Log:Coruscant Fires: Jax vs Malik Ren Duel
Jedi vs Ren in the burning Coruscant lower levels
OOC Date: December 8 2020
Location: Coruscant
Participants: Knights of Ren, Jedi Order: Malik Ren, Jax Greystorm
The long story:
[Malik Ren]
The fires burn unstoppably, out of control.
Coruscant's lower levels are a hellscape of flame and semi-collapsing infrastructure, and the lower levels of the city planet are, months in, a humanitarian disaster. Thousands upon thousands of beings are hurt or displaced by the inferno, necessitating the help of those who are wise, powerful, and brave... This is the kind of crisis to which the Jedi are well suited, and to which they have always responded, placing their own safety at risk in order to employ their powers to the greater good. This is where the sorcery of Force Users shines brightest, not in self-glory, but in sacrifice. This is where the Jedi shine brightest, down in the smoke, and the dark.
Everyone has finally been evacuated from this section of the burning city, and the paths are treacherous -- steep drop-offs abound, half collapsed buildings, and fires burning, burning, the smoke acrid and harsh and thick against any face unprotected by a mask or small respirator. Jax Greystorm has done well here, with innocents freed of where they were trapped, and the landscape of the Force is empty of life forms.
Until it's not.
This presence is dark, and it is familiar. Someone is approaching, and likely, Jax knows exactly who it is, even before a dark shape begins to emerge from the smoke and shadow.
[Jax Greystorm]
Jax had been on planet only a short time, the light side guiding him to help those in this area trapped. It had been a busy few hours for him Though the survivors had escaped only the jedi remained drawn to something, a moment, to here.
Jax knelt in a valley between two mangled and burnt piles of duracreate and durasteel that had once been building. HIs features hidden in the confindes of his hooded robes. He was brusing away dust and soot as if searching for something. Satisfied he pull out a chunky of shiny metal that was burnt and tarnished, flat and easily fit in the palm of his hand. He flipped it over satisfied it was tucked away into his belt.
Then the jedi suddenly stood peering in between ththe smoke and the haze. Though as the dark presence invaded the edges of his mind, he knew the other would have felt his presence knowing he was here. "Malik Ren." His voice horse and dry from the smoke. He reaches into cloak and produces a canteen he takes a pull. "I am not here to oppose you. Though I doubt that matters."
[Malik Ren]
The confirmation of the visitor is reflected in the snap-hiss of an ignited lightsaber, and a streak of red cuts through the smoke. Then the figure walks forward, and sure enough, there he is -- hooded and masked, a black and silver helmet hiding the face of the human man beneath. They are so often this way, hidden behind that dark gear. Part pragmatism, perhaps part something else, a detachment from the warmth and humanity that the Jedi cherish, that gives the light side its power.
"Your very existence opposes me, Jax Greystorm." The voice, like the presence, is familiar. This is Malik Ren's homeworld, though he hails from many kilometers above, where the sun still shines down on a few lucky denizens. "And particularly here. So bold. If the rumors are to be believed, you've all been quite busy."
The dark-clad man takes a few steps forward. "What are you all looking for, down here in the smoke? Lost little children, widows and orphans pulling at your heart-strings and making you dance like puppets? Or something else?"
[Jax Greystorm]
The glow of Maliks saber refracts off the dust and washes everything in a crimson hue except where it lengthens the shadows. The hood of Jax's cloak hid his face in those darken shadows, "Bold. I like that. I do have some Aderanne in me after all." He says as he corks the canteen and drops it. "The Force guides me as it guides you. Though the light side does, there was life here forsaken and needed to be freed. I am not here to topple your masters' regime. Simply to give people a chance of another day."
Jax calls the force to himself to strenght and protect himself. "Though you pay me a great compliment that my very breath oposes you and your darkness." With a quick flash of his hand he's took up his saber and igniting it as he stands in a defensive stance. "If we must fight. Then I do so knowing I stand with the light."
[Malik Ren]
"Dark. Light. Always you with your tiresome binary." Malik Ren makes a gesture with his free hand that Jax will likely recognize as an effort toward protection, a force shield called forth. Knights aren't really known for defensive tactics, they're usually more about offense, but perhaps they're capable of learning from their Jedi foes?
"Not your breath, Greystorm, your Order. Your pillar of antiquated rules, the slave-collar you and all your kind seek to impose upon the Force and all its users. Your way is the only way. There's only this-or-that. Light-or-dark. Good-or-evil. It's wrong, Jax, it will pull the war unending, forever, and I swear to stars I will break the Jedi, I will break the Sith, I will free the Force from this imposed madness."
He believes it, he believes so strongly in this heresy, and perhaps that's always been the problem.
Malik's smile can be heard rather than seen. "Or die trying. Fancy an attempt?"
[Jax Greystorm]
"Malik, I wish I could believe you. I tried to find a different way." The Corellian says almost with a touch of sadness, "And perhaps there is but I donot know that way. Though I can not say it is your way." He says slicing through the air to strike at Malik his saber pop hissing as it collides with the Knight of Ren's saber. Then with a bit of effort he presses his blade down the length of Maliks saber as the pair disengage.
Jax disappearign in a wiff of smoke and becomg a haze of blue for a moment, the humm of his saber never lessening. "Malik, from a distance and my eyes. You are a slave to the darkness. A slave to the sith and just don't see it. You are blind my friend." The smoke clares in time to reveal Jax going for a quick low strike aimed at Malik's leg. It wouldn't have killed the darksider just ended the fight very quickly. "You serve the fevered abortion of the last Sith lords plans. His after thought. While you go to the field with the current one. You are no Sith. You are their slave."
There's a quick flick of the wrist when Jax's attack failed and when Malik's blade knocks it aside leaving him an opening on the jedi.
[Malik Ren]
"Obviously you didn't try very hard, or you'd have found a very different way, a very /obvious/ way," Malik Ren replies, blade clashing red against blue as sparks fly from the blades, and embers from the fire scatter across the duracrete beneath their boots. "Break the establishment, live without it, and build a new future, is that such a terrifying cognitive leap? Why are you all so unable to let go, so desperately clinging to the dead corpse of this /attachment/?"
It's only a move at the very last moment, the smallest of chances, that doesn't cost him serious damage to his leg, but Jax clearly hits a nerve with all that talk of the Sith, and the strike back is one of similar brutality, a similar close call. "I am a slave to NO ONE," the Ren snaps, before that blue blade whips up to block his next attempt. "I do not answer to that creature, and his time will come, as surely as will yours. He is a fool, just as lost in the chains of the past as are the Jedi, but he is an expedient fool, and I can and will use him to that end until your temples are burning and your Jedi are dead."
Their blades part again, if only for a moment. "Jax, let GO," his adversary beseeches. "They're lost, and you know it. That girl is powerful, but she can't lead this anywhere beyond straight into the past. The others are fools who can't see beyond their own egos, who have no concept of a larger cause. As long as there are Jedi saying there can only be light, there will be Sith saying there can only be dark, and this will turn and turn, it will /never/ stop. We have to break the wheel, we have to, it's the only way. I mean this. I know this. I've given everything for this, and there's nothing I wouldn't give more, even still."
[Jax Greystorm]
"Because do you think it's only jedi and the sith out there? Do you think you're little band is the only ones that have tried something new? You're not. Most of the other force adepts I've met are lost in the darkness too. Other slaves to the darkness." Jax says as his saber goes to slash at Malik only for the leader of the to block him. He spins around for another strike this one cross body. The Ren just simply not being there. "You speak of neither light nor dark. Of not being a Darksider. Of breaking the cycle. I feel the dark on you. I feel nothing else Malik. Just darknesss. Where is your light? When did you last do something that was good. Something that wasn't selfish, didn't hurt another, wasn't for your own grab of power. No, you do dark thigns. Wield red crystal sabers, and complain about the Sith. You hate them. I thought you were just another lost darksider. No your just a Sith Slave. Slaves hate their masters as they should."
Jax turns and takes off with his amazing abilities to run up some duracrete and do a back flip to strike at Malik bringing his saber down. The Darksider ready for him and doging, Jax hood now pushed back to reveal his soot covered face, "Emperor's black bones. I think you're improving with your saber."
[Malik Ren]
"I will not suffer a tormented fate for this galaxy because I am afraid to fail." Malik Ren's saber style necessarily relies on agility and not brute force, as he is not a big tall man, but he was taught by Kylo Ren, and there's still something of Ben's style in there nonetheless. Relentlessness. "I will not suffer the chains of these poisoned traditions because someone else failed before me, once upon a time. I will not accept what is abhorrent to me because I can't think of a better idea. I will not live in a detestable hole because I'm afraid someday the house I build will fall. I am not afraid."
Neither manages to gain ground on the other, though the blades spit sparks left and right as ideologies and weapons clash. A hot wind stirs up from the depths, creating an eerie, otherworldly shriek through broken infrastructure, as though the ghosts of those who died here wish to lend their pain or hope to the conflict.
"Call me whatever you like. Master, slave, your perception means nothing to me. I know what I am."
[Jax Greystorm]
Jax style was not what you would find in a jedi or Sith manuals. His blocks and parrys his stance was based in form III, the way of the mynock. He knocked Maliks attacks asside with the parrys, blocks, and feints of the style to the point of annoyances. Though when he went on the offensive his stance changed slightly and carried with it more agression than a jedi should but there was a workman's efficency to it along with the debilitating lethality of it. Though even with it dulled a bit with it users desire not to kill. It would bring another to Maliks mind. 'Ambrosia.' A saber thrust that would miss Malik's shoulder, another that would pierce his side where Leia had struck him down, and then a slash that would seperate his saber hand from his body. All misses but the form was there. He lets Malik talk for the moment. Then finally he says, "Do you? Deep down when it's just you, do you know what you are? Where you fit in the galaxy and the force? I know where I stand. I stand against the darkness and the madness. I stand for freedom in the galaxy. Those are what it means to be a jedi to me."
[Malik Ren]
"I have never doubted it for a moment."
It is a tough and well-matched fight, here at the edge of a crumbling civilization, when the slightest misstep could mean a tumble to fiery depths below, or the smallest miscalculation, misinterpretation of the enemy's signature within the Force, could mean getting run straight through with one of these elegant, cruel, ancient blades.
"Do you all imagine what I've done is a fancy name change, and that alone?" Malik Ren continues. "I made a sacrifice to become what I am. I paid a price for power, for this cause, and now all my thoughts are bent on it. Every minute. Every moment. You all, with the precious-ones you're so scared to lose, the imaginary darkness to which you're so afraid to 'fall', all of the foolish attachments you worry about, all of the time -- can you really say the same? That you would accomplish what you believe in, at any cost? That what you hold to be true is worth any sacrifice asked of you? There are no Jedi who can say the same. You all live in doll-houses, and dull your minds with make-believe."
Chunks of duracrete fly as a strike intended for Jax takes out part of a crumbling wall instead. "Your mother would understand," Malik muses, a hint of amusement in the tone. "You're a bit like her, aren't you? But not enough. Pity."
[Jax Greystorm]
A smile spreads across Jax lips, "Malik, we finally meet. I am Jax Aderanne Greystorm. I would be doing this if I was a jedi or not. It's the way of the Aderannes." Jax disappear into the smoke lashes out to slice off the darksiders head. "No. I don't know the pain and my mother knows. Her parents, my brothers, and her body are all loses. The things that keep her up at night. The darkness in her soul. I am thankful, force senstivity skipped her." He's gone in the darkness of the smoke and turned off his saber.
There's a hiss annoucing the sudden appearenace of a blue blade moving to savagely disarm Malik by removing his fore arms if Malik hasn't blocked the attack. Then he's gone again. "You know she didn't know much of her history. She didn't know her family. We've done some research. Didn't find much. We did find, I am not the first jedi of my line. Her name is Jerena Aderanne. The Force willing I won't be the last. I know when I become one with the force, it will be some foresaken planet alone fighting the darkness."
Then from the smoke infront of Malik a figure in robes with a blue saber emerges striking at his right leg with the saber. It's a debilitating attack that would cause him to lose concinousnes. Perhaps Malik will write it up to a mind trick either from Jax or his mind messing with him but he would swear it wasn't Jax who struck him. It was a young woman who looked alot like Ambrosia dressed with jedi robes from millenia ago.
Jax stands over Maliks body. He lets out a sigh as he examines the down man. "I supposed you're another lost soul for me to resecue." Jax says picking up Maliks light saber then flings it as far as he can over the side of the artifical ravine to the next level below. Then Jax bundles up the leader of the Knights of Ren and carries him to the nearest aid station of the refugese. Then Jax reaches into a pocket and pulls out the disk of metal he found not so long ago. An the remains of an award of service given to a member of the support core of the old jedi order. It had not belonged to a jedi but one of those non force senstives that worked for them keeping the order going. The jedi oath engraved on it. Jax slips it onto Malik where he will find it later. Then the jedi slips away.
