivered with strain.  Three left, and not a single one bothered to light a saber. Muz idly wondered what sort of intel the Scholae were operating on as it pertained to him.  He kept pace with them as they scrambled away from him, not bothering to conceal himself or make any real effort.  He had warned them, after all.

A glimmer of a threat grew in his mind, the hushed whispers of woe building to a crescendo as he drew another throat to his hand, casting it aside as soon as it had been broken.  Two, and one of them had to be dangerous.  The Force sang, full-throated at him, as he pushed forward, ripping aside a durocrete barrier with the Force.  

The bolt went wide in surprise, scorching through his left shoulder.  The scent of burning flesh filled his nostrils and he tasted something cupric. Snarling, he bolted forward, raining blows down into the Scholae's head, the amethyst of his blade drawing a trail of ruined flesh with each stroke.  Another shot screamed at him, this time from behind, snaring his prosthetic arm in a web of burning blaster fire.  The device struggled to react, sparks flying from the mechanism before shutting down into too much inanimate metal.  

He saw him hide; felt him breathing heavy, his heart pounding behind the thick walls of the ruin.  It was too far to run, too far to jump.  He had made himself safe with planning.  Muz focused his mind, feeling his exact position, as he debated pulling his own blaster from his hip.  The rig was on his left side, designed to be used with the hand that now hung depowered and heavy at his side.  It would be a lot of effort to try to pull the weapon from the wrong side.  

The dull howl of engines reminded him of another threat.  The transport wove between the shells of the buildings, trying to angle for a good shot with its forward cannon.  Muz pushed the pain aside as he bolted to the side, the concussive blast from the ship's fire rattling his senses.  He watched as the servos adjusted, trying to track him as he stood up, staring at it.

They hesitated.

Muz wondered if it was because they could not believe what they were about to accomplish, or if it was a sense of old loyalty biting their psyche.  It really didn't matter as he turned his pain into raw power.

The maelstrom tore from his fingertips, scorching the ends of his gloves with too much hatred, igniting every nerve between his heart and his hand.  The power congealed, a tempest of electricity roaring at the transport, engulfing it within its devastation.  The power surged through all on board, the agony resonating in the sealed ship as it began to lose control, the twitching muscles and spasms of the pilots succumbing causing the ship to list.  

Muz flicked his wrist, even though he did not need to.  The storm unleashed, he pulled the electrified ship into the building, bringing its bulk against already damaged walls that hid the last of his assailants.  The crumbling stone and durocrete collapsed as the ship fell to the ground. The building shuddered its death throes, sloughing off the rest of its weight onto the ship before it detonated, the power cells immolating under the strain of a thousand lightning strikes.

Muz watched the conflagration for a moment, silently cursing the pain at his shoulder, at his fingertips, the fatigue in his everything.  Slowly, he turned, patting the pouch at his side to remind himself that the stone was still there. He stepped past the falling walls, onto the broken blacktop, eyes scanning between the prefabricated ion cannons and half-covered bunkers for any movement.  He held his breath, reaching out with his senses.  

Nothing with a heartbeat was left.

He stopped, reaching for a backup commlink and checking the channel. "Lima Zulu secured." He stopped, clearing his throat.  "Tell Blackwind I am waiting for him."