Eryon Massarde never considered himself a coward, and never would.

He was merely avoiding suicidal ideas, such as helping out the Sith who had obliterated a dozen soldiers before they even saw her.

Slipping quietly towards the Tuk'ata infested wing of the tomb, he help the saber in a tight grip, eyes darting around, taking in every last movement.

Leaping on top of the wall, he spotted a pair of the loathsome creatures, and inched along the top of the wall, willing himself to pass undetected.

He'd always had a talent for moving undetected, slipping food and eliminating rivals in the slave camp, but he'd never tried it around blood-thirsty Sith beasts.

Suddenly, he felt something brush against his mind, and retreated further into the Force, willing himself to remain undetected by Shreave's probing.

As he felt the Pureblood retreat, he smiled grimly, revealing pointed teeth.

So the brute had a weakness, and an easy to exploit one at that.

Dropping to the inner landing of the tomb, he passed slowly across the courtyard, reducing his signature in the force to nearly nonexistant.

However, untrained talent is unreliable, and he saw a Tuk'ata look up, its nose sniffing and ears twitching, drawing nearer to his position.

Raising the blade, he thrust forwards, aiming at the soft point at the junction of the neck and shoulder blade.

The creature died loudly, it's pained shriek sending the other into a frenzy of movement, with howls echoing throughout the tomb.

Pressing himself into a shallow alcove in the wall, Eryon watched the Tuk'ata charging along the corridor, circling the dead beast, and eventually settling in to eat.

Wrinkling his nose at the sight of the dead Tuk'ata being devoured rather messily, he used the distraction to slip past, deeper into the tomb.

Somewhere, he knew that there was a mutated Tuk'ata, and if he could retrieve the brain, he may be able to work his way into Lord Rennings service.

Actually, any Sith would be preferable to that arrogant shutta and that kriffin' Pureblood.

Snarling a little at the thought, he moved deeper, finally spotting the vicious creature.

It was twice as large as the others, and was a paler grey in color, along with having some darker stripes.

Stalking into the room, the Twi'lek drew his blade into a ready position, then sprang forwards, drawing a deep slash across the Tuk'ata's shoulder.

It spun, massive jaws open in a roar that seemed to shake the entire temple.

Holding his ground a mere 3 feet away from the monster, Eryon let out a roar of his own, a trick he'd picked up on while searching Shreave's grip on the Force during his screams.

The mutant froze slightly, then repeated the roar, this time charging forwards, a 500 pound mass of muscle and death.

Eryon leaped straight up, pushing off it's shoulders to flip over it, slashing in a quick movement behind him.

The Tuk'ata roared again, in pain, and threw itself sideways into the Twi'lek, sending both crashing to the floor.

Training saber gone, Eryon gripped the mutant's neck in one hand, while twisting it's right paw as close to 360 as possible.

However, the Tuk'ata was stronger than he'd anticipated, easily ripping it's paw out of his grasp, and drawing back to slash his face.

Blood dripping into his eyes obscured his vision, but Eryon didn't need to see.

Reaching out with the Force, he summoned crackling purple strands of lightning, intent on bursting every blood vessel this thing had.

The mutant's weight disappeared, and Eryon pulled himself upright, swiping a hand roughly across his brow.

Vision cleared, he reached out, snapping his blade back into his hand as the Tuk'ata scrambled back to it's four paws, smoke rising from the burned and charred fur.

It roared again, mingled desperation and fury echoing throughout the room.

Eryon smiled grimly, then charged forwards, blasting lighting at it.

The mutant shrugged the fragile strands off, twisting its head to clamp hard on Eryon's left leg.

The Sith screamed, then swung with all of the strength he could augment with the Force, freeing his leg from the decapitated head of the Tuk'ata.

Collapsing weakly on his bad leg, Eryon pulled the mutant's head towards him, slicing the head open, and removing the rather disgustingly mutated brain.

Pulling out a blanket stolen from the outpost, he wrapped the brain as well as he could, before shoving it back into his pouch, and retrieving a basic medpack.

Wrapping a Kolto soaked bandage around the wound, he hissed in pain as the thick liquid touched the deep punctures left by the teeth.

Stumbling upright, he glanced back towards the entrance, dreading the thought of having to pass the dozen Tuk'ata he'd slipped past again.

Looking past the Mutant's corpse, he saw another path, this one strewn with bones and rubble.

"Mutant's lair, or army of monsters…." He muttered angrily, before stepping past the dead animal, and crunching a bone underfoot.

The path looked to be a corridor deeper into the tomb, though it curved around, angling to where Shreave and Zalia were supposed to be headed.

Theorizing that due to the mutant's size and ferocity, that this area of the tomb would be all but uninhabited, Eryon entered, leaning on the wall for support.

Pushing forwards, he began using his training saber as more of a cane than a weapon, leaning on it rather heavily.

As he limped through the dim, bone strewn corridor, he saw a strange, flickering purple light ahead.

Seconds later, the sounds of a fight reached him.

Peering around the corner, Eryon froze, seeing one of the most feared dark side monsters in existence assaulting Shreave and Zalia.

Alif had snuck around behind the monster, climbing on top of the giant stone tablet that had summoned the Tarentatek.

Overall, it wasn't overly large, and seemed a little clumsy in it's swipes, but Eryon suspected its Force resistance more than made up for the inexperience of youth.

Sighing mightily, he started to step forwards, knowing that if he didn't, he'd be an exiled acolyte forever, without Zalia to raise him with her.

But even as he stepped out, Alif jumped down, landing between the spiked shoulders of the Tarentatek, and driving his blade into the top of it's head as hard as he could.

The blade sunk deep, and the Tarentatek let out an actually-earth-shaking bellow, huge arm smacking Alif into a wall, where it charged the dazed apprentice.

Eryon lunged forwards, blade raised, out-flung hand spraying amethyst electricity into the beast's chest.

Barely even acknowledging the assault, the Tarentatek drove a spiked fist through the wall, completely removing the entire right side of Alif's body.

The young apprentice let out a slight gasp of pain, before his eyes clouded over with death, and his head drooped off to rest on his remaining shoulder.

Eryon grimaced, then cut loose with a massive burst of lightning, focused entirely on Alif's blade, still lodged in the top of the Tarentatek's head

The Tarentatek roared again, the channel through it's defensive armoring sending volts deep into it's brain.

Limbs shaking, it collapsed, as Shreave's blade punched through it's chest.

Panting with the exertion, Eryon dropped to his knees, then off to one side, injured leg splayed out to the side.

Shreave circled the dead beast, then froze upon seeing Alif dead.

"Alif…" He said, then saw Eryon sprawled next to the dead apprentice.

"Couldn't you have done something?" Shreave snarled, his lip curling disdainfully as he looked at Eryon.

"I did, Sith. But evidently you're to stupid to realize that one, my leg is crewed to scraps, and two, lightning does kriffin' Nothing to those things!"

Nudging the Twi'lek with a toe, Shreave said, "Uh-huh. Too bad you couldn't save that guy you hated. I'm sure your real broken up about it."

Eryon spit on Shreave's boot, which earned him a rather hard kick.

"Erry, you're only alive because Zalia says you should be. I can fix that at any time, and Man do I want to."

Eryon snarled, but as usual, came to the conclusion that the Pureblood was tougher by far than he was, especially right now.

"Screw you, Shreave, I tried. Now call the Sorceress to do some healing on my leg. I'm sure she won't want me too badly crippled."

With a final snort, Shreave turned away, his hatred almost radiating in red waves.