A Clash of Plasma

Posted on Wed May 20th, 2026 @ 10:49pm by Darth Serus & Bomoor Thort & Mentis

5,309 words; about a 27 minute read

Chapter: Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Moz Müt, Öetrago
Timeline: Day Eight, Afternoon (After "A Dance of Forms and Fire)

OLD

He struck the metal floor with shuddering force, his eyes had closed from the electrical surge but he felt the heat of plasma brought beneath his chin. The red glow burned through his eyelids and he shot them open to see the blade angled cleanly towards his throat. In his ear, he heard heavy breath through the Sith's respirator, pressing in on him louder than the hiss from the pressure vents that now were stuck open.

For a moment, he remained there, unable to resist the vice-like grip on his arm, or retreat from the blade at his throat. His whole body still trembled with the surge of emotion he had summoned, now useless as he lay half-collapsed at Serus' mercy.

NEW

Then, he felt the steady pound of Bomoor's footsteps through the grating as he approached.

"Better," the Ithorian acknowledged, his calm demeanour seemed wrong to the Rattataki, yet the placid commentary seemed to be the new normal for the man, "Both of you did much better."

The grip did not loosen as he continued, "Mentis - you forced a change in the dynamic that led you to dominate with more than just the blade... and Serus - you still adapted but did so without pushing beyond your limits. Who says a Sith Lord cannot also show wisdom?"

Mentis scrunched up his face - was Bomoor trying to have a joke with the man? Still?

However, something about it seemed to work as the grip on his arm loosened and Mentis felt the blade retreating back just an inch. He was able to tilt his head aside enough to now see the Ithorian, arms crossed and observing them both with steady thought.

"Although, small micro-adjustments may be suitable when reading just one opponent," Bomoor hummed in consideration, "But perhaps it is time you tried to counter two opponents."

The words hung in the heated air. The challenge was unmistakable.

Serus did not answer as the blade withdrew from beneath Mentis' chin with no flourish or wasted motion, its red glare sliding away from the Rattataki's throat as the Sith Lord released his arm. What remained of the metal chain slipped from his shoulder and struck the catwalk in pieces, each severed link clattering across the scorched grating before settling against the trembling platform.

He stepped away from Mentis with the same cold economy, the slow paces carrying him several feet back through the haze of steam and volcanic ash. His respirator returned to a quieter cadence, almost inaudible beneath the warning sirens and the constant subterranean roar of Moz Müt. His blade remained active at his side, angled downward and held loosely in his right hand, its point hovering just above the damaged metal beneath him.

He did not adopt Makashi or Niman, nor any obvious variant of a formal Jedi opening. He simply stood there, and the posture was almost casual, not that anything in him was relaxed. The red photoreceptor moved first, passing from Mentis to Bomoor with a precise mechanical adjustment, measuring distance, mass, stance and probable vectors of attack in silent increments. The golden eye followed a fraction later, slower but colder, as though the slight delay no longer represented weakness so much as two different systems reaching the same conclusion by separate paths. The slightly scorched cape shifted in the hot wind behind him, burned at the edges and streaked with ash, while the what visible scarred tissue there was around the respirator remained still and unreadable.

Even as he remained silent, Serus could be seen observing damaged platform and the ruptured pipework, as well as the hanging chains, the failing lights, the maintenance ducts above and the molten throat below that all seemed to become part of the same unseen calculation.

Red light crossed his mask, vanished, then returned again, as his warped gaze fell upon his companions again.

"Proceed," he said at last, the word cutting cleanly across the noise, artificial and utterly without warmth.

Mentis saw Bomoor shift closer to him and a hand reached down, "Rise, Mentis."

The words held no comfort, but the gesture carried a quiet acknowledgement of the pain still trembling through the Rattataki’s limbs.

Mentis reached up, and the Ithorian grasped past his hand, hauling him upright with a firm pull. Mentis winced, steadied himself, and met Bomoor’s steady, appraising gaze.

"Your next test," his tall mentor stated, voice low but unwavering, "Will show how well you move with an ally. When done properly, our strengths do not simply add - they multiply. But if we fail to read one another..."

His eyes shifted briefly toward Serus, "...then our partnership becomes another weakness for him to exploit, just as he does with the environment."

Mentis swallowed, steadied his breath, and forced his legs to lock beneath him. His arm still tingled from the lightning, his throat still burned from the blade’s heat, but he met Bomoor’s gaze all the same.

"I will...follow your lead" Mentis cautiously replied.

"No," Bomoor's response was quick and pointed, although not spoken in anger, "Do not delay, awaiting my actions. Fight with the same passion as before and I will compliment you. You, in turn, will compliment me."

He narrowed his eyes slightly, like he was trying to burn a window into the Rattataki's mind, "You are not a slave and you do not need to compete."

The Ithorian drew up Mentis' dropped hilt from the floor and thrust it firmly into his hands, "That is no longer who you are - we have no need of a cultist."

With that, he turned away and drew his pale viridian blade out in a smooth motion as he took his position on the field. Mentis responded in turn, edging back and igniting his own blade vertically before him. The three of them formed a triangle in the space; to Mentis' left Bomoor now stood close to where the ruptured pipe still spewed forth heated gas, although the pressure now waned and, to his right, Serus stood against the amber glow of the dormant volcano's peak.

Mentis tightened his grip, breath steadying, the volcanic wind tugging at the edges of his scorched robe. Across from him, Serus did not shift so much as a millimetre. He simply watched, red lens fixed, golden eye following a fraction later, as though the outcome had already been calculated.

Bomoor’s presence settled beside Mentis like a grounding weight. No command. No signal. Just a ghostly blade held guarded across his body in readiness.

So Mentis moved. Not a sharp dash as oft was his opening, but rather deliberate closing steps upon Serus. He raised his blade overhead for a firm central strike.

Bomoor was already moving with him - not behind, nor ahead. Just alongside. His own viridian blade remained horizontal closing in on Serus' flank. Together, the blue and green blades converged, threatening to clamp down upon him.

Mentis came first, the blue blade descending in a hard central line while Bomoor closed from the flank with steadier intent, the viridian glow held lower and more horizontally, threatening not merely Serus' body but the space his retreat would require. It was not a crude pincer - the timing between them was disciplined, deliberately offset by fractions of a second so that avoiding one attack naturally risked exposing him to the other.

Serus answered with Makashi, as was expected. His blade rose with sharp economy, catching Mentis' overhead strike near the emitter with a precise deflection that redirected the descending force away from his centre. At the same time, he shifted half a step inward toward Bomoor rather than away from him. He had to twist hard so that the red blade rotated again, intercepting Bomoor's follow-up slash with another tight redirection that sent sparks spraying across the grating.

For several seconds, the duel compressed into pure proximity. Blue, green and red light flashed violently through steam and drifting ash as Serus moved between them with minimal rotations and short, efficient adjustments of posture. His blade snapped from line to line with startling precision, constantly repositioning to prevent either opponent from fully separating his attention from the other. Yet there was something else threaded through the movement now; not merely defence, but manipulation, as he stayed especially close to them.

Rather than creating space from one attacker to answer the other, Serus repeatedly compressed the engagement inward, forcing Mentis and Bomoor into one another's reach and obstructing lines of attack before they could fully develop. Mentis' faster cuts repeatedly found Bomoor occupying the continuation of the angle. Bomoor's heavier Shien counters had to shorten as Mentis crossed through the same space a heartbeat sooner. Twice, blue and viridian came within inches of collision as Serus redirected one line just enough to threaten the other.

He was intentionally diminishing their scope to work together, trying to force them to clash and obstruct each other.

The Sith Lord's red lens tracked both perfectly, but the body beneath it still lagged behind the calculation by tiny, accumulating fractions. One shoulder corrected late and his spine locked slightly as he attempted to rotate across Bomoor's heavier strike. A sharp metallic creak sounded faintly beneath his tunic as the cybernetic supports compensated and forced the motion through regardless, and the respirator hissed harder.

Mentis immediately exploited the hesitation, blade whipping back across Serus' exposed upper line in a vicious returning cut while Bomoor simultaneously stepped inward with crushing Shien pressure designed to trap the Human between force and speed alike and for the first time since the duel had begun, Serus was forced fully onto the defensive.

Their blades crashed against his in rapid succession. Sparks exploded across the catwalk as Mentis' strikes came faster now, driven by the volatile emotional rhythm Bomoor had encouraged him to embrace, while the Ithorian anchored the exchange with heavier, more deliberate impacts that denied Darth Serus space to fully stabilise.

Instead of redirecting Mentis' next strike cleanly aside, though, the Sith Lord met it head-on. His blade slammed against the blue with brutal force, the collision so violent that the entire platform shuddered beneath them. Serus' masked face tightened visibly as pain tore through his spine, a harsh grunt escaping through the respirator's modulation, but he drove through it rather than yielding.

The impact disrupted Mentis' rhythm for a fraction of a second, which was all the Sith Lord required; he twisted the locked blades just enough that the former cultist's next recovery line threatened directly across Bomoor's incoming angle. The Ithorian was forced to halt his heavier strike short before it could crash through both combatants alike, and Serus moved immediately inside that hesitation.

Before Mentis could recover from the unexpected collision and Bomoor could fully recommit, Serus pivoted directly into the Ithorian, with absolutely no Makashi elegance maintained. The red lightsaber crashed downward in a savage Djem So strike that hammered against Bomoor's guard with enough force to buckle the Ithorian's posture for half a second. Serus stepped into the collision bodily, shoulder slamming forward behind the blade while the dark side surged violently through his frame to reinforce the movement, and the catwalk screamed beneath them.

Then, the Sith Lord's free hand clenched, and a section of ruptured plating tore loose beside Bomoor with a shriek and blasted sideways into his old friend's flank before he could fully disengage, a rare opportunity for the Human to catch his foe off-guard in such a way. The impact struck with enough force to stagger even Bomoor's immense frame backward several heavy steps into the spewing pressure vents, steam erupting violently around him as the damaged platform buckled further beneath the strain.

Serus did not even look to see the result as his attention had already shifted entirely to Mentis. As the Rattataki sought to press the moment, Serus' hand thrust outward with sudden violence and the Force hit Mentis like a collapsing wall. The shove hurled him bodily backward across the catwalk and through the open bulkhead leading deeper into the facility. Bent warning doors slammed apart under the impact as Mentis crashed through into the turbine sector beyond, and Serus immediately followed before Bomoor could recover the moment.

Heavy boots hammered across the failing grating as he drove after Mentis through the doorway and into the next chamber, red blade held low and burning in the darkness.

The turbine hall opened beyond in layers of smoke, heat and colossal machinery.

Great geothermal engines rotated slowly through the gloom, their immense circular housings turning with deep mechanical thunder that vibrated through the entire structure. Thick pipes crossed overhead and beneath the suspended walkways alike, many ruptured or venting steam in violent bursts that filled sections of the chamber with blinding white clouds. Emergency lights pulsed constantly through the industrial haze while warning klaxons echoed off steel walls.

For a moment, Mentis' body was immobile. His spine felt bruised by the impact of the doors on his back, even as he grasped at a faint shielding technique to prevent greater injury. He managed to weakly raise his head to watch Darth Serus' form encroaching on him, cape catching blasts of pressure that swept it this way and that as the turbines pushed to their limits trying to cycle the massive thermal exhaust of the facility. The walkway was burned red with the light of his blade and Mentis delved deep to summon the strength to rise again - the visage of the fractured man sweeping towards him was strong motivation as he felt a fear rising in him. Fear that Serus would not hold back against him.

He raised his blade before him, blue shimmer faintly resisting the oncoming crimson expanse. He did not manage to fully rise before another firm Djem So strike landed on him like a sledgehammer. Bringing up a strong Shien guard, Mentis caught the strike but winced as the power drove his own blade down enough to singe his bent knees. For a moment, they locked in place and Mentis felt the strength to resist waning as Serus pressed on like the merciless march of a glacier eroding the land. Slow, yet inevitable.

He winced, eyes narrowing as the pain in his wrists as he held the blade almost overtook the heat of the weapon upon his lower limbs. He wanted to yield, but the words dared not pass his lips. He gritted his teeth, eyes scanning for something, anything that could break this lock.

Then, a viridian light arose from behind and those familiar pounding footsteps thrummed the catwalk as Bomoor charged from behind. The light of his blade suddenly diverted; the viridian glow spun out betwixt the turbines, causing a dazzling flickering light as it looped behind the spinning blades, shearing cleanly through the central drive shaft. The massive rotor disk dropped an inch, its spinning titanium teeth biting into the metal floor with a deafening, industrial shriek. Sparks erupted into a blinding wall as the freed assembly transformed into a multi-ton buzzsaw, converting its immense rotational energy into forward momentum, barrelling directly towards the walkway.

Mentis' eyes widened as the uncontrollable force of the now-freed blades became like a buzzsaw that threatened to cut through both himself and his attacker. Serus pivoted, breaking the blade lock to throw up both hands. He channelled a massive kinetic barrier to halt the multi-ton projectile. The roaring disk ground to a violent halt in mid-air, hovering inches from the Sith's face, its blades still blurring and throwing a gale of hot air into his eyes as he fought to hold its immense kinetic weight.

Mentis seized the opening and unleashed a concussive Force burst. The impact blasted the preoccupied Sith backward, straight into the path of the charging Bomoor. Unarmed but moving with fierce momentum, Bomoor drove a heavy, reinforced fist into Serus’ exposed back, crashing the Sith face-first onto the grating. In the same fluid motion, Bomoor extended his right hand; the viridian lightsaber smacked firmly back into his palm, snapping to life with a familiar hiss as he stepped over the fallen Sith to pin him down.

The Sith, who had been forced to exert almost all his focus on stopping the blade, was unable to resist the full force and was shot back a distance as the blade he had been holding now harmlessly grazed the walkway bars with an almighty clatter. Serus looked to turn right back and charge at Mentis, were it not for Bomoor pressing the attack from behind. Still awaiting the return of his weapon, Bomoor brought a broad fist to bear against Serus' back and cast him down.

Mentis flinched as the Human landed before him and he scrambled once again to rise before his opponent could. Even focussing on Serus, Mentis saw Bomoor's hand reach out behind and catch his blade. Approaching now with a more cautious pace, drawing his weapon forward and clearly trying to pin down their opponent and end the duel with Serus pinned and unable to safely react.

And, for a fraction of a second, the duel appeared decided.

Bomoor advanced with measured inevitability, paling viridian blade angled to pin Serus down before he could fully recover his footing, while Mentis forced himself upright through trembling limbs and burning nerves alike. Around them, the turbine chamber screamed in mechanical agony. Steam burst from fractured pipes in violent white plumes and the colossal severed rotor still ground against the far wall in showers of sparks, its dying momentum shaking the entire structure beneath their feet. New warning alarms began to blare in vain against the growing structural failings in the facility.

The Force then convulsed as power erupted outward from Darth Serus with such sudden intensity that the atmosphere around them itself seemed to compress. Loose chains snapped taut overhead and steam blasted sideways in violent spirals, and metal around them rippled.

Mentis barely had time to register the shift before the Force seized him. It was not a shove or an impact he could brace against, but an absolute cold and impossibly strong telekinetic grip. Every defensive instinct he summoned collapsed against it instantly; the shielding technique he had reached for, as common to any practised Force user, simply ceased to matter beneath the sheer concentrated violence of Serus' will.

His body tore sideways off the walkway. The movement was so sudden his shoulder nearly dislocated beneath the acceleration. One moment he was rising into guard beside the advancing Bomoor and the next he was airborne, dragged bodily across the chamber toward the Sith Lord with terrifying force. The blue blade ripped wildly through steam and sparks as Mentis lost all control of his orientation.

Serus struggled to rise in the same moment, the effort seeming too much for his ailing body as his legs staggered. Even so, as the dark side surged through his battered frame hard enough to override pain and mechanical resistance alike, his free hand clenched violently and Mentis' trajectory changed at once and the the Rattataki became a projectile. The Caanan hurled him directly toward Bomoor.

Mentis did not even have the breath to react.

The Force took him with sudden and absolute violence, his body wrenched from the walkway as though the ground itself had rejected him as he was hurled toward Bomoor with crushing speed. There was no balance to recover, no stance to form, only the helpless realisation that he had become momentum without will, a projectile shaped by another’s intent.

Bomoor did not yield ground.

Instead, the Ithorian stepped into the path of the throw with a precision that felt almost unnatural, his movement neither hurried nor hesitant but perfectly aligned with Mentis’ trajectory. As the distance closed to nothing, Bomoor’s arm rose, not in an attempt to catch him, but to intercept. His palm struck firmly across Mentis’ upper chest with a sharp, jarring impact that sent a spike of pain through his ribs and down his spine. The force of it stole what little air he had regained, yet the blow carried a strange control within it, not destructive but corrective, adjusting momentum rather than breaking it, almost like his own Force Inertia.

The angle of his flight shifted immediately.

What would have been a devastating collision became a violent redirection as Bomoor pivoted through the contact, his stance widening against the grating with a resounding clang as he took full control to guide the remainder of the motion. The transition was seamless; motion bled into motion, and Mentis found himself cast beyond the towering Ithorian, skidding hard across the walkway before he finally came to a staggering halt. Had anyone else witnessed it, it might have seemed as though the Rattataki merely passed through Bomoor like a Force ghost.

As Mentis lay there stunned, his body momentarily refused to obey him. Pain radiated through his chest where Bomoor’s strike had landed, sharp and immediate, while his shoulder throbbed from the abrupt change in direction, the aftershock of the violent displacement still rippling through his limbs. He dragged in a breath that felt insufficient and forced his head upward despite the protest.

But even as he regained the strength to rise, what he observed before him now froze him once again.

Bomoor had not paused to assess him, nor to confirm the success of the manoeuvre. The instant Mentis had been cleared from the line of attack, the Ithorian’s posture had already shifted, the calm composure that had defined him throughout the duel now sharpened into something far more deliberate. Both hands rose in unison, not hastily but with an unmistakable intent that caused the very air to feel as though it were drawing inward toward him.

The Force gathered into him with a sudden immense focus.

Then it broke.

Violet lightning surged outward in a continuous torrent, not scattered or uncontrolled but sustained and directed with crushing precision, thick arcs of crackling energy tearing through the steam-heavy air as they converged upon Serus in a single overwhelming advance. The chamber was consumed in strobing illumination, the industrial gloom replaced by violent pulses of purple light that cast long, distorted shadows across the remaining turbines.

It struck with explosive force, yet it did not dissipate upon contact; it tried to drive into the cybernetically-enhanced Human, as though it meant to rip cleanly through him.

Mentis felt it as much as he saw it, the weight of the power dragging at his senses, dense and purposeful in a way that went beyond mere aggression or the fear he often channelled with his own weaker lightning. It was furious, yes, but calculated and intentional in a way that it seemed only Bomoor could balance with something so violent.

And still, against all of that power, Serus did not fall.

The Sith Lord met the assault head-on, his already strained form tightening further beneath the relentless pressure as his stance threatened to buckle for the barest of moments. Then his hands came up, and instead of casting the lightning aside or resisting it outright, he drew it inward.

The torrent twisted. Not away from him, but toward.

The arcs bent under his influence, collapsing into convergence as the violence of the energy began to fold inward toward the space between his hands. The flow did not cease, nor even diminish, but its nature altered as the currents tightened and coiled, compressing into something more condensed, more dangerous, as they were forced under control.

Tutaminis: Mentis recognised the technique even rarer than the ability to cast lightning. As Bomoor drove his hands forwards, sustaining the crackling dance of light, Serus pressed into it, drawing it in and compressing it back into a form he could absorb and control. The violet light lashed across the Sith Lord’s respirator, reflecting off the red photoreceptor and catching faintly in the cold gleam of the golden eye.

Mentis could see it strained him: his frame shuddered as stress forced its way through reinforced joints, his posture tightening by degrees as minute instabilities began to accumulate under the pressure. Even the grating beneath his boots groaned and warped, bearing the load of energies that neither duellist allowed to disperse freely.

Yet, as he watched the display with a tight fear in his chest, what he felt from the pair was changing too. As they stared at each other across the unrelenting display, he thought he caught the ripples of merriment. Of a distinct pride in themselves and in each other.

Mentis found himself staring, breath uneven, his earlier pain receding beneath the weight of what he was witnessing. Then, as it continued, his own fear began to fade, replaced instead with a quiet hope as he realised that these two carried a deep power that he had only begun to glimpse before. He was finally witnessing the spark he had sensed in Bomoor when he held that Kaiburr shard on Jericho those many months ago.

He started to think that the power they held might just be enough to rival his old master. Unchained from their shackles, fighting alongside them – he might see the freedom he so dearly sought.

The corners of his mouth shifted faintly despite the lingering pain, a strained but unmistakable note of dark satisfaction flickering through his thoughts.

The torrent of lightning did not falter, nor weaken, but instead steadied into something cleaner and sustained, a continuous advance that held Serus in place rather than seeking immediate destruction. They held a balance between them.

For several long seconds the chamber remained consumed by this violent radiance, the lightning continuing to hammer into Serus in relentless waves while the Sith Lord stood against it with both hands raised before him. The compressed sphere of energy between his palms writhed chaotically, arcs lashing across his forearms and chest in branching fractures of light as the tutaminis held under immense strain, occasionally striking into him and exposing the cybernetics running through his body that somehow resisted the assault, too. Steam exploded around him in constant bursts where stray currents struck ruptured pipework and molten condensation hissed from the grating beneath his boots.

Yet slowly, the shape of the exchange began to change - the lightning no longer drove him backward, as it instead almost perfectly bled out in the area surrounding him. Thin forks of excess energy snapped away and grounded themselves violently into nearby turbine housings, blasting scars through steel plating and sending showers of sparks cascading through the smoke. One of the great rotating engines groaned under the surge and began shedding burning fragments into the abyss below.

Serus' posture had tightened almost to rigidity now, every line of his battered frame visibly locked under the pressure. The cybernetic supports along his spine tremoured faintly beneath the strain, minute corrective motions fighting to stabilise the enormous forces travelling through his body. Steam briefly obscuring his silhouette before the red glow of the ocular implant burned through it again.

The respirator was louder now, Mentis could hear. Each breath emerged deeper and more forceful through the system, the mechanical cadence no longer soft enough to disappear beneath the turbines and klaxons. Harsh controlled inhalations were forced through Serus' damaged lungs and the artificial mechanisms.

The power of the onslaught began to reduce, but not because either Serus or Bomoor were faltering, but because the energy was being clearly redirected and managed. The compressed mass between Darth Serus' hands tightened until the arcs no longer lashed wildly around his body, as the remaining excess was discharged away into the machinery in deliberate streams until, at last, he lowered his hands/

The remaining lightning bled harmlessly away into the haze with a final series of violent cracks that echoed through the chamber before fading into the constant mechanical thunder below.

Steam drifted heavily around the newly-minted Dark Lord, his pale features sodden with dirt and grime from the conflict, as well as rogue strands of lightning that had licked at his skin. Yet, he remained standing at the centre of the ruined walkway, unmoving beneath the pulsing red light. Smoke curled from sections of his tattered cloak and tunic - and the respirator continued to betrayed the cost.

"Good."

The word emerged low through the artificial cadence, roughened slightly by exertion yet still carrying that same controlled precision beneath the distortion. His gaze shifted first toward Bomoor, then to Mentis beyond the drifting steam.

"This body is adapting faster than I anticipated," he said, quieter now, the modulation flattening parts of the sentence as it managed his exertion and recovery through unnatural interference, although his body still made a show of heaving to accommodate the exertion. "The pain remains inconsistent... but the systems resisted less." His remaining eye narrowed slightly toward Mentis. "You fought well. Had you remained predictable, the duel would have ended much sooner." Then his gaze returned to Bomoor. "And your stubborn talent with the Force remains irritatingly precise."

The remark was dry, almost familiar, despite the altered voice delivering it. For the briefest moment, something faintly resembling the old Thane touched the corner of his remaining eye before disappearing again beneath the respirator's steady mechanical rhythm.

Mentis watched Bomoor breathing heavily as he held his raw fingers apart at his sides. The Ithorian then took a few paces towards Serus and seemed to observe him.

"You still held your own, though," he nodded approvingly, "Not just with the blade, but also against everything else we threw at you."

His eyes suddenly turned towards Mentis as well, "We could have been closer in sync, but that was still very impressive Mentis."

Mentis finally peeled himself up from the floor and slowly made his way towards them, body aching, but still bolstered by the display he had witnessed.

"Thank you Bomoor," he nodded softly, massaging his side before also turning to the Human, "And Thane. I will practice my Force guard, lest you try throwing me again next time."

Bomoor cut in, "A worthwhile point of improvement. I will practice it with you..."

He trailed off as he looked up and around the room, eyes falling finally on the displaced turbine blade now lying warped and ruined below the walkway.

"Quite the training ground my father offered us," he observed, "I hope he was correct when he said nobody would mind the damage."

Serus' gaze lingered upon the ruined turbine chamber a moment longer. Then, his attention shifted downward. Burned fabric hung blackened around sections of exposed cybernetics, faint residual arcs still snapping intermittently beneath damaged plating by his collar, and his cybernetic eye could be seen shimmering even externally, as if feeding some manner of information to the Sith.

His hand rose instinctively toward the ruined side of his face. The fingers paused briefly against the edge of the respirator where it joined flesh and machinery alike. Only now, with the violence concluded, did the subtle tremor return beneath the movement. It travelled faintly through his arm and shoulders both, small but unmistakable, while the respirator worked harder to regulate the deeper strain forced through damaged lungs and over-strained systems.

For a brief moment, the Human simply stood there amidst steam and warning lights, visibly forcing the instability back beneath control once more, before he finally lowered the hand again

"I believe," Serus said at last, the artificial cadence quieter now, roughened slightly beneath the weight of exertion, "I require recuperation." There was distinct irritation buried beneath the restraint of the statement. "And perhaps," he added dryly, "your father may yet be asked some difficult questions about the fate of this place..."

The faintest trace of something familiar touched the corner of his eye again before the respirator's steady mechanical rhythm reclaimed the silence between them.

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