The moment I yelled out, the whole wreck came alive around us as our blades burned through it all, hitting the droids' sabers and illuminating the dark interiors through a blinding light show. The downed ship might have looked like a simple ferry from the outside, but its central compartment was wide enough to hold cargo and crew pretty well, and so, it was large enough for us to have a fight without tripping over each other. Though I guess they would like that very much.
The droid facing me pressed on me without pause, trying to capitalize on the closeness of the corridor it came out of, catching me almost off-guard, before I could create any room for myself and take back the initiative. It moved with that same eerie, overly economical moveset as the ones in the factory, and I think it hadn't yet adapted to any form, waiting to read mine and choose the best way to counter it. While dodging and overhead strike, I examined its frame, which looked slimmer than the DR-0N variants we had fought before, its armor cleaner, darker, and less brutish in shape, and I couldn't tell if it was good or bad news... but no matter. I only had to dissect it before anything else.
Seeing the start of his next attack, I stepped inside of its reach, letting the Force guide my steps and arm as my wrist turned, guiding my blade towards its torso at a precise angle. It reacted too, switching to defend while I was ready for it, and slid my indigo blade along its saber rather than meeting it head-on. Sparks sprayed between us as I displaced his defensive swing, and then my riposte went straight for the droid's neck joint.
I thought I had it... But then, its head twisted away super fast... Well, it wasn't just a twist, really, because it was folding its upper torso away, almost bending in a ninety degrees, getting away from the cut while its free hand came toward my face. It wanted to punch me? Really?! Breaking off, I leaned back just enough, the blow missing my nose by a hair's breadth, and I answered with a stab toward its exposed ribs. This time, it was out of options, so my blade's point struck its armor and then skidded away with a shriek. Tsk! So even after the change, they are still lightsaber-resistant! It was certainly not cortosis-made like my hand, but still, it was super annoying.
To my right, I saw from the edge of my vision how Vila's blades were twirling and flashing around as she attacked relentlessly. The droid assigned to her was trying exactly what I would have done if I were facing her Ataru in this closed area: take away the remaining space of the room, smother the jumps she was prone to doing, and force the fight into knife-range. But Vila was Vila, and Ataru was not just about wide arcs and high flips.
She took two steps back, letting the droid think it had pinned her, then both orange blades crossed low and split apart in opposite directions. One of them had caught the droid's single saber and lifted it, the other slashed for the hip. The droid jerked sideways, barely saving the connecting joints where it was probably the weakest, and Vila used the same movement to plant a foot against a broken bulkhead and spring off it. She didn't leap high, especially because the ceiling wouldn't allow it, but she didn't need to. She only used it to go around its flank in a blur and come down on its shoulder with both blades in a scissoring strike that would have ended any other enemy.
Sadly, the damned droid spun just enough to keep its core intact, though one orange line gouged through its upper plating, filling the compartment with the smell of cooked alloy. So... the joints were their weakest parts, because although the torso remained 'intact', parts of the droid were burnt by Vila's sabers!
While taking another breath, I saw that on my left, Sareh's fight had the exact opposite tempo. I noticed she was using Form III; her red blade moved in very tight circles, almost perfect for our current predicament, intercepting the droid in front of her before it could land a proper hit. But, she was unable to get on the attack, meaning, she was stuck in her fight until one of them got exhausted, and it wouldn't be the droid.
Probably that was why HK was making sure that he was supporting her.
He fired in repeated bursts over her shoulder and beside her hips, his bolts ricocheting off the droid's body, making it even easier for Sareh to keep her form up. Every time the droid facing her tried to press with two-handed force to break through her form, a bolt hit its side, and then every time it adjusted to deal with HK, Sareh had the opening she needed to land a hit.
But I couldn't look anymore, because my own problem lunged at me again.
Its blade came in a three-part combination, aiming at my head, midline, and thigh. The first strike that I caught, I displaced with a turn of my wrist, the second with a slight retreat, letting it pass by me, while the third I caught lower than I wanted, the impact making my shoulders ache from the force traveling along my arm. Tsk... It immediately tried to use that flinch of mine to its advantage, binding my blade and driving in so close our hilts nearly touched, getting us in a saber-lock.
I would say we were face-to-face with each other, but it didn't have a face, not really. I watched its optics blinking in red, but there was no breath in a machine... or any kind of hesitation or pulse in the Force to read. It was just a blank, damned device made to kill. I realized that I hated fighting things that gave nothing back through the Force... Wanting to break the lock, I shifted my right foot, slipped my hilt free with a short rotational cut, and drove my cortosis hand forward in a feint toward its weapon wrist. The reaction came exactly as I hoped, because it jerked its saber back to preserve the weapon, sensing the danger, opening its left side for less than a millisecond. I was there immediately and stabbed low, aiming for the seam between the plates, and this time the point of my blade went in.
It wasn't a killing blow, though, because the droid hurriedly wrenched itself out of the attack's range and came at me again with a diagonal cut meant to preserve itself at any cost. But... It was no longer moving as fluidly because the damage was already done. My blade confidently met its strike at an angle, deflecting it and slicing at its elbow.
It was a perfect hit, followed by the arm dropping with a loud clank and landing on the floor. Anormal opponent would have faltered, losing an arm, but of course, this was a droid. A secondary saber turned on within its other hand so quickly that I nearly took the follow-up thrust through the chest. If they had it, why hadn't they been using it?! I wanted to yell at it as I barely dodged, and felt the blade go across the front of my robe, burning it and slightly singeing my skin.
"Kael!" Vila shouted, probably also watching us, suddenly scared because where she stood, it may have looked like I got hit.
"Busy!" I yelled back, and then the entire compartment flashed brighter as she finally managed to put her opponent on the defensive for real.
I knew she wanted to kill her enemy as quickly as possible so she could come help me. The droid fighting her had begun shortening its swings, trying to force her into its kind of duel, but if you know her, you would know forcing her to adapt to your style was impossible. She was just too stubborn for that, and she let one of its cuts slide off her left-hand blade, and then allowed the second, follow-up strike to whizz past her, almost slicing half of her lekku off. It was all done to get her to the position she wanted to be in, her boot hitting the side of a toppled storage rack, and she ran three steps along it sideways, while her right-hand saber carved down in a vertical line. The droid blocked high against it, making her grin as her left blade came in under its guard and cut straight through the knee.
The droid's leg dropped to the side, half-molten and sparking.
However, just then, surprising her too, instead of falling back, the machine lunged forward on the remaining limb, trying to tackle her and pin both sabers at once. Vila laughed at that and then vaulted over it in the tiniest, nastiest flip I had ever seen her use. She almost headbutted the ceiling, but she didn't. It was just enough to let the broken droid slide beneath her while she planted one hand on its back, reversed her body mid-air, and drove both orange blades down through its waist, where its torso got attached to its legs.
It shrieked in static... and then when she landed, the dissected droid was trying to turn around to face her.
"Are you kidding me?!" she yelled, wrenching one blade free as the droid twisted beneath her, like some kind of weird... zombie.
Meanwhile, Sareh's opponent had changed its priorities entirely. It had realized it wasn't going to break through her guard cleanly before HK dismantled it from range, so it began feinting at her and then throwing pieces of the wreck, whatever it got in reach, chunks of plating, broken panels, anything it could use to divide their attention. One slab of metal clipped her shoulder hard enough to throw her off line, and the droid exploited it instantly, launching a hard two-handed overhead strike into her defense.
Sareh bent under it, especially with a bleeding arm, her boots sliding in the rainwater starting to pool on the deck.
To her luck, HK solved the problem with a point-blank shot to the droid's face. Sadly, the bolt didn't kill it as the plating around its optics held, but it did blow one eye out and staggered the machine. She was already on it, and slashed once, and took its saber arm off at the shoulder. At least, she didn't stop there, seeing our fights, so she followed up by slashing the second arm, before dissecting its torso, watching as HK stomped on the head, kicking it off the neck joints.
"Thank you," she said to HK, gasping for air.
[Statement: Your gratitude is noted, meatbag. You can kowtow to me when we are back on the ship.]
"Oh, shut up," she snapped, but... I shouldn't have been looking around.
I wasn't going to be the last to finish, I decided, and with that new thought, I attacked in earnest then. A opened with a thrust to the shoulder, followed it up with a disengage to the opposite hip. For now, it could follow it, so I switched to a high feint, and even if it managed to still block, each of my strikes opened another weakness on its body, and that was my goal. Maybe it sensed it too, because it tried to disrupt my flow and finally... made a mistake.
"I got you..."
As I whispered it, my cortosis hand met his strike and closed around the red blade. It's over. The moment I landed my hand on it, the red blade spluttered and went out, replaced by my indigo-colored saber as I drove it straight through its face. Deflect this! It was a clear stab, as it entered under one glowing optic and came out behind the head in a burst of molten metal and static.
"Kael!" Vila shouted at me, sounding relieved.
"I'm fine!" I called back, kicking the wreck to make sure it was dead, dead. "Don't expect that trick to work twice on these bastards!"
"Fuck them!" she yelled, and then she finally killed hers, making sure that there wasn't a single piece left of it.
[Assessment: Engagement complete. Suggestion: We proceed deeper and kill whatever remains.]
"You don't have to." Came the answer, and when we turned, we heard a loud clunking sound, one after another... and finally a new droid appeared, but this one was... wearing clothes.
It wore a deep red robe, elegant, golden gloves, boots, and even a circlet-like headdress as its red eyes stared us down and began clapping. Worse... I felt a powerful surge of Dark Side energy surrounding it. It was ten times as thick as what I felt coming from HK, which unsettled me a lot.
"I'm impressed. You all did a great job, and you won. Congratulations."
"..." I had a bad feeling about listening to its synthetic voice, being so full of... personality... and life. It was making me queasy.
"Here to give up?" Vila asked, snorting loudly.
"Oh, no, no." The droid laughed, clapping again, "I'm here to bargain. You see, I had set up the charges while my dear disciples occupied you lot. I am taking you all hostage."
"Like that would work!" Vila shot back, but it didn't take it to heart... or core.
"Unlike you, I can move my consciousness around." He said, and it felt like it was smiling, "This body will be destroyed, but... I can come back. You? You can't."
"I guess you want something then?" I snorted, holding my saber in a defensive stance, facing him.
"Actually, yes." The droid nodded, turning towards me, "I told you already once... Now. Let's finish what we started."
But by then, it was me who made a move, and I attacked it. I didn't wait, and Vila was right behind me the next moment. I watched as the droid let out a sound like a snort, showing it was disappointed, but I didn't care. My saber landed on the twin-blade it had ignited, before it landed a kick on my chest, throwing me back, turning to block Vila, shoving her back the same, letting out a loud, growling voice that was more of an animal's roar than a droid's whirring.
"So be it!" It said, enraged, "Die then!"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
[Statement: When it comes to hacking... I am the best.]
"Nice job, HK!" I laughed as Vila and I were already on the Sith abomination once again, which was visibly surprised that nothing got blown up. "Protect him!" I yelled to Sareh because I could tell HK was rooted in place, doing his best to jam, whatever way the Sith machine was using to activate the explosives.
AI or soul-transferred monster, I didn't care. Emotions will make you hesitate and get stunned when something goes awry, and his surprise was the proof of that. We just had to bring it down before HK loses control, and we all actually get blown up!