章節 87: Chapter 75: Battlefield
This "chapter" is just showing snippets from the other fights to show what's going on elsewhere
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[ Gaarurra POV ]
Rumbling growls echoed faintly against dark stone as Gaarurra plodded after his pre-
Terrak.
The pup had a name. The Wookiee had to remind himself of that as he furiously stamped down on his anger once more. Something he had far too much practice at over his centuries of life.
His temper had always been both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. Rage gave his people strength in desperate times, him moreso than others of his kind. But his fury was sparked too easily and too often.
The look the Zabrak had given him as the pup had fled was the same that Gaarurra had seen on the faces of the countless gladiators felled by his hand. That look of fear and horror as he crushed the life from them again and again and again, their eyes bulging as his fingers grasped their throats…
It was an expression given to something monstrous.
When he had seen it once more, that old friend, that familiar beast woke again after slumbering for months. And with it came old instincts, roaring to the front of his mind.
The gladiators had never had names. They were just faces that he saw only briefly before he killed them and moved on.
He was tired of killing. He had killed for the Hutts because he was forced to, not because it was in his nature.
He had been free of the pits for nearly a standard year now and he had no wish to go back to the way he was. He had to remember the pup's name.
He had to.
The Wookiee paused and examined the floor, noting how the dust had been disturbed by recent foot traffic. There were several sets of humanoid tracks, one of which was the Zabrak's.
Aldrex had told him of an ability that allowed one to track prey with the Force alone. His charge delved into eldritch secrets with an eagerness that he did not share, so he instead relied on more traditional methods.
As his fingertips traced the outlines of the footprints on ancient stone, Gaarurra reflected bitterly, 'I have become too familiar with dark tunnels.'
Once he had determined which were which, he continued down the corridor to an intersection. Terrak had stopped briefly, unconciously shifting his footing slightly as he had looked both ways. Here, it became trickier to determine where he had gone.
Footprints were haphazardly placed from when the battle between Aldrex, Olia, and Garsh had raged down the corridor only moments earlier. He could even see cuts burned into the walls from lightsaber strikes, still glowing an angry smouldering orange in the darkness.
The left tunnel circled back to the chamber Aldrex had sealed with explosives. The right led further into the tomb, from which he could hear a faint hint of the distinct crackle of lightsabers clashing echo in the silence.
Gaarurra went from one set of prints to the next, quickly regaining his course.
Terrak had headed left. Towards his sister.
The Wookiee let out a quiet sigh.
He was tired of killing.
But this time, he chose to kill for someone else. And it would be over soon enough.
...
[ Olia POV ]
Red hammered against blue again and again and again. And each time, Olia grit her teeth and channeled more and more dark power into herself, causing her veins to darken further with corruption and fire to burn down her arms.
Her foe had not stopped smiling the entire time and each step he forced her back was met with crazed laughter that grew louder every time. His reddened eyes grew wilder and wilder with each breath and his teeth seemed to become jagged and sharklike.
"Come on, come ON, COME ON!" The berserker screamed as he surged forwards again and unleashed a dizzying flurry of strikes, letting out a burst of maniacal laughter, "You Jedi are supposed to be karkin' tough! Put up a damn fight!"
Olia snarled, but bit back the retort that wanted to escape in favor of saving her breath. The madman either didn't notice or care and simply continued laughing.
Jedi Padawans, especially those of Jedi Shadows, were not spared the battlefields, and as such she had faced plenty of Sith during the war. She had met warriors face to face. She had stabbed sorcerers in the back.
Even Aldrex was nothing she had not seen before.
But this acolyte, this raving beast that her rival had unleashed on her, was paradoxical, attacking with both reckless abandon and methodical planning simultaneously. His assault was so chaotic yet practiced, shifting from form to form at a moment's notice so quickly, that trying to form a counterattack was all but impossible. And then there were the random strikes that weren't part of any form at all.
But simply defending was untenable as well.
Instead of blocking his next strike, Olia threw herself back. The red blade slashed down, cutting deep into the floor and gouging a chunk out of the stonework.
The fallen Jedi reached out with the Force and flung some loose rocks towards the berserker in the hopes of buying herself a little more time. Jagged stones cut into the flesh of his left arm as he raised it to protect his face, but they did little more than superficial damage. If anything, the sight of his own blood made him even more excited.
But it had made him stop to defend himself.
Ignoring the disturbing smile on his face, Olia took advantage of the brief pause to allow the corruption to fade from her body and redirect the power towards other avenues.
Mustering the concentration to use one's Force abilities for anything more complicated than basic pushes or throws was difficult in the middle of combat. It was why most battles between Force users devolved into a lightsaber duel. The passive and active defenses of most trained Force users also made a pure-Force approach impractical at best, as few possessed the raw power to reliably break through their enemy's defenses.
However, Olia had not observed the acolyte using any abilities beyond using the Force to prod himself into a Dark Side-empowered fury, not even to defend himself with a telekinetic barrier. It was possible that he had neglected gaining proficiency with the Force in exchange for pure martial skill. As she had proven she couldn't simply overpower him through force of arms, even with the gauntlets helping her, it was a bet she was willing to take.
Luckily, both Xhal and XoXaan had tutored her in a more balanced approach to combat. With a grunt of effort, she surged the Force through the floor, grabbing the aged flagstones and hurling them up at her foe.
Suddenly on the backfoot, his red lightsaber slashed left and right to deflect and destroy as many as he could. But the angle of attack was awkward to defend again and several managed to get through.
Olia felt the corners of her mouth twitch up slightly as one stone slammed into the berserker's right shin with a loud crack, while another thumped into his ribs. She easily recognized the sound of bones breaking.
It wouldn't matter whether he felt the pain or not, a broken leg wouldn't support his weight. At the very least, it would hobble him.
Or rather, that was what should have happened in her opinion. The reality proved to be much more different as the berserker simply shrugged it off and launched himself like a missile across the distance between them, laughing wildly as he soared through the air.
Olia scrambled to throw herself forward under his arc, her lightsaber flashing up to deflect his red blade as it swung down at her back.
...
[ Caleb POV ]
Caleb landed roughly on the ground, rolling twice before he managed to arrest his movement and heave himself up onto all fours like an animal.
The pain from his bruised leg and his broken ribs pulsed in time with the blood dripping from his arm onto the floor. His lungs burned from exertion as he sucked in breath after breath. At some point, he'd even managed to bite the inside of his left cheek hard enough to draw blood.
All in all, he was having the absolute best time of his life.
He had never felt more powerful. The more pain that coursed through him, the more pleasure quickly took its place. In turn, he fed that pleasure into the Force, fueling even greater levels of strength.
His opponent was dangerous and crafty. In all his time at the academy, he had never met another acolyte that had managed to hurt him this badly or provide nearly as much of a challenge.
She was winded now and tiring…but she was still standing and hitting him just as hard.
If the girl hadn't had the personality of a rancor, he might even have said that he was in love.
In that instant, Caleb decided that Aldrex had become his best friend for providing him this opportunity.
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