The thing moved far too smoothly for a droid, especially as Vila and I crashed into it. Of course, it had raised its red, twin-bladed saber, spinning it up in a red circle, even in this small, constricted place. The red staff-blade easily cut through those parts that were in the way, drawing molten lines into the metal as the bastard had reacted just in time to face us. I came in from its front, letting the Force guide me, while Vila attacked its flank, perfectly in sync with me, thanks to the years of constant training and dueling against each other.
As an answer, the Dark Side around the machine surged, which should have been impossible. It was something foul... Like... I don't know, it shouldn't be happening, it was wrong, and it was an abomination that had to be destroyed. If I hadn't seen the lifeless, unliving metallic shell beneath the robe, and only watched the golden gloves over its fingers, the way its head bobbed and moved around under the circlet-held headdress, I could almost have believed there was a person there... somewhere. While those feelings were assaulting me like a bad nausea, my blade met one end of the saber-staff, while Vila's strike met the other, and for a brief moment, the robed abomination was pinned between us. But... it had much more physical strength than the two of us put together.
Worse, it could move unlike a human, and twist its torso, performing a full-body swivel that was powered by servos far stronger than anything a living thing could perform. Its staff saber rolled with it, forcing my blade wide and snapping toward Vila's face in the same motion. She ducked, going almost completely flat, and the red blade whizzed over her lekku by less than a finger's width. It almost got her... But I wasn't letting myself worry, so I used the opening to thrust for the machine's throat, but it had already read me. One of those damned golden-gloved hands came off the spinning hilt, caught my wrist in mid-motion, and shoved me away hard enough to make my shoulder dislocate.
Fuck! I wanted to scream, popping it back into place while whipping around to not give it my open back as a target... damn!
"Left!" Vila yelled when I was already going back on the attack, trying to ignore the pain I was feeling.
I obeyed her without thinking, stepping to my left just as the rear of the red blade came around in a low horizontal sweep meant to take my legs off. I didn't even perceive it because of the pain and being too focused to not show my back. That was way too close! It passed so close that the heat singed my skin, but by then Vila was on it again, both of her orange sabers flashing in a rapid sequence. She was aiming to break its attack off, draw it away from me, so I could rejoin the battle for real. She struck high first, got blocked, and then tried a low sweep with her left arm, but she got blocked again. However, without a flinch, she was using the rebounding force to attack high again. She was changing tempo back and forth between the swings, forcing the droid to turn that spinning double blade into a wall just to stop her and abandon its attacks on me... And that gave me what I needed.
With one step, I was in range and thrust straight toward the exposed ribs under its right arm. The blade should have gone in... But of course, instead, the machine bent around it, its torso folding almost in half as the indigo point of my blade passed through empty air where its center had been a heartbeat before.
Then it headbutted me...
The hit cracked against my cheekbone and rang my head hard enough to make my vision go dark for a moment. I staggered back through rainwater and cable fragments, my boots skidding, and the thing pressed the advantage immediately on me at once. The rear end of its saber-staff reversed in its grip and stabbed for my stomach.
I caught it on instinct and through the Force. And I mean, caught it. The blade spluttered out, but unlike anyone else, it just pulled the end back, its frame buzzing with energy, forcefully reigniting it without a second miss and...
Vila tried to use the Force to push it off course, but, as before, that damned Dark Side energy around it acted as if he were indeed a Sith and blocked her effort completely. Damned runes! Then it was on me again, trying to finish me off. I wasn't going to go down just like that, though, you bastard! My blade knocked its next attack down and off line, my legs turning me away, ready for its follow-up. True enough, the next strike came for my shoulder, then the next one for my throat, but I simply danced away from both, still fighting to regain my vision as the whole room was spinning around me.
Discarding the idea of recovery, I completely gave myself away to the Force, only doing what it was telling me to do. Every strike it launched became something I could... feel. Its right-to-left cut was shallow, so I let it slide, then redirected into a riposte. Its reverse spin came next, so to dodge it, I had to retreat half a step, deny its reach, then counterattack the center. I heard my blade make contact, bounce off its chestplate, forcing it to falter and back off. The moment it was pushed back, Vila saw the opening and used it, slashing against its now disturbed rhythm, getting multiple attacks in, leaving marks on its frame that sizzled loudly. Its robes, clothes, and glvoes were falling away piece by piece under her rapid assault, but that hardened, bastardly-made frame was withstanding it... like some evil skeleton.
But it should be the end of it, here and now; there was no other way around it!
Even with my vision stabilizing, I was still only using the Force as my blade went toward the machine's lower back seam, now that it was turning to face Vila's assault. This time, it hit, and the armor beneath the droid glowed and hissed, almost sounding like a pained groan. I hit something... I knew, because it answered me by trying to kick my chest in. I was ready for the attack this time, and I gave ground, let the metal foot pass, and came back in with a proper Makashi thrust for the elbow joint of its left arm. Once again, the point of my blade landed, punching through the seam just below the ruined gold glove and slicing into whatever drove the wrist assembly. Its movements had already become stiffer thanks to it, no longer as quick or fluid as before.
With a complete trust in me, by then, Vila had also attacked her two blades crossed high against the red staff, sliding them apart with a burst of sparks, and then she flipped over the bastard. She planted one hand against a bent wall support, folded her entire body sideways in the air, and brought both sabers down like claws toward the droid's shoulders. It blocked one, but with his hand partially disabled, Vila's other burned a line straight across its upper chest.
Suddenly, we both felt the droid, however weird it was, roar in fury, the Dark Side pulsing around it as that hateful pressure washed over us all, the Sith-made runes on its armor glowing, and from the edge of my vision I saw Sareh flinch.
She had not been left alone, because by then, two more droids had emerged from deeper in the wreck, drawn by the fighting or waiting for exactly this moment, I couldn't tell, but they were trying to get to HK. At the same time, HK stood rooted in place, his head slightly lowered, every processor he had in him clearly devoted to strangling whatever signal was trying to set the charges off. As for Sareh, she was keeping them off him with Form III, but...
This couldn't be dragged out for much longer!
And I think the abomination had a different idea, wanting nothing more than to keep us busy, while the others get to HK and blow us all up. I had an idea, though, and as we assaulted it, Vila and I exchanged a look without needing to say anything. I opened with a shoulder thrust on its weak side the next moment, and it was there, parrying. Just then, Vila's right blade came for the knee, and although it skidded back from and away from her attack, I gripped my hilt firmly and chased the retreat toward the seam between its torso and legs, trying to cut it in two. Even when it managed to block, we kept going at it as Vila's left blade crashed down from high. It caught that too, but now its staff was committed to one side, unable to switch back, with his one arm being injured. That was when I drove my blade into its chest.
The force behind it, even if its body could withstand it, sent the droid reeling back, followed by both of Vila's orange blades punching in at close range, one into the intact weapon arm's shoulder, the other into the link between its torso and waist. The thing convulsed and struck her in the ribs with a backhand and sent her flying sideways, hitting the wall shoulder-first, then knocking her head against it, yet she still somehow landed on her feet.
I couldn't worry, though, because I was already following up with my own attack. My blade came in where Vila injured it, and I saw as it tried to raise the damaged staff to strike down through my skull. Yeah... that won't happen, because my cortosis hand closed around the active blade, short-circuiting it. Finally, reaching my spot, I drove my saber through the hole Vila had already made in him. It had the exact effect I wanted to see: the machine spasmed, like it was having a seizure, as it tried to reignite its saber, but it was unable to do so. However, even with smoke pouring from the insides now, it still lifted one hand toward my face like it intended to take my eyes before it died.
"Oh no, you don't!" Vila yelled as she came in from the side and cut the entire arm off at the shoulder this time around, and we watched as the droid dropped to its knees.
"You see?" it said in a failing, distorted voice, almost sounding like it was coughing and laughing, "Good… very good…"
"Shut up," Vila snarled, already raising her blade to take its head... and she did so without anything stopping her.
The moment she did it, the two droids hounding Sareh until now also stopped, as if losing some kind of control, allowing her to attack them, disarming the two, quite literally, before making them fall over.
[Statement: I have won.] HK said suddenly, straightening, apparently, no longer needing to jam whatever he had to jam.
"That," Sareh gasped, one hand pressed to her bleeding arm, "was you? Or was it...?"
[Correction: It should have been me, but the moment meatbag Vila had decapitated the main droid, all the waves had stopped transmitting. Same for the two you were facing.]
"Always go for the head, huh?!" Vila laughed first, sounding breathless but still buzzing from all the adrenaline.
I huffed a laugh too, staring down at the ruined abomination, still hurting all over, but it was not yet time to rest.
"Is it dead?" Sareh asked, walking over, looking at it.
"No," I said automatically, wiping my bleeding face, "This body is."
"HK?" Vila asked, looking at him.
[Statement: Already searching for matching parameters. Correction: My range is limited. Suggestion: I can transmit the data to meatbag Adrian, her computer can find us the source on the planet.]
"Do that!" I looked at him then at the others, spitting more blood out, realizing my face and jaw were broken, "We find its core, and wipe it. This ends here... and now!"