"Javilla! Focus!" a deep voice reverberated against the metal surrounding them. "Run!"
Ael raised his left hand so his palm was facing the creature. It was a gesture as if make him cease his manipulation, or his movements. But, it was a threat. His silent gaze at the figure was an attempt to distract from whatever he was saying to Javilla. He reached out the Force to her, again blanketing her in a lightness the Sith hadn't experienced before.
Her eyes met her Master's and she seemed to snap out of the trance. But she looked back, remembering what he was saying, and made the mental note to actually consider the things he said. But now, she was concerned for her own safety, knowing Ael's stance meaning he was about to go on the offensive.
She turned toward Ael and took a leap before she would fall into a sprint. As this occurred, she was surrounded by an intense heat that created a wall between her and the Dark Creature. Javilla looked back at the flames, still considering the male's validity.
The Sith was forced back once more as the flames forced him to abandon his talk with the young padawan and focus his attention on the Jedi, who was clearly in no mood to consider any words that the Sith said. He was not here to debate philosophy, his posture was easily read as hostile.
The Sith would have to adapt.
"Well that was rude." Darth Seducus quipped, placing a hand on his lightsaber, the other reaching out to place a wave of cold over the flames. "We were only debating, if I had wanted to attack her, wouldn't we already be locked in combat?"
Ael was surprised to see his flames so easily extinguished. This Creature held great power over his own Acestral Influence. The Force showed no favoritism between the two.
He looked back to see Javilla stopped and looking back with concern. However, it was difficult to tell for whom she was concerned. His attention quickly returned to the Creature, blocking out the words and the overwhelming sense of oppression upon him.
Seducus paused, letting the Jedi get the first move, trying to provoke him with words, "Or is that not allowed? After all, her master can barely speak basic, I can only imagine that with a master like you, she has only learned the physical aspect of the force and nothing more sophisticated than that. After all, you are a warrior born, are you not? I can see that you speak with violence, not words."
Darth Seducus sneered, flipping his cape back to reveal his lightsaber was already in hand. "So why not speak to me in your native tongue? The language of combat?"
The Force flowed violently around and then into Ael's body. His chest, arms, and legs seemed to inflate, but he wasn't flexing more than necessary. The large Epicant lunged to his left and toward the wall of the tunnel. His hand fell through the metal sheet and his grip made it fold around his hand. He leaned forward into a sprint and tore the small panel off the wall upon which it was welded. It flew toward the Creature at an incredible speed.
The shadow was quick to draw his saber, a crimson flash rended the obstruction cleanly before faced with the long blade of his foe.
Ael knew this would not deter the powerful Darkness before him. Oew's pure white, one meter blade shot out of its two meter long staff. The nine foot weapon was larger than the man, himself, but it spun with some kind of controlled grace that tore into the sides and ceiling of the tunnel before falling down toward the Darkness.
Clearly he could see the tall man was intending to overwhelm and overpower him, with his large size and natural athleticism the Jedi was looking to end the fight quickly with the pure reach of his current weapon.
But Darth Seducus was a crafty sort, quick to sidestep the cutting blow and merely utilize the weapon's reach against it. As the white blade fell past its target, the tip touched the floor before the staff of the weapon was jabbed backwards and toward the head of the Darkness.
Seducus spun out of the way without much effort and swug his blade up to slice at the staff as a sort of half-hearted response and to see how the Jedi would react. He was surprised to see the staff was unaffected by the parry.
Ael used the momentum of the parry to swing the blade clockwise around and through the wall before meeting with the Bloodblade. The Shadow and the White were locked for a moment before Ael slid his hands down the staff and attempted to use the reach of the sabertaff to reach around and stab the Darkness in the chest.
Seducus leapt back and performed a tight backflip in order to remain out of reach before reversing his direction and straight toward Ael. The saberstaff spun and swung down at Seducus who simply evaded it with a quick tumble before jumping and slicing at the Jedi's head.
Ael used the movement of the blade down to block the strike with the staff of his blade. Again, in a lock, Ael glared into the Darkness' eyes. With only the blackened glass, it was like the face of the Darkness was a void, and that was indeed what it felt like.
This time, Seducus was the one to break the lock. It seemed his Aura was not affecting the fellow near-human. There were few with the natural ability to resist such tactics. And with this man being clearly untrained in the art of using the Force in a mental manner, Seducus assumed the man was naturally resistant to tricks of the mind.
The Bloodblade twirled tightly around him to the point where Ael would not be able to follow its exact positioning. But Ael wouldn't be deterred and, instead, interrupted the flourish with several powerful swings and strikes. Ael's Snowstaff continued to tear into the sides of the small tunnel and soon began to sink under the pressure of the metallic structures above it. Seducus used his agility and Ael's own inertia to dodge and parry each blow. Though each were impossibly powerful, Seducus managed to exert little energy to defend himself.
Ael knew this man's speed and flexibility was clearly providing an advantage in such a tight space. So he spun Oew around in front of him and let the blade slice a perfect circle through the tunnel. Seducus' section slipped down a couple feet as the compromised structure of the tunnel above him began to shift and sink down.
"Interesting choice for a weapon." the Darth taunted. He wasn't as intimidated by the state of their environment nearly as much as the Jedi thought. "Do you always try to bisect the room you are in for combat? One would think an eperienced warrior such as yourself would care about the collateral damage he could cause...especially in such a volatile location."
Ael would remain silent and, instead, chanelled his emotions towards his Padawan and this Darkness into an intense flame that quickly filled the portion of tunnel in which the Sith was about to be crushed. Ael focused to make the flames as hot as he could before turning away and retreating Oew so he could sprint through the tunnel and into a safer, more spacious location.
The dark being had to react quickly, or risk a hazardous and painful demise. His path towards the Jedi was cut off, and the flames licked at his back. Focusing his darkness around him, he launched himself through the inferno, the flames parting at his entry as he leapt to a safe spot in the darkness. His lightsaber disengaged as he slipped through the tunnels, once more engulfing himself in shadow as he made his way around to meet his intense foe.
He had the advantage of surprise once more, disippating his presence as he crept toward the jedi's location, his poisonous words once more permeating the surroundings.
"If you keep this up, a good portion of Nar Shadda is going to lose power." He called, cutting around to once more try and head the Knight off at a nearby juncture in a large engine room. "Are you sure you are here to help? Nobody will be grateful if you destory the world's power sources."
As he spoke, he slipped through the room, once more smashing the lights to try and envelop the room in darkness, trying to enshroud the Jedi's view once more. As soon as the Jedi were to enter, he'd find another dark room. It seemed the Jedi wasted no time in attempting to cut through the Darkness with his own white blade. It only illuminated a small portion of the domed room.
Seducus would not wait for long, as the crafty Sith already had an offensive mounted for the encroaching warrior. Reaching out with his mind, he snared a small maintenance droid within the room, hurling it through the dark at the knight.
While this attack would be surprising, the damage would be superficial at best, but it would hopefully catch the Jedi's attention. While the droid came flying through the air, the Sith would reveal his position by once more igniting his lightsaber, trying to gut the Jedi in a surprise attack while he was defending against the droid.
Unfortunately, the Knight heard a small snap as the Sith gripped the droid with the Force. This small noise echoed only slightly, but the keen-eared Jedi Warrior kept his senses focused for any clue as to where the Sith might be located.
The droid smashed into the Jedi's face and produced a long scrape across his left eye and brow. It bled profusely but clearly caused the Jedi no pain. The large Epicant's only reaction was raising his blade and spinning around to meet that of the Sith.
"You speak much, Sith," Ael finally responded. "Your words empty of meaning and void of purpose."
Ael didn't break from the lock between the two blades. Instead, he decided to humor the Sith, at least to have the male cease in his talking.
"My mission not well-being of moon. My mission to seek out individual. Collateral damage not intended. Sith presense, not intended," he confessed with some kind of condescension. "I erradicate Darkness Beast," he confessed and broke the lock between them.
The Snowstaff whirred around quickly with as much power as the Jedi could provide. Each spinning slice toward the Sith seemed to pass through without consequence. The light of the two Lightsabers was more than enough to begin changing tactics.
Ael's grip on the staff shifted slightly and he weilded the Jedi tool as a double-bladed lightsaber. The Jedi could close the gap quickly with his large gait and the lack of length made the power behind each strike that much less, but each end pummled at the Sith with incredible speed which made the Sith block and parry with his own lightsaber instead of simply dodging each strike.
The Snowstaff then began to shift in length as one side would grow longer and then shrink. Ael was trying to keep the Sith on his toes and keep him from flipping and tumbling out of the way. The strikes were parried with more freqency until the Sith altered his own tactics and attempted a counter-strike through an opening.
But the Jedi did this purposefully and his bare and open hand met the Bloodblade. Ael was absorbing the immense amount of energy of the lightsaber to sustain his Force Body as well as almost immediately heal the superficial would upon his face, leaving a faint scar. The Snowblade could not be moved during this as the technique of Force Absorption required almost all of Ael's concentration. It was a very advanced technique, one he didn't use often. But Ael knew he was losing this duel as it had grown much longer than he knew he could sustain. The Darkness around them prevented his own contact with his Ancestors and he needed to end this duel quickly or manage to flee without being caught.
Seducus was surprised by the Knight's apparent proficiency with such an advanced technique. Ael pushed his hand forward and pushed Seducus' blade away before grabbing Hak from his belt and ejecting the puple blade within it. Now with the length of Oew and the extra coverage of Hak, Ael could attempt to utterly overwhelm the Sith, and quickly.
Ael leapt forward, Oew's white blade extended forward. Before Seducus had the chance to parry for flip away, Ael's right foot altered his momentum and he flipped high above and over the Sith. The Snowstaff spun in such a way that it would have struck the Dark creature four times before Ael landed on the other side of the being. The Jedi continued to take advantage of his reach, size, and gait to fall in and out of the Sith's immediate striking zone as well as striking at each zone almost simultaneously. Twenty strikes were thrusted or swung within a few seconds, but Ael had to leap back and disengage the use of Force Body for he could tell it was tearing him apart and he was about to become cripple without its continued use. He had to switch to the use of Force Heal and speed away from the Dark Creature.
Oew was thrust up into the ceiling, cutting through wires and gas pipes. Almost immediatly, an explosion erupted directly behind him and his long legs could barely keep him from the inferno growing behind him. The fire followed his every move through the tunnels as he attempted to find some sort of outlet.
Losing patience, he tore Hak into a wall and saw that it was directly connected to the outside. Oew reached ahead and tore a hole just large enough for the Epicant to leap through. The fires following him caught his arm and charred it from his elbow to his wrist on the outside, but Ael's focus was on rescuing his apprentice and escaping this moon still alive.
The Darkness faded and he could reach his mind outward while disengaging Force Heal. This made him wince in pain for he hadn't yet been able to heal all the damage done by Force Body. Still, he could sense Javilla a distance away. He also noticed the lights throughout the immediate area were off. Most likely due to the explosion within those tunneles.
He ran hard and fast for what seemed like an hour. His lungs burned and his legs were beginning to fail him. However, his mind was even stronger and he willed his body to continue until he found the female.
"Master!" a familiar voice yelled. The voice he knew he was looking for.
Javilla ran out in front of the path he was currently sprinting. Ael stumbled to a stop and fell to his knees before lying on his back with his chest rising and falling deeply. The girl gasped, noticing the burn on his arms and the way in which he fell to the ground, having never witnessed her Master to succumb to fatigue. She rushed to him and attempted her menial skills of Force Heal upon his arm. He couldn't find the strength to protest this meager attempt and could only lie there, focusing on breathing and not passing out.
"Master," she repeated, this time with tears forming in her eyes, "what was that?"
She had never experienced anything like it before. The overwhelming sense of dread and heartache and anger all at the same time. She wouldn't admit to herself that it was some kind of exhilarating, and she didn't have the time to even mull it over.
She didn't expect an answer, understanding the curren state of her Master, instead, she tried a different question, something that would be easier to answer. "Is he behind you?"
Ael shook his head slightly enough to be visible but wouldn't cause his brain to shake in his skull.
A few aliens began to form around them, assuming these two Jedi were the cause of the power-outage throughout the area. They weren't smart enough to fix the problem, but they were angry enough take it out on someone.
Javilla noted the negativity forming around her, however vastly different from the Sith's. She rose and ignited her lightsaber. "Return home!" she shouted with authority. "This is Jedi business!"
She didn't know what else to say, but some of them realized what had occurred and began to walk away. Others were to stubborn to comprehend context clues and want to take out their frustrations on anyone, including Jedi.
One lunged at her and she struck at his knee, making him fall with a cry of shock and pain. This was merely a warning to the rest of them who walked away - except for one.
A small female approached Javilla slowly, hoping to not provoke the angered Jedi. She held her hand out. Within the small pale hand was sack with contents Javilla couldn't identify. "Ointment for the man's burns," she said shyly before running away.
