~| The Jedi Archives |~
~| day 1, 11th Hour |~
Chell could feel the death around her. The echos of blasters and screams were the last signs that she received that they were under attack. The shaking from the explosions was her first inkling that something was happening. She had quickly jumped from her bunk and moved as fast as her body could move to the archives. Jumping over and threading between temple guardsmen marching to what was likely their doom was her second indication that this was really happening, the temple was being assailed. Echos of pain boomed through the force, both light siders and dark siders, screaming into the void, she felt it all. When she finally made it to the archives she discovered a young Twi’lek, wielding a red saber, dispatching the last of the blaster-wielding guardsmen outside of the holocron vault. She felt the anger begin to bud inside her, as a sentinel it was
her duty to defend the archives. Seeing a corrupted Nerf like this in her domain was unsettling. Not allowing her training to crack Chell pushed her anger down and bared down on the young apprentice quickly. She leapt high into the air using the force to augment her jump and then propelled herself at an angle towards the young sith. The sith was only just barely able to block her powerful strike with his saber, clashing with Chell’s right handed saber. Unbeknownst to him however, she used two sabers. Using the force to pull her second saber into her left hand she quickly ignited it and swiped at the young apprentice’s right arm. Only superficially striking the Twi’lek he retreated back several steps. As Chell finally touched the ground she wasted no time in throwing one of the guardsman's corpses at the sith.
The sith was caught by surprise from the body and quickly sliced it in half, filling the air with the smell of burnt flesh. Chell was right behind the body however and used the force to push him off his stance. As the young Twi’lek staggered back Chell struck with her left hand with a downward swing. The sith was haphazardly able to block the strike but left his midsection exposed. Seizing the opportunity Chell cut from the inside out with her right hand, splitting the apprentice in twix at the hips. His saber immediately disengaged and his upper half slid off backwards, his bottom half crumpling forwards. Chell quickly grabbed the fallen sith’s saber with the force and clipped it to her belt, she would need to destroy the weapon later to ensure no other sith would be able to wield this younglings weapon. She looked back down at the sith, who was still alive. He was feeling the new bottom of his body with tears streaming down his corrupted face. She supposed everyone was pitiful in the end. Not wishing to make the sith suffer she quickly dispatched the man’s head and found her center again. She had long since learned to control dark urges but she often wondered if the council would take issue with a feeling of pity. Nevertheless, she purged the emotion and focused on her surroundings, looking for a new intruder to kill. She felt many sources of darkness nearby, but one particularly close, one dangerously close to the holocron vault. Throwing herself into another force augmented sprint she made her way to the new threat.
Chell quickly spotted another younger looking sith. Why they would send their youth to fight her, a middle aged Zabrak, was beyond her. Chell noticed she was trying to cut through the wall, an odd decision to be sure. Noticing a heap of two dispatched droids near the young woman. Chell reached out and grab the remains with the force, repeating her earlier maneuver, hoping to end this fight just as quick as the last one.
Though it was the weakest point in the holocron vault, the wall was nonetheless not easily cut. She had gotten almost entirely through the wall when she half-sensed, half-heard one of the beautifully wrecked droids near her move. Considering how thoroughly it had been disabled, it clearly did not move of its own accord. She immediately realized that the cause had to be rooted in the Force. Immediately disengaging the saber from cutting the wall, she turned about more than a little annoyed. At that moment, she spotted the droid swiftly moving through the air straight for her. With a quick slash combined with a touch of the Force, she slashed down, further dismantling it and rendering that attack impotent. “I suppose being left alone is not an option…” she muttered, facing the Jedi responsible.
Seeing that her previous trick was not going to allow her a quick kill Chell stopped her high speed with a quick and powerful use of force push in the direction of the sith. The push stopped her and allowed her to ignite her blades and fall into her Ataru stance. “You are not quite as weak as the other one I see. It makes little difference to me.” Chell said in her commanding tone as she then crossed her sabers in an X and charged at the sith. Using her left hand for defense she brought her right saber down into a powerful swing, using her momentum to attempt to knock down the sith’s saber.
The moment the Jedi charged her, Nimm held her saber down, seemingly ready for a classic attack. She had noted the jedi’s choice of wielding two sabers. Sure, she could probably protect herself against such, but she had little interest in doing so. Crouching ever so slightly she did her best to not make her plans obvious. When the Jedi was almost upon her, she leapt up into the air, twisting mid-air, slashing down at the head, knowing it probably would not hit. But at least it would disrupt any plans the Jedi had. She did however, aim to land somewhat behind the Jedi, but outside the immediate reach of its sabers.
Chell was at least expecting to make contact with the sith’s saber but was surprised when she instead jumped in the air and swung down at her. Chell was easily able to bat away the sith’s only half serious attack but was more concerned that she was about to be off balance. Using her off hand to match the sith’s saber Chell jumped to the right and high into the air aiming for the top of one of the data banks. This served to disengage herself from the sith but it also provided her another opportunity. As she used the force to hold herself to the side of the data bank momentarily she sliced off an edge of databank off with her saber and quickly grabbed it with the force. With her left hand she directed the chunk at the sith with a strong push then herself, jumped off the side of the databank towards the sith. Raising her sabers in front of her once again she crossed her swords and hoped to keep the sith from attempting the same evasion tactic by coming down at her at an angle.
Although Nimm could have evaded, she did not directly aim to do so. Keeping her left hand on her blade, she quickly flipped it into a reversed grip, then used her right to push the databank chunk off to the side at the same time. She repositioned herself ever so slightly, so that she could both block the strike as she held her reversed saber high, and so that it would be easier to redirect her foe. Even as she did all this, she began planning the next several strikes, estimating how her foe would seek to strike and the moves to counter those strikes with the minimum effort. She expected that her suddenly switching over to Shien would put her foe off balance in more ways than one.
Robes flapping at her sides violently, Chell was barely able to see the sith switch stances in time. She brought her offhand saber out in a wide left to right swing, hoping to use the collision of the sabers to disengage again. Her right hand went for a jab at the sith’s mid-section, mainly in an attempt to move her out of her stance. The loud crash of sabers came as expected and Chell twisted over to her left hand and wildly reaching out with her right blade. Landing on her feet away from the sith again. She seemed oddly experienced for a young girl, she wondered for a moment if this was even an original body or some other trick of sith alchemy. Pushing the thought aside Chell started circling to the right of the sith, switching her sabers repeatedly between a back hand and normal grip, hoping to make her intentions unclear. “I’m surprised girl, you sith usually would have lost their temper on the back foot. They do so hate not being able to unleash themselves. You could make a good jedi you know, no longer a slave to your emotions, in control of your faculties.” Still circling Chell was trying her best not to be terribly condescending but she was becoming annoyed with this sith. Chell’s skills were best used against groups rather than duels, however this was her duty regardless.
It was not particularly hard to see how the Jedi was attempting to taunt her, but Nimm did not care. She was not some brutish warrior, running on barely controlled rage. Only a Jedi would think that all Sith were that way. There were numerous exchanges of blows, all aimed at keeping the Jedi from being able to unleash a strong assault. Each circled the other, trying to outmaneuver the other. When she noticed the Jedi kept flipping her sabers back and forth between standard and reversed grip, she got an idea. That chunk of databank from earlier was not too distant. With carefully concealed motive, she redirected their combat so that the chunk was behind the Jedi. With a hard pull with the Force, Nimm yanked on the chunk, aiming to have it impact the back of the Jedi’s right hand, intending to have it hit the moment the saber handle was in the process of being flipped. At the same time, she kept her counterstrikes rapid so as to keep the Jedi focused on her. It did not matter overmuch if the chunk hit. Either it did, and the saber was potentially dropped, or the Jedi would merely be distracted by it and she could land a very special blow, a strike commonly called Cho Mai.
Chell’s taunting was having little visible effect on the sith, well if she kept at it maybe it would, it usually did anyway. Wanting this fight to be over with Chell was almost at a loss when the sith began moving after her. It didn’t feel right, the sith had been too unshaken. Chell blocked the first of several blows backhanded and then quickly dropped down and put as much of her force as she could muster into pushing the sith away from her. The sith’s saber came down and superficially cut her forearm as the databank hit her in the back. Between these two events Chell was forced to drop her saber and pull back as fast as she could. Bringing her right hand to saber and holding it in front of her she noticed her grip was considerably weaker. The force was allowing her to ignore the pain but it didn’t cover up the fact that her primary hand was now barely able to grip a saber. The nerf had tried to cut her hand off, Chell was no longer amused. Not bothering to attempt to retrieve her saber from the next to the sith she simply reached to her side and ignited the red saber. It felt wrong, it felt evil, it felt like pain, but it would potentially save her. Now wielding a blue and a red saber Chell redoubled her attacks. Not being able to directly clash with the sith using her right hand was a handicapped but she could still swing at her. Filling herself with the force Chell charged at the sith, spinning into two downward strikes.
The telekinetic attack worked exactly as she had intended to. Sure, she did not succeed at unhanding her foe, but that had only been a secondary goal, a potential bonus. If necessary, she would remove that hand later. When she herself was pushed somewhat back from the Jedi and the Jedi pushed herself away from her, she could not help but smile. This was a powerful Jedi. Not many Force Users could do that to her against her will. If she could be turned, she would make a powerful Sith.
It was clear that the piece of debris had hurt the Jedi. Not only did she drop the saber, but the spare saber, a red-bladed one no doubt taken from a weaker Sith, was held with far less confidence and firmness. She’d actually managed to hurt the Jedi with such a simple attack. The Jedi was clearly not pleased about that, for she seemed to pull herself together and launch a series of follow-up attacks with far greater intensity than before. “Yes… Use your feelings… Embrace your anger… It will make you stronger…”
Unlike her, the Jedi was clearly not used to controlling her emotions. Thus, blocking her attacks was easy. She easily picked up the Jedi’s dropped saber, clipping it to her own belt so as to have control over it. She did not hide doing so. In fact, she wanted the Jedi to see it. It would no doubt infuriate her.
“Ha! Vermin you mistake anger for the righteous fury of the light!” Chell half cackled out as she brought down her sabers and went for a wide left to right swing with her off hand then a clumsy bottom up swing with her now half numb primary hand. The blade unintentionally sparked the ground and left a molten gash in the floor of the archive room. She focused more of her force abilities into her right hand, trying to get back the skill she normally wielded her blade with. This sith was proving to be an annoyingly competent opponent. So much so in fact she was having a hard time remembering the last time one had given her so much pause.
“So it is ‘righteous fury’ you call it here on Coruscant. . . Heh. Out in the galaxy, its called ‘rage’. Most apprentices have to learn to control that. Or, in some cases, learn how to unleash it properly.” She shifted her attack pattern to focus on the weakened side of the Jedi, keeping herself almost constantly opposite from the Jedi’s good hand, rendering it obsolete, even as she kept hammering blows onto the saber, using her full strength to further weaken the hand holding it.
“Only a slave of the dark side would say such a grossly ignorant thing.” The sith’s constant attacks to her right side were becoming an issue for the jedi. Chell decide her best course of action was to switch her grip to her backhand, which only really made her right hand useful for blocking now. She also decide it would be best to circle around with a series of right to left attacks using her left hand to she could move her right side near to the wall. With her flank now less in danger of facing powerful and broad strikes Chell brought her left blade down in an attempt to occupy her opponents saber. She then put her focus on her left foot and with a kick to the sith’s chest let out a powerful wave of force, hoping to push the sith away and maybe even wound her. This intensity of combat was not something Chell was going to be able to keep going much longer. She was going to need an end game. “Tell me girl, when did the lords decide combat was beneath them. Retreating to their bloated imperial center leaving younglings to fight for them. Or are you an exception, and your master simply wishes to kill you!”
“Oh, there are several lords here.” She answered, keeping her attacks up on the right side of the Jedi. She kept her assault hard, mixing in a few Djem So strikes, powerful, carefully aimed strikes. “You might even get to meet some after I am done dealing with you.” With that, she unleashed a flurry of hard, two-handed blows, aimed to take advantage of the weakness in the Jedi’s hand. Not blocking even one of these strikes would lead to injuries ranging from moderate to severe, whereas blocking them would rapidly exhaust her opponent.
Chell was not very good on the defense, she was no soresu master. Her right hand was now barely able to move, the best she could muster was starting to burn the underside of her forearm. She was throwing a limp arm at the sith barely able to grip the liberated saber anymore. She kept trying to get a broad ataru strikes in in from the left while trying to lean more heavily against the wall to her right side. The only real offense she was capable of now was kicking out force pushes, most of which failed to get any sort of advantage open to her. She could not let the vault be taken, it was on her, it was her responsibility. Letting out a guttural yell she began striking with her remaining force at the sith with her still good arm and keeping her right saber up as little more than a shield.
The Jedi was cornered. Nimm knew it. The Jedi knew it. In a futile attempt to use the wall as protection, the Jedi had pressed herself up against it. Sure, it prevented Nimm from properly assaulting the weakened right side, but it also severely restricted movement. For now, it would be enough to continue the battering, looking for an opening that would allow her to incapacitate the Jedi for capture. “You do know what is inside that vault, right, Jedi?”
“Nothing meant for your mongrel hands!” Chell managed to yell out before gritting her teeth again. The pain of her hand was now seeping through her mental barriers, she couldn’t tell if her hand was broken or if that saber blow had cut the muscles in her arm. Regardless, she couldn’t keep it up anymore. She finally dropped the vile red saber and she suddenly felt as if a massive weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She could feel herself get a second wind now that she was not longer having to focus so much of her strength on holding onto another weapon. Letting out another primal growl Chell used anything she had left and began swinging broadly from the left with a quick spin. This also served to move her slightly further away from the wall. While her arm was hanging at her side, near useless, she was still able to use her left hand effectively. But for how much longer, she didn’t know.
The Jedi’s counter-attacks were increasingly desperate and increasingly easy to predict. Even better, the Jedi moved away from the wall, which would leave her wounded side more open for assault. In between her blocks, Nimm reached out with the Force, pulling the discarded saber up and hooking it onto her belt beside the Jedi’s saber. No point in leaving any such behind. “Contained within that vault is the largest collection of stolen Sith artifacts in this part of the galaxy. I can sense them, feel how their influence permeates this structure. Concealed beneath the emanations from those primitive Jedi holocrons, but still there… If you reach out with your mind, if you search properly, you too will sense them. Sense their
power...”
Once the Jedi was back out into the open, Nimm started her assault again. She had thought about how to do this. There were two distinct options of the non-lethal kind. Either she could dismember the Jedi, which would be rather enjoyable. Or she could provide plethora of additional—but less severe—wounds. It would be easier to go for the first of the two, but the Jedi was already weakened by foolish ethics. She would have a hard enough time as a Sith without cybernetic replacements. With them, she would probably not stand a chance of surviving, let alone thriving. That decided it for her. Multiple grazing wounds it would be. Wounds that would heal in time under the proper care, but still hurt. Pain would strengthen her, harden her for what was to come. As a bonus, she would make it clear she could have cut deeper each time, just to prove her superiority.
The sith struck Chell’s right shoulder with a glancing blow, adhering her skin to her robes.
There is no pain, there is the force. Chell knew she wasn’t going to win this, it was her hope that someone else might be able to come and finish her work. She at least hoped this sith had been delayed enough that someone could get here. The vault needed to be protected at all costs. “Stolen! Your people did nothing but enslave and oppress the galaxy with them, we LIBERATED them. But you wouldn’t know that, your masters need to control you somehow. Even if I die, you will not be the beneficiary!” Chell let out one last yell as she used whatever strength she had left to dish onto the sith, hoping to at least wound her. Letting out a fury of kicks, punches, and slashes, followed up with force pushes in an attempt to beat the sith down.
“Your knowledge of imperial history is impressively lacking. But then, you are but a Jedi, so I suppose I should expect no better…” Moments after Nimm answered, the Jedi started kicking, punching and slashing. The kicks she did her best to disrupt, the slashes she blocked with her saber, but the punches she largely let through, figuring that they would hurt the Jedi more than they ever could hurt her. She did not even try to hide that she let them through. Though she did not wear full battle armor the way some sith did, she was not so foolish as to not have any sort of protection built into her clothes. Not enough to significantly encumber herself or overly restrict movement, but enough to stop some types of attacks from causing much harm. “Your knowledge of Sith artifacts, however, is even worse. The lies of your masters are clear. Being Sith is about self-improvement, nothing else. It is not the Sith who dealt the deadliest blow in the last war.” At this point, the Jedi kicked towards her belly, and she shifted slightly to the side, then kicked out herself, aiming for the Jedi’s other leg.
“It appears your knowledge is even more stepped in ideology than mine!” Chell cared little that her punches had little effect, she could at least tire her out some, anything. She had to help the next group carry on…. anything was going to help. Her own kicks were doing nothing but serving to injure her, the Sith’s body armor being too great for her weakened self to penetrate.But the Sith’s kick to her shin, that was unignorable. In retaliation for Chell’s efforts her leg snapped. Chell was a Zabrak, meaning not only were her bones denser but she could deal better with pain than other races. But this…… this hurt. Without saying a word Chell fell onto her back eyes wide still gripping her saber defiantly. Teeth gritted and head shaking, spit escaping her clenched teeth she managed to struggle out ”And…. You …. Have gained…. NOTHING!” Chell had nothing left to fight with except her clenched saber, her knuckles a lighter brown than her. “FINISH IT SITH!” Chell managed to get out more cogently than her previous words.
Nimm was surprised to see how effective her kick was. Her core intent had been to make the Jedi fall over, but she must’ve hit some sort of weak spot, for the leg bent in ways it was clearly not designed to bend. The look on the Jedi’s face was rather delicious. “Finish it? I have something far more entertaining in mind…” As she said that, Nimm quickly unleashed a short burst of Force Lightning at the Jedi’s forearm, causing the muscles to momentarily convulse, causing the saber to drop. She then quickly snatched it up. “I’ll take that. You won’t need that for a while.”
Having hooked the final saber to her belt, Nimm reached behind her back, detaching something that had seemingly been a part of her belt, a small curved piece of metal with a pair of protuberances ending in inactive red lights. She pressed a couple of buttons on her wrist unit and the lights lit up. If the Jedi had seen one before, she might recognize it as exactly what it was: a shock collar. “You will not be permitted to die for a good while yet, Jedi.” She batted aside the Jedi’s arms, then hooked the collar onto the woman’s neck. Though it could not be seen, the moment it touched the woman’s neck, four prongs dug their way into the neck, hooking onto the spine and locking into place. Though the prongs were coated in antiseptics, they did not have anything to relieve the pain.
After attaching it, she stood back up, pressed a few other buttons on her wrist terminal, requesting a retrieval squad for the prisoner, as well as a medical stretcher. With a broken leg, the prisoner would be unable to walk, not even when properly motivated by the shock collar.
The lightning didn’t hurt compared to the pain of her leg, if anything it was just making her more numb. Almost as if her brain was not allowing her to process anymore, it was as if it wanted to die. When the sith put the collar around her neck she felt nothing.
Emotion, yet peace. Pain, yet the force. Death, yet the force. Chell was trembling with rage at the sith, but she couldn’t help but hear the tenants of the Jedi code, booming in her skull. Chell carried no malice, no hate, no rage, but her body was trying to resist her, force her, to feel. She could hold it back, but she could not act. “You will…. gain nothing…. from that vault, only your own demise… sith.” She had little strength to do little else, her body exhausted from the acrobatic form that was Ataru and bent onto the ground she could do nothing.
It was easy to sense the conflict within the Jedi, but Nimm did not bother with starting on playing with it. Right now, the Jedi would have to enjoy her pain instead. If they had been taught how to rule their emotions, rather than how to suppress them, they would have been far less vulnerable in situations like this. Instead, she stepped back over to the vault wall, continuing to cut it open while keeping an eye on the prisoner. Which wasn’t difficult. The prisoner was going nowhere. Both conveniently and inconveniently, the retrieval team arrived within minutes. As per their instructions, they had brought along a transport sled loaded with a reasonable amount of explosive charges, which she would install in the holocron vaults after recovering the sith holocrons and artifacts kept there. It probably would not destroy the primitive Jedi holocrons, but at least it would bury them within the rubble.
Chell could see the sith moving into the vault, no doubt awestruck by the magnificence. She could hear the distinct thuds of the troopers heavy boot heels, no they could not be allowed to taint this place as well. She might not be able to stop the sith but she could at least stop them. Chell summoned what little strength she had left and pushed herself on top of her still good leg, her broken leg put in front of her. She saw the throng of black clad troopers. She closed her eyes and reached out with the force, gripping the troopers around the wrists and suddenly twisting them. Three troopers immediately dropped their rifles and dropped to the ground, screaming through their speakers. Four approached this time and she sent a shockwave of air at them, sending those four tumbling end over end into several more, no doubt at least wounding them. But more showed up, she quickly redoubled her effort and pulled several of them head first into a databank. More troopers stepped over them and continued their march toward her.
Nimm could hear that the Jedi was not done with fighting from the excessive noises coming from outside the vault. She supposed she should not have been surprised. Seeing how she knew the Jedi could not get away, she did not feel the need to go back outside, though. Instead, she simply pressed a few buttons on her wrist terminal, activating the first power setting on the shock collar to help educate the Jedi. It would hurt, but not deliberate. She fully expected the retrieval team to get the idea from that. If not, she decided they would have to learn a lesson from that too.
Chell felt the excruciating shock from the collar and it made her stop her force assault to throw up. Her eyes widened and head shaking she had to take some of her focus onto blocking the pain. Looking back up at the now closer troopers she let the force build up inside her and she let out a massive wave of force energy. Knocking down several more lines of troopers she was only delaying the inevitable. Struggling under the pain she only had one more option. She closed her eyes again and began to focus on the databanks. She felt for stress and individual sections of the databanks and she began pulling them inward. The sound of creaking metal and exploding circuits filled the hall. She began screaming to help her cope with the pain as she pulled down two massive chunks of the databanks into the corridor the troopers were approaching from, no doubt crushing several.
It was almost impressive how the pain of the collar inspired the rage of the Jedi in ways Nimm had not been able to inspire earlier. Still, she did not need the troopers to die. Thus, even as she continued spreading out the explosives, she prepared amp up the power on the shock collar. She would definitely have to experiment more with Jedi and shock collars in the future. She stood in the opening she’d cut and watched the Jedi breaking things before she finally pressed the buttons to take the collar to the level it would incapacitate the Jedi, cause her to be unable to move on account of her motor control being completely scrambled by the raw energy flowing into her from the collar. She would probably end up knocking the Jedi unconscious with it later, but it would be far more enjoyable to take it up slowly. To see how much the Jedi could handle, how far she could go under pressure.
The pain. The pain went beyond any pain she had experienced since her knight trials. Every muscle in her body tensed up for a moment and she fell onto her back, unable to will her body into movement. The most she was able to eek out was a gurgling noise. She took a few moments to recenter herself to the pain, she could hear more troopers approaching from another avenue. It would only be a few more moments before she would be indefinitely subdued this time. She turned over to the sith as she began throwing things around the holocron vault, making her way toward the sith holocron vault yet deeper in the vault. She started crawling, having long given up trying to use her legs. Crawling through the rubble towards the still moving sith she did the last thing she could think of. Reaching out around her and grabbing the assortment of debris around her and with the last of her effort threw all the debris as hard and as fast as she could, hoping she could at least cut that bantha’s wrists.
A level of pain that would have completely incapacitated most people, and the Jedi still tried to crawl and fight. Nimm was pleased with her choice of taking this Jedi alive. Once turned, which she would be, the Jedi would make a half-decent Sith. Maybe not one that could be trusted, but still… She finished with the jedi by taking the shock collar up to a level that would leave the Jedi unconscious, but not kill her. The Jedi appeared to have planned to toss all sorts of objects at her, but that attempt failed the moment unconsciousness hit, the objects in question clattering to the floor, no longer guided anywhere.
At this point, the battered retrieval team came forth, finally securing the Jedi to the stretcher. She instructed them in that they should keep her unconscious for the transit, not being certain that they would realize the wisdom of that on their own. They did provide her with a replacement shock collar, fortunately. It wouldn’t do to capture someone else and not have the means for restraining him or her. Immediately after that, the retrieval team departed, taking the prisoner with them.
Only then did Nimm feel ready to move back into the vaults and get the things she’d really come here for. Having seen the insides of the vault, Nimm decided to enlarge the opening she’d made a little, so that it would be easier to get all the artifacts out at the same time. She started cutting into the side of the passage, only to twist around when a blaster bolt hit a nearby wall, cleanly missing her, but giving her the feeling that someone had aimed specifically at her. Someone that was a really bad shot. The next shot missed by a similar margin, but the third almost came close, so she deflected that one into the statue of some presumably dead Jedi. “Whomever you are, I suggest you come out. If you wish to live, that is... If I have to come and get you myself, you won’t.”
