Future's Sacrifice - XI

The lights above Amirrya flickered on and off as the stepped off of the control section of the bridge and down into the sickly-sweet bacta. Her bare feet sloshed almost silently through the liquid as she walked, and her eyes were focused entirely on the figure in front of her. Darrik's lightsaber was gripped tightly in her right hand, deactivated down at her side. Her face was determined, and her steps did not falter as she marched forward.

Reszrinn walked silently toward her as well, and the two figures stopped a few meters away from each other. Neither of them spoke, but Reszrinn glared menacingly at her while Amirrya stared calmly back at him.

Amirrya still kept her lightsaber deactivated in her hand, and she could feel the hatred and malice emanating from Reszrinn. She slowly stretched her arms outward and spread her feet apart, readying herself into a classic dueling stance.

It had been years since she had held a lightsaber, and when she had, she'd been only a padwan. But though she had been a formable duelist then, Amirrya felt far more confident in herself now than she had ever been all those years ago. This was because of the force that was flowing through her, like a raging river winding down a canyon. She felt more in tune with it now then she had her entire life. She knew the force would not let her down, and she trusted it to guide her lightsaber against the Sith Lord's.

They both stared at each other for a few more seconds, and then Reszrinn broke the silence.

"What have you done to me…," he said quietly, his icy voice now more of a command than a taunt. "I felt the power that came from you, I felt its strength, and it channeled itself into me. But no matter what I try, it keeps evading my grasps… With that power, I should be able to crush planets into pulp, with a single command of the force, but I cannot…"

"That's because you don't know how to control it," Amirrya stated coolly, her lightsaber still deactivated at her side. "Though you may by physically and mentally strong in the force, you still lack the wisdom and experience that the ancient Sith Lords had over it. They were much more in tune with it than you are now, since you have only focused on gaining power and dominance over the force instead of understanding it and using it with your strengths."

Reszrinn glared at her, his face not quite concealing his rage. "Are you actually lecturing me, child? You haven't encountered the Jedi since you were a padwan, over nine years ago! How would you understand something that I do not?"

"Because," Amirrya spoke slowly, her mouth almost snarling. "During your attempts to torture and turn me to the dark side, I fought back. My one and only ally then became the force, and I used it to beat back your attempts to corrupt me. Then, after being shrouded in the darkness of Korriban's core for so long, I finally broke free, with some help. After this, the force came to me, and I have become more in tune with it then you will probably ever be. And that is why I know more than you do, and why I will not be defeated…"

Reszrinn's face curled up slightly. "Then I guess we'll just have to find out how powerful being completely in tune with the force really is…"

The Sith Lord suddenly darted forward, his double-bladed lightsaber spinning behind his back, and he lunged at Amirrya.

Amirrya ignited her lightsaber the moment Reszrinn began to move, and a deep blue beam of light erupted into existence from the handle. Then, with a slight prodding from the force, Amirrya spun her lightsaber swiftly to the left as Reszrinn lunged.

Sparks exploded as Reszrinn's crimson beam met Amirrya's sapphire one, and the two force wielders held their blades against each other for a long second before disengaging and then retreating back a few steps.

Amirrya swung her lightsaber back and forth in her hands, getting used to the feel of using one after so long. After a few seconds of this, she settled back down into a dueling stance with the dark blue blade raised up in front of her face. Her eyes glared at the Sith Lord from behind the sapphire glow.

Reszrinn sneered back at her, and the cold, icy smile returned to his face.

Suddenly, the Sith Lord force jumped up, straight into the air toward the crosswalks above. Amirrya jerked her head up to try and follow him, but Reszrinn disappeared from sight amidst the entanglement of crisscrossing walkways.

Well, that's a trap if I ever saw one…

Amirrya lowered her lightsaber back down to her side, still gazing above her, and then turned her attention to her left. The crosswalk that Kendal and Avvin had been fighting on earlier was there, slanted down into the bacta from when Reszrinn had severed the support cables.

She slowly trudged through the bacta towards it, and stepped up onto the now inclined walkway. Her lightsaber was grasped in her right hand, still ignited, and she gazed up warily to the other crosswalks above her. They were all shrouded in shadows, mostly, and only the flickering emergency lights above each walkway illuminated their durasteel structures.

Well, here goes nothing…

Slowly, Amirrya climbed up the steep incline of the crosswalk, her wet feet almost slipping on the steep slope a few times. She reached the top, and then looked warily around her. Nothing in her immediate vicinity moved, she slowly stepped up onto the crosswalk and began walking along it, double-checking every shadow and corner for signs of movement.

"I know you're here…" she called out into the silence as she walked.

Well of course he knows that I know he's here…

Her voice echoed about the domed top of the bridge briefly before being thrown back at her. The lights above her flickered as she walked, and sparks could be seen intermittently shooting off from an exposed piece of wiring or a cut control circuit that had been severed during Reszrinn's lightning-fueled force explosion. The durasteel frame of the walkway beneath her creaked every couple of steps, and Amirrya's eyes kept zipping back and forth, scanning the area for any signs of the Sith Lord.

She broke off down another path on the crosswalk and continued walking. The lights above her were even dimmer here, and some were shut off completely as sparks sporadically crackled across their surfaces.

Amirrya continued on for a few more steps, and then gracefully flipped up into the air toward the crosswalk above her. She landed almost silently on the walkway, her bare feet spread wide for stability, and she scanned the area for a few seconds before standing back up.

After a second of gazing above and below her at the entanglement of crisscrossing walkways, she determined that she was now on the second layer of the total four layers of crosswalks. Slowly, she began to stealthily move along again, her eyes adjusting to the darker surroundings.

Her lightsaber's dark blue blade made the distinctive vzzzzm, vzzzzm, sounds as she stroked it back and forth in front of her legs. All her senses in the force were alert for any sound, any hint of movement, anything at all that would indicate where the Sith Lord was hiding.

She walked a few more steps forward, and then abruptly her muscles went rigid. She jerked her lightsaber down to her side so that it was hovering just above the floor, and then slowly pivoted around on her left foot and turned around.

Darth Reszrinn stood just a few meters away, his lightsaber hilt held deactivated to his side. His black and dark blue shirt hung loosely across his chest, and his face was tilted downward as if in reproach. The scar that Avvin had carved into his left shoulder blade was clearly visible, and Amirrya could see the dark red cauterization of the flesh beneath the folds of the dark shirt.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the Sith Lord lifted his head up to look Amirrya in the face. His own eyes were flaring with anger, and his mouth was a snarl as he glowered at her.
Then, without a word, the silver end of his lightsaber sprang into life with a crackling snap-hiss. He held it unmoving down at his side, his posture frozen as he continued to glare at Amirrya.

Well, so much for talking this out peacefully… Amirrya thought sarcastically to herself, and it was in that split second that Reszrinn launched himself at her.

The Sith Lord's lightsaber arced around in two complete circles as he traded off the hilt from his left hand to his right, and then he slashed the blade out manically towards Amirrya's body. Amirrya fell back two steps as she twisted her sapphire blade around in her hands and parried the attack, and then Reszrinn was on her again, viciously hammering down upon her lightsaber with blows from the silver blade.

Sparks erupted everywhere as Amirrya retreated back, swerving her azure blade this way and that, and the echoes of the lightsaber blows were all she could hear in the cacophony of sound around her. Then she felt the force, surging up inside of her, and she knew what she had to do.

As Reszrinn's next strike came slashing down upon her, Amirrya anchored her lightsaber horizontally in front of her and spun her left foot back while keeping her right foot forward to rivet her body in place. The Sith Lord's silver blade contacted with her sapphire one with a static of crackling energy, and Amirrya felt the jolt from the force as she was jerked backwards.

The Sith Lord was now pushing down from above, gaining leverage, and from behind the silver and blue glow of the lightsaber, Amirrya could see Reszrinn's face curved up into a rabid smile; a feral animal waiting for the kill.

Not - today… she thought to herself, suffusing herself with the force. Then, gritting her teeth, she pushed up with her back left foot with all of her might and drove Reszrinn back two steps. Now, she was the one with the leverage, holding her azure blade down against the Sith Lord's silver one.

She could see the surprise on Reszrinn's face as she did this, and then after another long second, she quickly disengaged and threw her own hand up palm-first to face the Sith Lord.

Reszrinn didn't have time to react as the force push hurled him backwards. He flew almost the entirety of the crosswalk, and then flipped into a surprisingly graceful landing at the other end. His single silver lightsaber was still ignited down to his side, and his face was bloodcurdling.

"So you want to play with the force, do you, child?!" Reszrinn shouted back viciously from the other side of the walkway. His voice echoed about Amirrya, and she could feel his anger like a sun going nova.

"Well, do you?!" he screamed again, his voice going raspy as he began striding determinedly towards her. His face was a rage unlike anything she had yet seen from him.

Then, without warning, Reszrinn's free hand jerked upward and the crosswalk Amirrya was on suddenly buckled. Amirrya struggled to keep her balance for a brief second, and then the section of the walkway suddenly shot upward toward the crosswalk above her with a screech of metal against metal. Amirrya reflexively threw a force bubble up around her to protect her from the oncoming crash, and then she collided with the walkway directly above her.

A cacophony of sound echoed throughout the domed bridge as Amirrya was thrown through the duratseel flooring of the crosswalk and then onto the railings that lined the third level walkway. Her breath went out of her as she did so, and she stood leaning on the railings, gasping for breath for a few seconds before she could finally move again.

Around her was the mangled frame of what had once been a section of one of the crosswalks, and sparks were flying everywhere from internal piping and wall-mounted computer terminals.

Amirrya shook her head, trying to clear her mind. Her dark brown hair swooshed out as she did so, and then she slowly stood back up off the railing. Though the force bubble had shielded her from most of the impact of being thrown through the durasteel floor, she had still been hurt by all the small jagged pieces of metal that she had hit. Her body was lacerated with tiny scars across her stomach, arms, and legs, and most of them were streaked red with blood.

Amirrya's right eye clouded with red, and she hastily wiped her arm across her forehead. A bright red streak appeared on her arm, and she wiped the blood onto the railing beside her as she blinked her eyes a few more times to clear her vision.

Suddenly, the distinctive hum of a lightsaber sounded in front of her, and Amirrya jerked her head up.

On the other side of the gaping hole in the crosswalk, where the walkway below it had mutilated it, stood Darth Reszrinn. His single silver blade was held down low to his side, just as it had been earlier, and he was glaring at Amirrya through a fountain of sparks that kept shooting up into the air from the twisted metal wreckage.

Amirrya glanced quickly around for her lightsaber, her panic rising, but the silver hilt was nowhere in sight. She was just beginning to reach out in the force to find it when Reszrinn charged at her.

The Sith Lord leapt over the gaping hole in the walkway and through the sparks in a single bound. He then came down upon Amirrya like a rancor, his silver lightsaber weaving ribbons through the dim lighting.

Amirrya jumped back, narrowly missing the wave of silver as it passed through where she had just been, and she came up a few meters away from Reszrinn. The Sith Lord then raised his left hand as if to choke her, and she felt tendrils closing around her throat.

She gasped in a few breaths, clutching her throat, and then she was lifted up off the ground. She felt as if her neck would snap at any moment, and her body writhed with pain as she tried to hold back the force choke.

"And you call this not being in tune with the force, child?!" Reszrinn shouted at her, his eyes filled with fury. "I'll show you what this can do!"

Amirrya felt the tendrils tighten even further, and her vision started to blacken around the edges. Her eyes were just starting to close when she felt the force in the back of her mind, urging her not to give up; a beacon of hope.

Amirrya's eyes widened with a newfound sense of purpose, and suddenly she spread her hands out and the force energy erupted out of her in a wave. Reszrinn's hand snapped back as if burnt, and then the Sith Lord stumbled backwards a few meters as the wave threw him into the gaping hole in the crosswalk.

But Reszrinn was tenacious, and he grasped one hand around the railing of the walkway as he fell. He then pulled himself back up onto the decking, his silver lightsaber still ignited in his right hand.

"Bad idea," he growled venomously, and then took a step toward her.

But that was as far as he got, for right then Amirrya hurled both of her hands downward, and the crosswalk above Reszrinn abruptly creaked free of its anchorage and plummeted. The Sith Lord barely had the time to raise his head and look before the crosswalk collapsed upon him in a tumultuous screech of metal.

The twisted mass of the walkway erupted into sparks once more, and Amirrya quickly jumped up onto the next crosswalk on the fourth layer. She glanced around her, sensing her lightsaber nearby, and found it caught between where two sets of railings came together. She called it to her with the force, and the lightsaber sprang into her hands.

She then turned back around and looked down at the destruction that was still settling beneath her. Besides the sparks, the only things she could see were the endless twists of metal beneath her, and she could hardly distinguish one crosswalk from another.

But that's not going to hold him for long…

Then, out of the corner of her eye, a glimmer of light reflected off of something metallic on the other side of the crosswalk she was on. She turned around, and found herself staring at another lightsaber handle lying on the ground a few meters away.

Amirrya's brows creased as she walked over to the handle and carefully picked it up with her free hand. She thumbed the activation switch, and a deep purple blade sprang to life.
This has to be Kendal's…

Amirrya's thoughts were cut short as a dissonant grating of metal on metal sounded from below. She spun around on her feet just in time to catch Reszrinn landing on the crosswalk that she was now on, his silver blade held down to his side. His face was the fury of a madman, and his dark shirt was tattered from the wreckage that he had just jumped from.

Slowly, deliberately, the Sith Lord spun his lightsaber out in front of him, one-handed, and then ignited the crimson end of it in mid-spin, twirling it back into a two-handed grip.

Amirrya reignited her own sapphire blade, and she spun the purple and blue blades around in a single spin in each of her hands, readying herself into a fighting stance.
Then, in the blink of an eye, Reszrinn was upon her.

The Sith Lord slashed his double-bladed lightsaber around himself and down at Amirrya in intricate thrusts and parries, his lightsaber weaving arcs of red and silver everywhere at once. Amirrya fell back from the barrage of attacks, her own two lightsabers barely catching or deflecting each strike that came her way.

She was submerged in the force now, and she was no longer in control of her hands as they twisted and turned and spun around. But she could still feel the strain on her body, her muscles growing weary from the sudden and violent movements that they were having to make.

Amirrya caught Reszrinn's eyes between the bright ribbons of red, purple, blue, and silver. His eyes were slanted down to slits, and his face was the nightmarish look of a bloodwolf readying itself for the kill.

Amirrya kept falling back, being careful not to stay in one place too long for fear of the Sith Lord's twin blades overwhelming her defenses.

Her bare feet still scurrying across the ground in retreat, Amirrya suddenly struck out low at the Sith Lord, her purple lightsaber going at his feet, her blue one at his chest. But even as she swung, she saw Reszrinn react instantly to the change in flow. The Sith Lord jumped over the low lightsaber's beam, propelling himself forward, and then parried the higher one out of the way with a twirl of his own blades as he came up directly behind Amirrya.

Amirrya shot up off the floor instantly, and without even turning around to look, she swung both of her lightsabers around in a wide arc behind her. She heard the crackle of discharging energy as the lightsabers met, and then she could see Reszrinn holding up his red blade against both of hers', sparks flying between the three beams.

Before Amirrya could even think of what next to do, Reszrinn's crimson lightsaber beam suddenly vanished, deactivated. Amirrya began to tumble forward, losing her balance as the red blade disappeared from existence and her weight fell into nothing. While falling, she saw out of the corner of her eye Reszrinn swinging the other end of his lightsaber back around to cut down at her exposed back.

She knew she couldn't twist back around as she was falling in time to get her lightsabers up to block the imminent strike. In the back of her mind, she wondered briefly if Darrik, Brenden, Kendal and Cyrinity had made it back to the ship in time.

There's always hope, Darrik, however feeble it may seem…

The memory of what she had said to Darrik earlier flashed through her mind. Before she could even guess why it had, she suddenly felt the force, everywhere around her, everything around her. She could feel everything that the force could, Reszrinn's lightsaber swinging down upon her, her own fall as she plummeted toward the walkway's floor, the crosswalk shuddering beneath her weight, everything.

There's always hope, Darrik…

With that sudden burst of knowledge, Amirrya telekinetically through herself outward in the force and slammed the energy against Reszrinn's hand. The Sith Lord was centimeters away from slicing her in half as she fell, and suddenly his hand stopped, dead in its tracks.

She could see Reszrinn's face contort into confusion through the force as she fell. Then, suddenly, she was landing on her stomach, spinning back around, and jabbing her lightsabers upward.

Reszrinn's face tensed into stillness as he stood above Amirrya. His silver lightsaber was grasped in his hands, still inches from Amirrya's body. Amirrya herself laid chest-up against the floor, her sapphire blade raised upward.

Sprouting from the Sith Lord's abdomen was the dark blue blade from Amirrya's lightsaber.

Reszrinn slowly craned his neck so that he was looking down at Amirrya. The Sith Lord's face was a mixture of shock, bewilderment, and rage, all coalescing into one, and his hands and legs were beginning to tremble with spasms.

Amirrya deactivated her blade and rolled out from under the Sith Lord. She hopped back up onto her feet a few feet away, gazing at Reszrinn's back as he stood silhouetted by the dim lighting behind him.

Amirrya was panting heavily now, and a small scar across her cheek marred her face as she stood gazing back at the silhouetted Sith Lord. She could feel her own arms and feet trembling with exhaustion, and she had to will her head to support its weight atop her shoulders.

"FOOL!" Reszrinn suddenly shouted out, his raspy voice taking an even more inhuman-like quality. He suddenly pivoted around on both of his feet, his hands and legs still trembling as he spun around to face Amirrya.

Amirrya's eyes widened in shock as she looked upon the Sith Lord. She could see light shinning through the charred hole in Reszrinn's abdomen, and yet he still stood, glaring at her with a fury that couldn't even be described. Abruptly, the Sith Lord's hands and feet stopped their shaking, and Reszrinn let out a slow breath.

"How can you ever expect to destroy something," Reszrinn yelled at her, his eyes the blazing twin suns of Tatooine, "If by hurting it you only make it stronger?!"

Of course, Cyrinity suddenly realized. A Sith Lord thrives on pain… He'll harness the hatred and suffering that he's feeling to make himself even more powerful… Whatever doesn't kill him will only make him-

Amirrya's thoughts were sliced in half as Reszrinn abruptly shoved his free arm forward, his fingers splayed. A force push was born from the Sith Lord's outstretched hand, and Amirrya was suddenly being lifted up and rocketed backwards through the air.

Amirrya's form flew down the entirety of the crosswalk, and then entered another room apart from the bridge. She landed on the now narrower crosswalk in a jumbled heap, and her head and mind were spinning in opposite directions as she tried to stabilize herself.

When the room came to a standstill, the first things she noticed were the two lightsaber hilts that were still clutched in her hands.

Well, at least I managed to hold on to something…

She then grabbed the guard-railing beside her and hauled herself up onto the walkway. The walkway shuddered as she stood, and she looked around her in a quick scan of her surroundings.

Below her was an enormous engine complex, stretching out across the entire room. Massive ion energy converters dotted the landscape below her, and millions upon millions of tons of machinery were operating across the wide expanse of the room. The ion energy converters emanated an orange glow that cast the rest of the room into a deep, red hue. The clatter of noise was vociferous, and Amirrya was surprised that she had not heard any of this while on the bridge.

She then turned her head up to look upon the figure marching determinedly toward her. The single, silver blade of his lightsaber was twirling around in his right hand, and his mouth was curled up into a never-ceasing snarl. His black, shredded shirt billowed out behind him, and he seemed unaffected by the lightsaber wounds to his abdomen and shoulder as he marched forward.

Amirrya shakily readied herself into a fighting stance, slightly cramped between the narrow sides of the crosswalk. She reactivated her blue and purple lightsaber blades and spun them into a downward slant behind her, as if she was a raven about to take flight.
Reszrinn then neared her, and when he was just a few meters away he ignited the other end of his lightsaber and spun it around high over his head. The red and silver beams merged together from the speed of the spin, and then the Sith Lord charged.