Capítulo 4: Alliance of Necessity
Vancil's eyes flicked to the positions of all the Mandalorians in front of him, including the one that had just emerged from the forest and was now approached them. As he did this, he also kept tabs on all the Mandalorians to his sides and back that weren't in his vision, sensing every movement they made.
Licking his lips underneath his mask, he tore his gaze away from the approaching Mandalorian and shifted his head to gaze at the Jedi in his peripheral vision. He could sense her unease and caution that almost mirrored his own. Heck, you could even consider it to be fear.
And it was because of these kindred feelings against their assailants that Vancil thought. You could even say, that he pondered. That oh so familiar inner conflict sparked and raged once again but managed to be ended quicker than the previous one.
"Jedi, you remember how I said you wouldn't be getting your lightsaber back?" He began, feeling sick to his stomach as the gravity of what he was about to say weighed down upon him heavily.
The Jedi, for her part, looked about as shocked as he felt disgusted, "…Yes?"
"Well, even if I am ultimately superior to you in every way…I cannot take on eleven ambushing Mandalorians with the tactical advantage by myself." His teeth grated and jaw tightened as he continued to speak.
The Jedi ignored his quick jab at her and nodded for him to continue, which only served to infuriate Vancil, as he knew well what he was proposing but that she wanted to hear it for herself. There was even a hint of smugness in her eyes.
"…I wish to propose…an alliance." He clenched his teeth and he had to actively resist the urge to throw off his mask and vomit right there and then.
Vancil could feel the smug smile from behind the Jedi's mask, "My, a Sith asking for a Jedi's help." She mocked, "I'm sure your peers would be proud of you."
"Don't push it Jedi," He snapped back, his anger rising, "I do this because, if I am to die, it will not happen to a couple of Mandalorians in a forest in the middle of fucking nowhere. Now, do you accept or not."
His angry response seemed to have done the job and any mocking in the Jedi's eyes disappeared, "Fine then, I accept your alliance." For his benefit, it seemed that she was also just as sickened.
Vancil nodded and designated her, despite rampant protests from his feelings, as an ally, "I can take the ones in front. We have to act quickly, so when I throw you your lightsaber book it into the trees behind us."
"Well, what if we try to talk this out?" The Jedi, in her infinite stupidity proposed as she gestured at the approaching Mandalorian, "That one seems to be keen on talking considering she hasn't shot at us yet."
"Well, call it common sense, but I'm pretty sure the galactic-renowned bounty hunters and warriors that have us surrounded don't exactly have good intentions." Vancil responded as he rolled his shoulders, psyching himself up for the coming fight.
He always did get giddy at the prospect of a good brawl.
The Jedi scowled at him, "Well if she intends on communicating perhaps, we can discover why exactly they are after us or even if they are after us. It's called 'not everyone is out to kill you'."
"It's also called; 'I'm a Sith and I can kill them if I want." Vancil growled in response, resisting the urge to knock the Jedi's teeth out again.
"You two finished chatting over there?" A crackling female voice said, cutting off their conversation and causing the both of them to realise that the Mandalorian now stood only a couple of metres away from them, having continued to approach them as they bickered.
Now that she was closer, Vancil managed to get a better look at the fine details of her armour and equipment. A classic and stereotypical jetpack was equipped onto her back, however, unusually, it had yellow accents. This yellow colour scheme was mimicked over the rest of her armour, and even extended to the blaster held in her hands. Several grenades and devices Vancil which couldn't possibly hope to identify were also present across the tactical belt she wore.
"Well then, I suppose you already know that you are surrounded?" The Mandalorian said, jerking her head behind her to where her compatriots laid in wait.
Vancil opened his mouth to begin threatening her in response before the Jedi beat him to it, "Yes, we did realise that. I think the better question though is what business you have with us."
Vancil shot the Jedi a dirty scowl but didn't act so as not to show the cracks in their tenuous alliance. What did surprise him though was when the Mandalorian started chuckling.
"Today is your unlucky day then. See, you two fit the description of the individuals we are hunting. And since you are force sensitive, that checks off as much as we need." She said jovially, heightening both he and the Jedi's caution severely as she finally revealed her bounty hunter nature.
Vancil barely caught it, and he surely would have missed it if he hadn't been itching to fight and consequently observing every move of their assailant. The slight, but uniform and methodical shift of her ring and index fingers.
The sound of blasters rang out around them and yellow bolts shot towards the pair from all around. Faced by this sudden attack, time seemed to slow Vancil reacted in the only reasonable way he could think of. Extending his leg as he reached into the force, he kicked the Jedi as hard as he could.
This force empowered kick sent her sprawling and tumbling to the side, far enough that she was out of the ring of death still enclosing on him. As he did this, he unclipped her lightsaber from his belt and threw it in the same motion towards her. Now with her out of the way, Vancil quickly ignited his own lightsaber and dived in the opposite direction from the Jedi deflecting all of the blaster bolts that stood in his way.
As he made contact with the ground once again, he rolled back to his feet and reassessed the situation rapidly. The Jedi was currently in the process of trying to recover back to a standing position while also attempting to deflect the blaster bolts now being sent her way. Blaster bolts were still coming at them from all directions, however the intensity of what they could have been was halved due to their separated locations.
As he focused on deflecting the blaster bolts his gaze snapped to the Mandalorian that was still in the clearing with them as the sound of a jetpack igniting kicked off.
"And where do you think you're going!?" He shouted, reaching his free hand out and seizing her in the force, stopping her escape.
Vancil violently jerked the Mandalorian back towards him, seizing her by the throat as she came within arm's length. Once she was, the blaster bolts being shot at him lessened immensely, and now only came directly opposite of where he held her.
Grinning and filled with confidence, Vancil lessened his force grip to rely more on his physical strength so that he had more power to use against the others surrounding him. Unfortunately, however, the Mandalorian appeared to be waiting for that exact moment, as the second her limbs gained the ability to move, she struck.
Before Vancil even had the chance to try and reach out to the next closest Mandalorian in the trees, the one he held had drawn a knife from her belt and stabbed it upwards towards his exposed underarm, a maniacal laugh resonating from her as she did so. Eyes widening, Vancil gathered the force in his hand and squeezed her throat as hard and quickly as he could.
The result was as expected, with the blade freezing mere moments from reaching him before falling limp alongside the rest of her body. Now he understood why she was the one to approach. She was too batshit insane to care if she was about to be killed. Only dead weight now, Vancil ditched the newly made corpse and booked it into the trees, her compatriots in the forest seeming to shoot even faster and more fervently at her death.
Barely dodging and deflecting the storm of rapid-fire bolts before he finally made it into the cover of the trees. Reaching out with the force to sense their positions, he quickly found out that his assailants were now in the process of retreating along the outskirts of the clearing away from him.
A smile came to his face. He had willingly given up a tactical advantage and almost gotten killed for it. Now though? He was back in charge. He had the tactical advantage once again.
So now it was time for a killing spree.
*****
Kandria grunted as she struggled to deflect the myriad of blaster fire being directed at her, not helped by her already fatigued state. She was so focused on her defence that she didn't even have the opportunity to yell at the Sith for kicking her out of the way so violently and suddenly, nor keep tabs on what he was even doing at the moment.
Her mind was 100% dedicated to maintaining her already struggling defence. In fact, she was sure that if these Mandalorians were any closer than she would be overwhelmed very quickly. Even now she had to employ a mix of dodging and deflection to even struggle to stay alive.
Her mind raced to try and adapt to find an escape route but was constantly coming up short. Slowly however, she realised that the intensity of the fire was beginning to lessen, and that blaster bolts were now being sent further into the forest rather than the clearing.
With this new breathing room Kandria reached further out with the force to find out what was going on. Her eyes widened as she sensed that the Sith had somehow managed to make it into the forest and was now pursuing the Mandalorians around the edges, forcing them to pay more attention to him the closer he got. She could even occasionally see his red lightsaber flicking between the trees, deflecting the yellow blaster bolts.
Despite severe disgust on her part, Kandria sent a silent thanks his way as she regained her composure. Finally, as the Sith continued to apply pressure on the Mandalorians, Kandria saw an opportunity and bolted into the forest to assist him. With the Mandalorians now being essentially forced into a group, Kandria moved to the side of the pack opposite of the Sith.
Soon, she saw the telltale jetpacks jumping to and from the trees above, constantly pursued and forced to hop to the next one in a manner eerily similar to their own battle mere moments prior. Kandria saw her opportunity to assist when two of the bounty hunters landed on the same branch, their gaze and blaster fire fixed on the Sith who zig zagged and deflected the bolts with ease.
Using the force to help, Kandria leapt onto the branch between the two, spinning with her lightsaber to cut them down before they could even react. Reaching out, she could sense only five remaining. She quickly redid this count four though as she watched the Sith dash forward and cleave one in two.
The remainder had also realised that she was there too as blaster fire headed her way, forcing her to zig zag and deflect in a similar manner to the Sith. Without the numbers and tactical advantage however, the firepower was pitiful compared to before. The Mandalorians that were remaining from the very quick massacre of their numbers at the hand of her Sith ally were now in a constant retreat.
It was almost unnerving how quickly the Sith had managed to escape their ambush and push them to the very brink. And, despite her personal reservations against him and his order, she was very glad he was on her side right now.
This thought was further reinforced when a rocket suddenly shot out of the jetpack of one of the Mandalorians, before being halted mere moments after it was launched, leaving it hanging a few feet above the shooter's head. Looking over, Kandria saw the Sith's outstretched hand directed towards the rocket. Kandria then saw the Sith slam the rocket right back down into the Mandalorian, eviscerating him and another unfortunate bounty hunter that just so happened to be nearby in the ensuing explosion, bringing the enemy count down to just two.
Quick to take advantage of the distraction created by the explosion, Kandria leapt downwards towards the remaining two bounty hunters. The second she touched down a mere metre away from them it was already over. Slicing sideways, she cut down the nearest before force pushing the final Mandalorian into a nearby tree and keeping her there.
Slowly she approached the now immobilised Mandalorian, turning off her lightsaber and using the force to carefully take off all the weapons and gadgets she could see on her captive, all the while the Mandalorian grunted as he tried to resist his invisible imprisonment. It was at this point that the Sith arrived, sending a chill down Kandria's spine at how the man who was hell bent on ending her not so long ago now stood beside her as though nothing had happened.
"So, you going to kill him?" He asked nonchalantly.
"I'm surprised you haven't tried to kill me yet." She admitted, glancing to the right to keep an eye on him.
"Hmmmm, nah. We're allies. At least until we solve this situation, we find ourselves in." He shrugged, confusing Kandria.
"Situation?"
The Sith nodded, "Well, now that we're allies killing you isn't so high on the priority list."
Kandria blinked before disabling her lightsaber and turning to face him fully, a glimmer of hope creeping into her, "So…you're willing to work with me to find out where the hell we are?"
The Sith visibly recoiled, "Please don't say I'm working with you. It's already taking all my willpower to not vomit at what I am doing."
"Just answer the question." Kandria said dryly, that hope beginning to blossom as he didn't say no.
The Sith remained silent for a moment, "Yes, I do wish to…work with you to determine our situation. These Mandalorians actually helped quite a lot with that, had something to take my rage and disgust out on."
"And also forced you to work with me." She pointed out.
The Sith chuckled, "Yes, you were a great distraction. And I got to kick you!"
Kandria scowled before turning back to the captive who had stopped struggling and was instead staring silently at the two conversing force wielders, "And what are we to do with this one? I get the feeling he doesn't want to cooperate with us after we killed his friends."
"Well, we could just kill him." The Sith unhelpfully offered
"Not my friends." Came the male voice of the captured Mandalorian, "Business partners."
Kandria nodded, "Well, I have a business proposition for you. That ship was yours, right? Tell us where it is, and you can live."
The Mandalorian stayed silent for a second before nodding begrudgingly in acceptance.
Kandria smiled in relief underneath her mask, "Good, good. Now tell us where it is."
Her captive once again remained silent for a few seconds before nodding, "It's about one kilometre north-east of here. It's a silver ST-70 with yellow markings, you can't miss it."
Kandria smiled once again. It seemed that things were finally looking up. Slowly she began releasing her force grip on the prisoner and backing away, to which the Sith mimicked, backing away in the same fashion as Kandria. Once the two were around 20 metres away from the Mandalorian she finally turned fully around to walk north-east, however kept the Mandalorian from standing up.
A low hiss caught her and the Sith's attention from behind, the both of them turning around in sync. Only to see a swarm of whistling darts shooting towards them.
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