AN: I just ran Scum and Villainy for the first time, and the team dynamics are inspired by all the banter from the more experienced members in TS while we tackled Styrak.
Styrak. One of the Dread Lords, and, as far as Dan was concerned, also decidedly non-frightening. He twisted beings to his own will- but so had she. She'd freed him from Belsavis and now here she was, fighting him. Again.
No problem. Right?
One merry little band consisting of the Empire's best healers and warriors. Sorcerers, operatives, marauders, juggernauts, assassins...
Styrak's creations died, and tensions among the team were lightened by joking from the marauders and the juggernauts, turning it into a competition as to who could take down more of the insane mercenaries first. Per usual, the operatives did their jobs in relative silence, adrenaline fueling their work as they kept up with the Force-using beings.
It was a killing field, plain and simple. Styrak's guard fell more easily than anyone could've anticipated, and out came his pet. The pet that they proceeded to carve into little pieces, through the thick skin and dodging spines and teeth. Combat got the blood flowing and the mind racing; here and now, if you lived, you were strong enough to face Styrak and whatever he threw at you. When the Dread Lord finally deigned to come down (it took the death of his precious beast to compell him, after all), the team set upon him with as much viciousness as before, banter interspersed and laughter ringing through the fields between his angry threats. They were crazy, yes, but good or bad?
A mind meld kept them together, and a sarcastic voice cut through it, Choking here, help please? And with a laugh, Dan spun around, unleashing a barrage of lightning upon the spectre currently holding their juggernaut captive.
Time and again, they cut through spectres and simulacrums of Styrak as he disappeared from sight (afraid, was the impression she projected through the meld), only to reappear and charge at one juggernaut or another.
Then the nightmares started.
First went the operatives, their normally cool exterior suddenly shattered by fear, for only as long as it took for the remainder to destroy another spectre or two. She didn't think much of it- the operatives were not Force-sensitive and had to rely on conventional means to even keep in contact with the melded Sith.
Then she was pulled in. Her end of the meld shattered like so much glass, and when the fog cleared, she stood in stunned shock. Andronikos, leaning casually against rubble like nothing was going on, until he spotted her. Then it turned into a fight to the death- a fight she won despite the horror it wrought. Just a dream, a nightmare, a fake, she told herself, it wasn't real. Then, too, the fog shattered around her and she was back to cutting down the spectres, reestablishing her connection to the meld as she leapt back into the fray.
Dan pushed that nightmare as far down as she could, but no matter what, it would come back. It wasn't real, just a nightmare, but it would haunt her for months after the encounter and after Styrak's destruction.
Andronikos had been right. Even if they wanted a family, there were too many dangers still in the galaxy for a powerful Sith and her lover to just disappear and start a family.