Height of Ambition, Part One
Posted on Wed Dec 3rd, 2025 @ 10:36am by Reave & Bomoor Thort & Mentis
2,725 words; about a 14 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter VIII: Broken Chains
Location: Cloud City, Bespin
Timeline: Week Two (Around a week after Irrikut)
OLD
“Whatever you’ve forged here, it’s a pale imitation. A furnace built on flawed shards and even more flawed ideals,” His tone sharpened, his conviction rising. “I’ve held a true fragment of the Kaiburr. I know its weight. Its clarity. And I now know this place is no true threat.”
He cast a hand forwards, now pointing directly at the Baron's chest.
“There’s only one prize here worth claiming," he declared firmly, "And it’s beating in your chest.”
NEW
For a heartbeat, the room held its breath.
Then the Baron moved.
He did not lunge so much as fall forward into motion, all that armour and hate turned into a single, brutal vector. The molten sword came up in a low, two-handed sweep aimed squarely at Bomoor’s midsection. The Ithorian braced, viridian blade angling to meet it.
The collision of weapons was like a small explosion.
Light flared white at the point of contact, molten sparks scattering in a widening arc. For a fraction of a second Bomoor held, his muscles and the Force straining against Kaiburr-fed strength, boots grinding furrows into the scorched marble, but then the shard in the Baron’s chest seemed to flare.
An almost imperceptible pulse rippled out from his armour like a shockwave, distorting the air around them. It hit Bomoor full in the chest, like the strike from the Baron's sword had a delay in carrying through. The Ithorian was torn from his footing and hurled backwards as though struck by a battering ram. His body scythed through the haze, cloak snapping behind him, before smashing into the far wall with a bone-jarring crunch that cracked the wall and sent a spiderweb of fractures racing through the stone.
His lightsaber tumbled from his grasp, spinning end-over-end in a brief, wild arc across the floor.
For a moment, there was only the echo of impact and the distant howl of the growing storm through the shattered windows.
The Baron did not watch him fall. He simply straightened from the follow-through of his swing, massive sword still humming with liquid heat, and turned with ponderous inevitability toward the Rattataki still standing nearest the ritual dais, who had not yet been able to react.
Boots like anvils boomed across the floor, each heavy step syncing with the throb of the Kaiburr embedded in his chest. The cultists flanking the walls twitched as the shard pulsed, their bodies stirring in sympathetic resonance, yet none dared move from their positions.
The Baron’s visor settled on the blade in Mentis’s hand. He drew himself up to his full towering height, sword lowering to his side in a posture that was not defence, not caution, but simple, crushing confidence.
Molten light seeped from the seams of his gauntlet as he flexed his fingers; the air around him shimmered with heat, the edge of his sword dripping incandescent slag that hissed as it spattered across the cracked marble.
He took another deliberate step, closing the distance.
The Kaiburr shard shone at his chest, its crimson glow reflecting in Mentis’s pale skin and the dim transparisteel framing the storm outside. The Baron advanced, his stride faster than a run, all his focus now bearing down on the Rattataki like a physical weight.
Mentis instinctively tightened his grip on his saber hilt, his pale knuckles digging into the black leather grip. While his heart raced, time seemed to slow as the great armoured beast of a man loomed towards him like a determined Wampa ready to tear off his limbs. His eyes darted between the great sword, the pulsing crystal and the thunderous boots that charged at him. While any other foe this size would be plain to read in the Force, The Baron's movements felt a step ahead of everything else in the room, just as Bomoor had when he possessed a different shard of the great Kaiburr crystal.
This time, he would not let it get the better of him.
The Rattataki moved quickly: sharp sidestep, blade angled low, then a sudden upward strike meant to catch the Baron’s advance. The crimson shard pulsed, and the seemingly-molten sword rose to meet him with contemptuous ease. Sparks cascaded as their blades met, but the Baron’s strength was overwhelming. Mentis’ arms trembled, his footing sliding back across the fractured marble.
Mentis caught a momentary glimpse of faded pupils studying him from within the dark visor, as though examining an insect he had trapped in a net. The curiosity was short lived, however, as, with a sharp twist of his gauntlet, he thrust Mentis' blade aside, drawing his own sword upwards, and skimming it just a hair's breadth away from the former cultist's face. Spinning away, he Rattataki stumbled dangerously close to the ritual dais before he could steady himself. The heat from the molten blade singed his already-scarred cheek, re-opening that raw line of pain and forced a hiss of agony from his lips.
He tried to recover, spinning back into a defensive stance, but the Baron was already upon him. A downward strike cleaved into the floor where Mentis had stood a heartbeat earlier, molten slag spraying across the dais. The cultists flinched, their bodies twitching in resonance with the shard, but none dared intervene.
Mentis tried again, darting forwards, trying to read the irregular currents of foresight his opponent bled into the Force. Even supercharged, all that weight and armour could not defy physics: each heavy swing was a moment to exploit. He thrust his blade forwards and felt it connect with the armour for a moment before he felt the great thrust of the Baron's elbow, shooting him aside with the strength of a battering ram. Cast back again, Mentis saw where his blade had heated the great armour but not left the slightest indentation in whatever metal it was forged from.
Behind them, Bomoor groaned, forcing himself upright against the cracked wall. His chest burned from the shockwave, but his eyes locked on Mentis’ struggle. He reached out with the Force, trying to tug the Baron’s balance, but the shard’s crimson glow pulsed violently and resisted his effort, unlike the lesser crystal he had wrenched out before.
The Baron’s head snapped toward Bomoor the instant the Ithorian’s will brushed against his balance.
A guttural, metallic rumble issued from the helm—half a snarl, half a laugh distorted by the respirator. The Kaiburr shard in his chest flared a shade brighter, its pulse rejecting Bomoor’s influence like a living thing swatting away a parasite.
“You forget what it tasted like, Jedi.”
He didn’t turn fully; he didn’t need to. One massive gauntleted hand shot out behind him, palm splayed. The air warped and a concussive pressure erupted outward - a shockwave punched across the chamber.
Bomoor, only half-risen, was wrenched off again and thrown bodily across the floor, sliding in a burst of dust and broken marble that left a gouge behind him. His saber rattled where it lay, vibrating faintly from the blast.
The Baron advanced now on Mentis again, heavy boots shaking the floor with each step, molten sword dragging behind him now in a line that hissed and carved deep glowing scars into the stone. The Rattataki had barely regained his footing when a massive gauntlet engulfed his field of vision. The Baron struck with a brutal, armour-plated backhand, which connected squarely with Mentis’s jaw.
The impact sounded like a durasteel hammer hitting bone, and the Rattataki was launched sideways, his feet leaving the floor as he sailed across the chamber and smashed into one of the collapsed boardroom columns. Stone chipped, dust plumed, and Mentis crumpled to the ground, his saber flickering uncertainly in his grip.
But, the Baron did not pause, and he marched through the falling dust, the molten cracks along his blade casting a furnace-glow across the wreckage.
“Traitor.”
A single word, low and resonant, carried on the mechanical rasp of his helmet.
“You will die first.”
He raised the sword - both hands gripping its unnatural hilt - preparing a killing stroke that would cleave Mentis and the column behind him cleanly in half.
From higher up and by the perimeter, Reave cursed under his breath in a rapid-fire string of Jawaese, his eyes narrowing as he tracked the shifting lines of collapse. Cracks spidered further up the wall. One of the rusted iron sigils snapped free, clattering down onto the floor like a broken idol.
He swung his rifle up - but the Baron, towering and armoured, was too close to Mentis now. A mis-shot could vaporise the Rattataki as surely as the cult’s molten blade, and Rex would have a view on that.
Reave spat out a sharp syllable of frustration, bolted sideways, and dove behind a mangled table for cover. He slapped a switch on the side of his bandolier, arming a charge, and flicked his gaze to a functioning conduit snaking along the wall.
He skittered out from behind cover, little overalls flapping, and fired three precision shots downrange. They weren’t aimed at the Baron - they struck the conduit’s junction box. A gout of superheated gas burst free, shrieking across the room in a plume that forced cultists to recoil and scatter from their static vigil on the walls.
The blast hit the nearest rank of them like a scalding whip. Several shrieked, some staggered, others collapsed to their knees, with only a few seemingly relying on their precognition talents to avoid harm - but all broke their rigid silence, their conditioning fraying under pain.
And, finally, some of their blank eyes turned, not toward the Baron, Mentis or Bomoor, but toward Reave.
A half-dozen of the warped molten warriors peeled away from their formation, shuddering with heat and unstable energy, and rushed toward the Jawa with jerky, uneven strides - jagged blades and other glowing weapons aloft, only a few lightsabers lit.
Reave’s golden eyes gleamed beneath the brim of his hat.
“Utinni,” he muttered. It not a curse this time, but something that almost sounded like relish - and an almost certain acceptance that he was far too outmatched by this number of Force users. He swallowed down the lunacy of his crew's plan to be here, ignored the complete lack of sense in joining them, and steeled himself.
He snatched another charge from his satchel, thumbed it active, and hurled it to the floor between himself and the oncoming cultists. Sparks danced as it rolled.
He pivoted, sprinting toward the shattered window where the storm howled beyond. Behind him, the charge detonated in a concussive blast that threw some cultists backward, but shattered the remaining portion of the transparisteel frame.
Wind roared inward in a violent rush, tearing tapestries from the walls and whipping flames and dust into a frenzied cyclone. The entire chamber trembled, its open edge now exposed fully to the storm raging outside.
Nearby, the Baron’s molten blade was still raised, undeterred. His attention fixed entirely on Mentis.
The wind howled around him, stroking the edges of his cape and stoking the molten veins of his armour to brighter glow, but he remained steady, immovable, the storm bending around his massive silhouette.
And the stroke began to fall.
Bruised and battered on the far side of the room, Bomoor managed to force himself back up, barely just kneeling with one leg on the fractured marble. Dust and ash clouded his gaze but, through one squinted eye he watched as the molten blade began its descent towards Mentis.
Suddenly, the Ithorian was torn with great fear: the cackling cultist and his wounded prey was all too fresh a wound and he imagined Voq's crimson blade descending against a fiery maelstrom of chaos and fury.
Before he knew it, he was on his feet and reflexively breathing deep, inhaling the dank and toxic air. He flung out his arms at either sides as though wrestling with the heavens themselves.
"Nooooo!" he bellowed, the words in Basic collapsing into a guttural roar from his four throats as he exploded the air back across the room, magnified tenfold by the might of the Force and the dark power of his fear and anger.
The roar tore through the chamber like a shockwave, a wall of sound and fury that rattled the cracked marble and sent dust pluming from the ceiling. The Baron’s molten blade faltered mid-descent, its killing arc diverted as the concussive blast slammed into his armoured bulk.
The giant staggered half a step, cape snapping violently in the gale, molten slag spraying from his sword as it scraped against the fractured column instead of Mentis’ chest. The stone split with a deafening crack, collapsing in a shower of debris that forced the Rattataki to roll clear, coughing through the haze.
Cultists along the walls shrieked as the resonance of Bomoor’s bellow rippled through them. Some clutched their heads, others collapsed to their knees, their already-scattered precognition thrown into chaos by the raw, primal force of the Ithorian’s cry. Even the storm outside seemed to answer, lightning flashing in jagged sympathy across the shattered window frame.
Bomoor staggered, his throat raw, the effort leaving him trembling. He had bought only a heartbeat, but it was enough. He watched Mentis scramble upright and he felt a surge of relief that the man was alive, even if he could see a thick trickle of blood emerging from his lips where the Baron had struck his jaw. The Rattataki took the opportunity to dart back, launching a chunk of the marble debris towards the Baron as he went to further secure his escape.
The marble hit the Baron squarely in the helm, harmless to him but adding to his initial stagger, as he dragged his molten blade back up towards him and began to fix his gaze back upon his opponents, watching Mentis scurrying back to join his companion.
The Baron had absorbed the echo of Bomoor’s roar and the marble strike like a cliff taking the force of a storm surge.
He staggered in a motion that seemed unfamiliar to him, then planted his boots once more. The blade lowered a fraction as he straightened, shoulders rolling, armour plates grinding against one another. The Kaiburr shard flared in his chest with a deep, throbbing crimson pulse once more, as though it drank in the remnants of Bomoor’s power and fed on it.
The armour’s servos hissed quietly, unseen. A low, distorted exhale rasped through the mask.
“Better.”
It was not praise, but eecognition and dismissal at once.
His helm turned, visor narrowing on Bomoor with a heavy, mechanical tilt. It was an unspoken acknowledgement that the Ithorian had landed a blow most would never survive. But, it bought nothing more than another heartbeat, as his gauntlet rose.
Metal clad fingers spread, his palm angled toward both of his foes.
The shard in his chest answered, and a pulse of Force energy erupted outward. It was not a push, not a standard telekinetic blast, but a warped, twisting reversal of Bomoor’s roar. The air itself buckled from the unnatural power. Marble underfoot cracked in a spiderweb as a concussive ring expanded from the Baron’s position like a ripple across water.
Mentis’s blade wavered and Bomoor’s balance lurched, with their senses blurred - depth, timing and precognition were all thrown half a second out of alignment.
The Baron moved through that distortion as if it did not touch him at all. He reached Mentis in three thunderous strides, sword trailing sparks behind him as it carved a glowing channel through the ruined floor. With his free hand, he seized the Rattataki mid-motion, blackened gauntlet clamping around his throat and jaw in a crushing grip that lifted him clear off his feet.
Mentis kicked, scrambled, choking, clutching out with the Force and his boots scrabbling for purchase on air.
The Baron turned slowly, deliberately, carrying Mentis with him like a trophy held aloft. His visor angled toward the gaping breach Reave had blown open. Wind howled inward, whipping ash and banners into a frenzy.
“You fall first.”
TBC
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