Melting Furnace | Darth Talon

The Charge II

As her boots had whizzed along the ashes and shards of stones, she slowed down at the very edge of the vast atrium. The next moment a kick so desperate flew under her jaw that not throwing herself back over the ramshackle fence would have been a crime against mechanics.

She was defeated with a kick. With a kriffing kick.

She, who should be Darth Krayt's elite warrior!

Engulfed by the cascade of unforgiving construction debris, Talon nearly threw up from shattering terror and self-loathing.

They say Lethan Twi'leks, gules like blood on the banners, have their sense of pain dulled due to their epidermal mutation. As if you can whip and cut them as much as you want and they won't care. Nonsense. In every microscopic scratch on her flown-up lekku something primal, essentially Twi'lek sparkled and rushed to her neurons and synapses. It swept Talon away and whirled up everything that were her free ancestors – riders of firestorms, solid like mountains under the sand squalls and gritty like shells of the colossal insectoids they brawled with under the blinding sun of inferno.

Carried not by traitorous flesh, but by the winds of millennia beyond bodily shackles, with almost animal zeal she Force-tore the twisting of metal beneath her apart – as though burned its razor-sharp net – and with a horrific thunder landed on the cluttered frames, raising the clouds of face-nipping silver powder.

Hydraulic mechanism of her boots hissed indignantly: not designed for heights like that, the springs had overstrained, and Talon collapsed on her widely spaced knees. Fragments of ferro-ceramics were shaking the darkness, making her shield herself with miasma of shadows. If she hadn't used the Force to break the fall, she would have been torn into shreds.

Looking up, she could watch how gracefully the enemy shadow fell down. They dragged you through the mud, drag them in return, that's how Master defined the Balance. And what's her purpose if not maintaining this Balance?

"You dare to call yourself a Sith," repeated the holodroid, camouflage flashing anew on its struggling-to-rise-up silhouette. A Zabrak covered in red and black patterns of a dark lord. Ripped cloak bristled like a wing from under a massive shoulder pad, a strap and strings of small beads girdling its mighty chest. "Krayt said that you were born one. But do you even know what that is?"

Talon activated her saber backwards and pouted her lips: certainly not some typical defective windbag! Krayt is a peacemaker, and in his image One Sith are peacemakers and servants of order, and the disruptor of said order is now standing in front of her with one possible outcome–

The words cut off, faced by laughter. Quiet, hacking, as if through tears.

"Offspring of his own torturers," groaned the holodroid. "He tore out the root on which the Order was holding, twisted the Sith into a herd of fighters for common good! A gormless parody of the Jedi!"

Frowning, Talon soared up, energy bubbling under her skin as the Sith know no fatigue. She touched the tip of the other's head and almost landed behind the proxy's back, but it was as fast as lightning.

Deftly grabbing the Twi'lek, it turned around the axis, gave Talon the chance to slice the rods and bars with her blade. Blue holographic sparks bursted from the dusk under the frames. "Even like that?"

"Pupils of Dynasty of Bane were hundred times more powerful at your age. Then had figures to admire except of a martyr who was so afraid of discord couldn't even stand up for himself when they branded him a savage vermin–"

Talon pushed off from its shoulders and brought herself down with a surge of crimson flashes.

"–publicly ripped his clothes off, deprived him of the title of human because of his race."