Unhinged - 8.327

[Lilaena De'Ville]

All the potential she had felt in him, that day they had met at the spaceport... it was being fullfilled before her eyes. His ferocity did not surprise her, but his new agility and obvious skill with a blade did.

As he came at her, fire behind him causing the observers to scatter, the air boiling around him as his rage detonated like a bomb. Her control nearly slipped, nearly giving into the blindness of anger herself at his arrogance, but she kept her feet and her head, channeling her fury down into a pit of ice inside her chest. De'Ville turned aside his blade, the heat enveloping her as he closed quarters with her, but the Force kept her unburnt.

She threw him back again, sweat pouring off her and slicking her short hair to her face. "Do not let your anger cause you to become predictable!"

[Hawkins Grime]

Thin, bloodless lips peeled back to reveal Grime's teeth. It was a brief convenience when he noted the simple ability to spit the blood that was rising from the back of his throat. The thick mass of tissue and blood hit the ground with a hiss from the heat; Grime's cloak billowed behind him as the exoskeleton's systems attempted to adapt to the rising temperature. The air between the two combatants wavered like a mirage.

=======

The sword clanged against the ground. The Rodian shook his head in disappointment as the white haired woman made an effortless somersault over the boy, twisted, and then stabbed downwards with her weapon. The shriek that came from the boy's mouth pierced the air. CENSORED was on his knees, one hand pinned to the dirt of the sparring floor where her blade held it to the ground. His other hand was wrapped around the blade, also bleeding from grasping its edge. His eyes were wide, teeth grinding, as he managed the pain.

"Say something... You need to learn how to speak with more than that sword."

Through a cough and a sob, CENSORED looked up to see the Echani sword mistress pull back her free hand. The punch connected with solid force to the side of his head, his pinned hand holding him in place. The sword withdrew and then a white boot connected with CENSORED's ribs.

"There are many ways to teach you how to speak like an Echani."

=======

Grime licked his lips, a wicked smile spreading across his face. The yellow, translucent lens wiped over his eye, clearing the blood from Hawkins' vision. Instead of attacking with his saber, Grime focuses on De'Ville's pain.

The image of her bare back, laying face down in a bed black silks, turning to face him, and then the fountain of blood that sprayed against the floor as he inflicted every scar she now had flashed to mind.

The aura of pain that wrapped around Grime like its own garment unfurled like serpents and raced towards Lilaena to feast. Grime wanted to rush behind it with a follow up attack however the best he could manage was sinking to one knee again. The tumultuous rage within him clawed and roared at his own mounting fear that his endurance might falter before he could make any effective dent against De'Ville.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville took a step towards him as he spat on the ground, then another, her saber tip trailing in the smoking dust. Grime steeled himself, the Force swirling around him, and then her back erupted in agony. The attack was unexpected, and she arched backward and to the side, her body clenching up in protest at the overload on her nerves.

Her back was livid, the scars A'na Eldhil had inflicted on her burning with pain from top to bottom. Grime fell to his knees as she collapsed in the dirt, but she worked to channel the pain into anger and into power. Tears sprang to her eyes at memories too recently put to rest and now brought back to the forefront, and she poured that all into an energy attack, a wave of pressure that rippled out from her in a circle, blowing Hawkins and the Mando'ade gathered around all back three meters.

[Hawkins Grime]

CENSORED slumped to the ground in a heap of dripping muscle and barely clinging tissue. He gasped for air, hatred and rage kept him going, breathing in sick sobs that sounded more like a wound bleeding profusely than anything else. He was motionless, anything worth the effort of mobility had been rendered useless. The futility of the situation was hard to deny but the sheer, putrid bitterness of being betrayed and the deafening roar in his mind for revenge. What pain CENSORED would bring.

=======

Grime was on all fours, his metal fingers leaving trails from where he dug in when the energy wave hit him. His eyes rolled erratically for a moment while he tried to regain his focus. Grime felt and tasted the metallic tang of De'Ville's counter attack, her pain, focused in rebuttal. Or maybe that was just more blood.

He rose to one knee and then to both feet. The light saber whipped up from the dirt and Grime reignited it. He took one halting step forward before looking down at his hand, the metal plates reflecting the blue light of the saber held there. The saber suddenly disengaged and Grime sniffed the air.

"Are we finished destroying Bretak's camp then?"

Besides the luscious waves of pain and resolute will that Hawkins tasted from De'Ville, he could smell burnt skin and hair. He refused to admit the limits he secretly feared he was reaching with his pathetic corpse wrapped inside his perfect face but he could see De'Ville just as well. He liked Lilaena like this. He wanted her back in that bed. He wanted her to say his name and to feel, actually feel, with his bloody, bony claw of a hand, as he plunged that knife into her face.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She stood, her unsteadiness not showing as she pulled it all deep inside. She would project only confidence. The Mando'ade were getting to their feet as well, some laughing and joking. No buildings had been damaged except for a door that had been blown off its hinges.

De'Ville pulled her saber back to her hand with the Force, the hilt slapping solidly against her palm. She could sense his flagging energy, but his hate was projecting like a shield around him, making it difficult to read him any further. From the look in his eyes, however, he was not having the same problems reading her.

"Protect yourself, apprentice." De'Ville advanced on him, lightsaber springing to life in her hand. "We will have to work on your endurance if this is as long as you can go. Any opponent would just have to weather the storm and then finish you while you pant for breath. Use your anger. Let it make you strong."

She stabbed toward him with the brilliant blade, prepared for his block and ready with a counter attack.

[Hawkins Grime]

The breath escaped from between his grinding teeth as De'Ville launched at him, blade pointed at him like a rapier. With an ease that still surprised even himself, Grime side stepped from the general direction of the attack and his light saber slid along the length of hers in sizzling resistance before Hawkins attempted to throw her off balance, lifting his saber high, his hatred pushing through his body as if his ruined flesh was a siphon being used to its limit. His chest felt on fire as he kicked out at De'Ville's side, hoping to catch her off guard and maintain some distance.

"Be careful... what you wish for, Lilaena."

The bottom of his vision was lined in dark red as the blood built up there beneath his eyes. It was the ongoing struggle with his own fury and his flesh, between attempting to use it to his advantage, 'letting it make him strong' as De'Ville had said and preventing it from tearing him apart from within. He strove to satisfy the rage with the destruction he wreaked, feeding the devouring entity that resided in his rage with Lilaena's seeping pain.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She allowed him to push her back, but did not lose her balance. De'Ville circled him, forcing him to turn to face her, and then closed the distance between them, the rapid accurate strikes of Vaapad battering his defenses.

He was tiring, and she did not relent, striking a blow across his chest hard enough to send him back to his knees.

[Hawkins Grime]

The sand around Grime shifted in a wind that wasn't there. He blinked, the yellow lens wiping the blood away from his vision. It wasn't fast enough obviously as Grime noticed the few drops of blood in the dirt beneath him. He smeared it across his face as he wiped his metal hand under his eyes and then looked up at De'Ville.

=======

The crowd roared for blood. They roared for the end of the conflict when blade met flesh for the last time and only one of two individuals still standing was free to leave, at least for tonight.

CENSORED was kneeling in the sand of the arena, glancing upwards at the zabrak standing over him. The boy's sword lay meters away; a mess of blood trailing from it to the gash in CENSORED's forearm. The zabrak was soaking up the applause, grinning with his pointy teeth, free hand in the air, building towards the inevitable moment when he would decapitate the young man.

=======

Grime stood, reigniting his saber, positioning his feet and assuming a stance of the 11th tier, skipping quite a few in between. He almost coughed but was relieved to feel the exoskeleton continuing to manage his corpse, reassuring his faith in the Mandalorian technology. His rage resurfaced at the bitter idea that maybe, before the coming of Grime, this might have ended much sooner and far more in his favor. How pathetic reality was.

Grime stood very still, almost statuette-like, as slivers of flame flicker in the air between De'Ville and Hawkins.

=======

The zabrak lifted a hand up to fend off the next attack in futility as CENSORED slammed the zabrak's own maul down into his skull. Blackish blood splattered like a rupturing fruit and the crowd exploded. CENSORED placed his boot on the zabrak's twitching neck and hit the dead man's skull again and again; the crowd nearly deafening at this point.

The young boy looked up to the crowd, picking out the Rodian, Cager, who technically owned his contract and beside him on either side was a woman with stark, white hair in a gray cloak and a black haired wookie on the other side. The rodian was ecstatic, having just won quite a bit out of the victory but the two women to either side were eerily passive.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Her back still throbbed, but she ignored the pain, hardened it to steel and used it to strengthen her resolve. De'Ville held her saber in front of her in a guarding stance, her free hand clenching shut as she held it up at waist height.

The flickering fires between her apprentice and her were suddenly extinguished, and she nodded her head toward her back, slowly circling him again. "My master forced me to fight and learn when these scars were fresh. I learned to live with the agony. To embrace it... to become one with it."

She feinted toward him but he did not take the bait. She had little to teach him about fighting with a blade, though Vaapad was superior to the Echani style. In her opinion. "You have learned to live with your weaknesses, overcome them with technology, but your pain holds you back. Ignore it! You are the Force. You are either weak, or you are strong."

She slashed at him, blocked an attack and closed in with him, their blades hissing and crackling as she pressed against his, getting in his face. "I am strong. Are you strong, Grime?"

[Hawkins Grime]

The light sabers slid against each other as Grime pushed them slightly to the side, allowing his face to be only a breath away from hers. He sighed again, which he was learning was his new equivalent of the body wracking coughs he had suffered through in his previous exoskeleton. Hawkins barely noticed the blood dripping from the corners of his mouth, or how his cloak billowed behind him from the exhaust of the exoskeleton put hard to work. His ice blue eyes met Lilaena's burning green and he smiled, blood lining his pearl teeth and black artificial gums.

"I am pain, Master..."

She had seen the crippled mess of flesh and organs that remained of his other life before. De'Ville knew that the willpower to merely continue existing as such a thing was beyond most, much less continue as Grime had. Grime knew it wasn't a matter of technique at this point. Whatever technique she was using, it struck like a viper and found Grime's weaknesses by its mere nature. She struck harder and faster than any martial art Grime had before faced and given his state now; his rage swelled against his own lacking flesh. It was not his Echani skills that failed him but the other way around. Echani taught you to communicate through combat and De'Ville reeked of an alpha female reinforcing her dominant position. He knew he couldn't do much about it at this point, realistically, but there would come a time. Grime was no mystic and the Force had been something more difficult for him to digest, but he'd been a part of things since...

"Embrace me then, the Herald of the pain, Lilaena. And show me how you ignore it."

A wave of flame ignited in the air around them and the wavering heat of the mirage increased but it had no effect on either of them; it was only the after effect Grime's mental barriers to his own pain giving way. The black storm of hatred and need to destroy shrieked. Trees moaned around the camp and structures shuddered. Grime lifted his chin slightly at De'Ville but coughed, blood spluttering forth, a mist of it against her face. Grime attempted to not amplify her own pain, but share the brutal force that was his own.

Orar stood at the side of Bretak, his helmet on, and had been watching the entire fight. He thought he could see the ne'tra prudii* rise up from A'den and envelope the two fighters. He couldn't be sure though through the heat between them. The last time Orar had seen A'den do such a thing, the victim had clawed their own flesh off in a matter of minutes. Orar had no doubt that Mandalore would withstand and A'den would be back on his knees momentarily.

*ne'tra prudii - Black Shadow

[Lilaena De'Ville]

It was like being in the vortex of a tornado, and the lightsabers that still pressed between them were forgotten. She locked eyes with her apprentice, strong as steel... stronger than steel... she was beskar. Forged and reforged, broken and then made whole again, previous weaknesses hammered out, folded over, heated white hot and then plunged into despair for tempering.

Hawkins Grime's pain. It was like a living thing trying to gain entrance to her secret places with claws of agony. She knew his pain, but she did not flinch or look away, her hair whipping about her head in the wind. The training sabers shorted out and the two combatants ended up nearly in each other's arms; De'Ville reacted faster and grasped the front of his armor, locking her elbow to hold herself apart from him.

His pain was part of the Force. Energy that poked needles into nerve endings and... his rage was the conduit that delivered it. Images of his torn and skinned body flashed into her minds eye, small cracks in the mental barriers Salem had so recently helped her recreate.

De'Ville's green eyes bored into his bloodshot blue ones, tears streaming from hers in the wind, but she was not crying. Gritting her teeth she gathered his agony to herself, and then lifted her face and screamed, the dark energies he had brought forth streaming harmlessly up into the atmosphere where they would dissipate and be mixed with the clouds.

Her hand that held the front of his chest plate clenched, and she yanked him forward, then back, catching his foot with hers and spilling him back into the dirt.

[Hawkins Grime]

The heat vanished as soon as his body hit the ground. Grime's back arced, a hoarse gasp of air escaped his lips before he could turn to anything that might have resembled relaxing. He sat up on his elbows, breathing heavily, the exoskeleton pacing him at its own accord.

"What... did you do? I saw... a man with white eyes... and a woman with white hair... and then you... deflected-"

Grime rolled over onto all fours and vomited a black and yellow fluid into the dirt. This had happened a few times before while pushing himself in training, a mix of biochemical material that the exoskeleton had to purge after heavy exertion and being over tasked. Hawkins wiped his mouth, leaving streaks of it on his armored fore arm before he shakily stood, his back to her. He turned to her, tilting his head back, staring at the cloudless ceiling above him where he had felt his hatred and pain thrown towards. Hawkins sighed again, his face twitching uncontrollably as it calibrated.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She was breathing heavily as she stood over him, her chin length hair in her eyes. "The Force is in everything. Even pain."

De'Ville's body wanted to tremble, but she refused to allow it. She would spend the night in anguish as her cramped muscles unkinked, lactic acid flooding her nerves. But for now...

"You still have much to learn, Apprentice." She wanted to throw something at him, but refrained, turning away and leaving him on all fours in the dirt as she walked back to her home.

[Hawkins Grime]

Grime closed his eyes and he could see the two, much clearer than he thought he might. A man with white eyes, a strong face, hardened in the shadows. A woman with white hair, arms folded across her chest as if eternally displeased. A smile turned upon Hawkins' bloodless lips.

"Boss, you gonna make it?"

e'Drain was beside him, watching De'Ville return to her building. Without opening his eyes, Hawkins licked his lips, feeling the dried blood.

"Yes, but I still have much to learn. Get the waif, Averre. She needs to run diagnostics and improve the physics dampeners."

"On it, Boss."