“I love it when this happens!” Vaylin’s cackle was almost entirely drowned out by Meetra’s warning shout to the others, and indeed the party scarcely had time to react at all before it seemed the siblings were making their advance towards them.
Revan stumbled backwards from the sheer force behind the Exile’s shove, momentarily losing his balance and falling onto one knee. Aria and Kytra quickly leapt into action to put themselves between the Heralds’ leader and Vaylin, the Champion’s own partly-amber eyes tracking Vaylin with wary precision as she watched the older woman pace, sizing them up.
“You and me, crazy, let’s go!!” Aria snarled through her teeth, green bolts of electricity crackling from both of her saber blades. Vaylin’s features split into a sickening grin and she let loose another cackle as she set upon them again.
The Champion leapt to the side to avoid the broad swing of Vaylin’s lightsaber, frowning in thought as she noticed something. For all her talk, Vaylin’s saber movements were...choppy, at best. Kytra, too, narrowly avoided being sliced across the midsection, a low hiss slipping from between the Selonian’s teeth as she righted herself once more. Vaylin raised her free hand, bolts of bright blue electricity shooting out of her fingertips in time to meet the green from Aria’s lightsaber as she raised it to deflect the attack.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.” the Champion challenged, pivoting her feet back as she prepared to lock blades with Vaylin.
“I’m just getting started!” she retorted, instead of pushing forward with a saber attack as Aria had expected, Vaylin hung just out of her reach, stepping backwards each time the Qyaari tried to advance and continuing to throw various blasts of Force energy in their direction. By this time, Revan had regained his faculties enough to surge to his feet and join them, snarling.
“She’s not going to close with you, we have to go to her!”
What began next was a rather tedious game of cat and mouse, with the trio pressing forward as they attempted to fend off Vaylin, which proved a lot trickier in practise than it was in principle…
Revan was right about one thing, Vaylin was very much aware of her weakness and doing her utmost to avoid a saber duel with any of them, even Kytra, who lacked much of the experience of her fellows. Any moment that Aria or Kytra got too close, Vaylin would suddenly summon up an immensely powerful wave of Force energy and send them flying backwards again.
Aria lost count of the amount of times she connected with a railing, or a bulkhead, and on one occasion even Kytra, but she knew that almost every bone in her body HURT as a result of it. Vaylin’s power in the Force was...terrifying. The Champion quickly began to realise that although they had nearly double the numbers advantage in comparison to the two siblings, Revan and Meetra were the only two in the party who might have stood a chance at matching their power; the four Qyaari might as well have been newly-initiated acolytes trying in vain to throw pebbles at a Darth and hoping it would somehow save their life...
They were barely holding their ground against Vaylin, and across the room Yerbol, Ethan and Meetra seemed to be having an even worse time with Arcann, as evidenced by the flashes of pain Aria could feel from her partner through their Force bond.
“MEETRA!” Aria turned towards the other group upon hearing Revan’s shout in time to see the Exile impaled on Arcann’s saber. Aria wasn’t entirely sure how to react, but Revan...Revan was INCENSED. Before Arcann could bring his saber down towards Ethan, the leader of the Heralds had launched his own blade across the room to intercept it, taking off at a run towards the Eternal Emperor instead.
The pain she was feeling from Yerbol worried her enough, but it got even worse when suddenly, it just...stopped. All of it. She couldn’t feel anything from her partner anymore, and after many years of being used to some sort of residual signs of his Force signature being in the back of her mind, the silence was DEAFENING. The Champion’s grip on her sabers were white knuckled as she continued to parry lightning from Vaylin left and right. She desperately wanted to follow Revan and make sure Yerbol was okay, but she couldn’t leave Kytra to face Vaylin all by herself, her poor apprentice would be dead in under a minute.
As if in answer to the Champion’s silent prayer, another form suddenly appeared between the two Qyaari and Vaylin, for a moment Aria feared more of the Knights had come to their masters aid, until she noticed that the armour they wore wasn’t gold, but grey and off-blue...and strangely familiar even without seeing the Lorekeeper’s face since her back was to them.
“VANO?!” she gawked in surprise as the Mirialan threw out a hand to fling Vaylin backwards, “Wh-what…?!”
“No time,” Vano growled, her eye locked on Vaylin as she kept her hand extended to try and hold the madwoman in place where she stood, “Get going, quick, I can’t hold her long!”
Vaylin’s eyes widened too, though she soon barked out another cackle as she jolted herself free of Vano’s grip, landing on her hands and knees on the floor.
“Oh, this is interesting...! Did daddy send you, Wrath?” Vaylin cooed.
“That’s no concern of yours!” Vano snarled back at her, taking only one stride before she ended up almost face-to-face with her and managed to land a glancing blow onto Vaylin’s shoulder. With an enraged snarl, Vaylin lunged for the Mirialan, only to roar in fury as her saber whisked through empty air when Vano seemed to suddenly vanish yet again, popping up behind Vaylin for long enough to catch her attention and make her turn around.
The entire cat and mouse chase seemed to do nothing but infuriate Vaylin, who’s attention had thankfully now diverted from Aria and Kytra in favour of trying with all her might to land a powerful blow against the newest member of their party...to no avail, Vano never seemed to stay in one place for longer than a few seconds before she reappeared somewhere else with an alarming amount of precision. Upon first seeing her, Aria had felt concerned for the Lorekeeper’s safety...this fight was out of the depth of most of the Qyaari, even. But then, it had been years since Aria remembered seeing Vano fight, and it was easy to forget that the Mirialan had once been the Emperor’s Wrath - one of the greatest duelists that the Sith Empire had ever seen. If anyone could stand a chance at keeping Vaylin at bay, it was her.
“You’re spoiling my fun!!” Vaylin complained, flinging another bout of lightning and yet again, missing her target.
They weren’t going to win this. They had to leave, now. The angrier Vaylin got, the more power she was going to use, and if that happened Aria had the sinking suspicion that the crazy daughter of the Emperor could fry every person in this room to space dust without so much as batting an eyelid.
“Kytra, find Neta, get back to the shuttle we came on and get the engine running so we can get the FRACK out of here.”
The wide-eyed Selonian didn’t need to be told twice, squirreling up one of the support rails and onto the balcony above their heads (for it was the quickest way to get out of the room without opening the hermetically sealed door - for which they had no access codes) and racing out of sight in search of the spec ops pilot.
“NETA! NETA, WE’VE GOT A PROBLEM!” she screamed, hoping she’d be heard.
Aria quickly raced over to check on Ethan and Yerbol, fluttering between them anxiously while Revan kept Arcann occupied with a series of violent and successive saber strikes from any possible angle he could get to. Arcann managed to deflect them all, though he didn’t appear to be tiring in the slightest, thanks to whatever he’d managed to do to the other Force users.
“Are you alright? What HAPPENED, what in Force was that?! Come on, both of you, y-you gotta get up, w-we, we gotta go.” Aria urged them gently.
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