Faction Litanies of the Dark Side: Spoils of War

[Desmundor Alcademon]

Desmundor approached, looking up and down at Valia as if he tried to evaluate her character in a mere glimpse; A ritual practiced a million times on a million souls. He lowered the hand holding the Sith's hilt, and then allowed it to fall on the ground. He kicked it with his boot, and the hilt rolled against Valia's feet.

"These savages praise their weapons. Killing them with one like such would give them a warrior's death." he shook his head.

"They have defiled the Red Harvest. OUR celebration." his voice spiked, an emphasis intended to be heard by all surrounding Athysians, each craving for the coming violence.

"You kill them like a Sith, you become one..." he reached with his hand to his belt, sliding a sword from the scabbard by his hip. The weapon was forged by pure crystal that carried the stench of dark alchemy; The blade curved, single-edged, sprouting from a simplistic handle that was forged by the very same piece of crystal that formed the blade, differentiated only by a white fabric wrapped around it, so the grip wouldnt slide.

"You are no Sith..." he tilted his head, lifting the blade up. "WE are no Savages!"

To the very word, the surrounding Athysians bursted in a sudden cry, hands lifted up, a statement of their support. The Hegemon turned, and spinned the blade to a reversed grip, stabbing it against the soil, before Valia's feet.

"You have been lost. Tonight, you find yourself."

 

[Valia Muqai]

Valia held her tongue as the Lord Hegemon made his speech. Neither fully agreeing nor disagreeing with his words, only thing that occupied her mind was Hazdrabal, and to see his blood spilled. The distinction between savagery and civility had long been gone from Valia's mind when surviving and resistance was all she ever did in the years after Karideph, yet even then she knew that she had to adapt just as she had adapted to the hellscape of the Dark Crusade. Only difference? Valia no longer felt constrained by the principles she once dearly held.

For the first time in years, Valia felt the desire to find herself on the path she had so desperately lost herself on.

She held out her hand and gripped the curved blade's hilt, lifting off the ground. It was heavier than she had expected, especially compared to a lightsaber, enough that both her hands held the hilt for stability accounting for her lack of experience in wielding a physical blade rather than one made of weightless plasma. Weapon in hand, Valia stepped towards Hazdrabal.

No further words were needed, Valia raised the blade. Not swinging to take off Hazdrabal's head in one fell swoop, but to slice off one of his arms. Starting with his right arm, removing it from the shoulder blade, then another swing to take off his left arm at the elbow that was quickly followed by a third swing that left a deep gash across Hazdraba's chest that exposed the metal parts beneath along the cut, but not deep enough to fatally injure any internal organs. Valia kicked him down onto the ground where she now stood over the grievously wounded Dark Crusader.

Valia loomed over him, savoring the gruesome work she had done. All it would was to burrow the blade through his foul heart or one more slice to his neck. One motion and one of the most blighted creatures in her life will be dead and her bloodlust satisfied...

Yet, she hesitated. Not out of pity or guilt, but from the grim memories deep within her mind clawing its way back to the surface. From all the ruthless training sessions, the dark rituals that defiled and forced their minds each and everytime. The face she saw when she had failed to slay the Dark Lord, one that she had tried so hard to flee from on that dreadful day on Karidepth.

The same face she saw when she had been dragged out of the bacta tank that held her after she was denied the death she had so craved.

Valia felt it all again. The bitter taste of metal on her tongue, hearing the beeping machines that tethered her to life, and the sharp, seething pain in her chest that reminded her that she too shared the cortosis parts as him. It was only for a short moment, but for Valia, it felt like hours reliving the same horrific moment once more as her perception of time was utterly and thoroughly warped. Her expression twisted to that of deep pain and rage.

She took a deep, shaky breath then embedded the blade into the ground just right next to Hazdrabal's head. Momentarily appearing as an act of mercy, though it was far from it.

Valia's were shaking with anger, she kneeled onto his chest, further pinning him down with on the ground with her weight and soaking her clothing in his blood.

Then she reached down to Hazdrabal's face, fingers digging into the edge of the metal mask and she peered down and met his gaze before the inevitable act she was about to do. Her eyes showing a cold, terrifying calm that seemed almost inhuman.

"Remember me, swear vengeance against me, so that you may never have it." Valia whispered to him, lips twisting into a maddened grin.

Fueled by the potent energies of the dark side, Valia pried off the metal face of Hazdrabal. Flesh was unevenly ripped apart with agonizing slowness like fabric being ripped apart by the hems. Her fingers sparking with electrical current that coursed through the mask and heated the metal, unevenly cauterizing the flesh beneath as she did her work.

After who knows how long, with a sickening, wet tear, Hazdrabal's was torn off, exposing the bloodied, partly burned flesh and bone beneath. Valia stood up, holding the bloody metal face in one hand, looking around at the Athysian on lookers with newfound relief and clarity she had not experienced in years, such was the satisfaction she felt from her vile act of torture.

"Drag this sad sack of flesh back to the Dark Crusade where it belongs." She addressed to the crowd. "So that he may deliver the Lord Hegemon's message to its rotted master and let him know of Athysia's victory."

Hasty, but calculated words to the Athysians. Valia knew as well what awaited Hazdrabal for when he returned.

 

[Desmundor Alcademon]

Cries of satisfaction bursted like shockwaves across the surrounding crowd, the deafening cries of pain by Hazdrabal, drowning in his eventual bloodletting, overshadowed by the maniac laughter and taunting of the surrounding Athysians. To them, the miscreant Sith were no more than chains to what they perceived as a God of War; The carnage wreaked by the Raider Fleets, barely a painful attempt to cast these shackles off, now having befallen to the thrill and ecstatic knowledge of ascension, as the Sith of the Dark Crusade finally fall behind to the Athysian conquest of destruction....

And now, the final countdown had begun....

Under the guize of the Lord Hegemon, chosen of the Gods, Athysia was on the rise, with no hint of ceasing that highway to absolution anytime soon...

The Lord Hegemon brought both his hands up, as if to present the maniac celebration of the hordes around him, as Hazdrabal's half-dead body was dragged into the masses, like a bug corpse taken by the ant hive. And as such, the drums and loud roaring of the Buzzards once again overtook the minds of the gathered. The bewitching spell cast by the Eyerhea at the stage rapidly gainning effect, as the berserker's body was dragged farther and farther away, to unkown, yet most horrid a destination...

The Hallucinogenics kicking in, as if the flood gates held shut by the very presence of the Sith, now crashing down, as the cataclysm of emotions floods everyone's mind like a spreading madness.

"Take it all in." Desmundor declared, approaching Valia. His voice twisting, unseengly by the cacophony of the Red Harvest around him, and the molding bodies, quick to express the thrill of the scene that unfolded upon one another. Black shadow cast through his lips.

"You are whole once more, Trice-born. With us, you shall taste retribution. Under a Crimson Star; Athys Megas."

He offered a hand, as if to embrace what seemed to be, in his eyes, the newest part of the Raider Fleet.

 

[Hyara Hemstagon]

The very sight of brutality enacted by Valia, a deranging excitment for the Black Dannu. Most of all, Hyara...

The One-Eyed Vulture danced to the sound of the drums, her pale braids lashing left and right, as her hips twisted in the rhythm of an unspoken music played in the Dark Side, as Hazdrabal's clawless arms pressed against Valia's chest, as if that would ever stop her from enacting the most painful act of retribution, yet unsated... The One-Eyed Vulture cried out, laughter blending with curses and abuse, as she creeped forth, head of a commitee of carnivorous creatures, bent and reaching out, as if craving to partake in Valia's revenge, yet none reaching far enough to do so. At that moment, little resemblance did any of them bare to a humanoid; Twisted and bent, creeping low, and reaching out towards unseen targets, or already throwing themselves upon the dead Sith surrounding Hazdrabal and Valia, dragging them off the scene, before hearts were held at hand, brought aloft as banners of a ritual blessed by Gods unforgiving as the cold Void, the Athysians howling like beasts of Night, as those who defiled the most sacret a ritual paid a tithe bled in Souls, fresh delivered for the Harvest....

Bodies molded yet again, dressed in blood of the Dead, hearts shared by couples bound by malice and depraved sensations too foul in the eons gone to be described in words...

Hyara was the first to snatch the dying Hazdrabal, his cries of pain long drowned by the blood of his openned face; Cables and wiring still mixed with brain and body liquids.

"You, love, are coming with us..." she giggled to the man's torn out ear, as if willing to add her own touch to his torment. "Time you tasted Athysian medicine"

Her bloodied hand reaching for the openned throat, shoving the hallucinogenic seeds down the trachea until they stuck on the bloodied inside.

The One-Eyed Vulture, followed by numerous other she-fiends dragged the Sith, who yet tried to cast them away with handless arms and kicks of his legs, but to no avail....

Like an insect trapped in the Ant's hive, the trail that spoke of the tell-tale of his martyrdom was that of blood abundant, torn clothes and marks of horrified protesting, drawn against the foul soil....

 

[Valia Muqai]

Valia stepped back from the bloodied sack of flesh that was Hazdrabal as the vultures did their work on him, dragging him to places unknown that she couldn't care any less about. Finally getting retribution against one of her captors felt euphoric in ways that Valia couldn't describe, she wanted more, she wanted to see him suffer further, along with all others that had wronged her in the last few miserable years of existence.


As the bodies of the Sith were whisked away, Valia felt the full effects of the ritual upon her once more. That time, she didn't resist or, rather, couldn't resist as the effects of the seeds and the ritual compounded on her mind and body. Any dark thoughts or memories were buried back deep within her mind and replaced with intense desire that Valia both didn't quite understand and familiar the same time, it felt akin to what Kirki made her feel not too long ago and Valia heavily disliked the thought, yet felt just as powerless against it.


She stumbled slightly as she reached out a hand to accept Desmundor's outreached hand. Her knees felt weak, Valia felt her entire body flushed with intense heat that could never seem to dissipate even as she felt beads of sweat on her exposed skin to the point that her own clothing felt unbearable to wear, and her heart raced so fast she could almost hear it.


Valia did her best to keep Desmundor at arm's length, but her already weakened inhibitions only eroded even further. She slowly stepped closer and closer until her body pressed against bronze armor in a tight embrace. It felt strangely cooling against the building, accumulating intense heat of her body that offered only a brief sense of relief as such close proximity to him only seemed to intensify everything.

She looked up at him, finally getting a better look at the Lord Hegemon through the visor of his helmet. Her breaths came quickly and unevenly as if under some great physical exertion. Valia's eyes were wide with both a mixture of surprise... and lust.

"This is unbearable..." she muttered between breaths, her hands tighly gripping Desmundor's arms. "Help me get out of this place before I lose my mind."