Raezyr reached out to Mannix in the force and felt an acknowledgement in return. He wished he could get more from the kid, but that was all he knew how to send at this stage in his development. We're going to have to speed up his development, based on his performance today he thought to himself.
He was close, he could sense the boy exhausted and a sudden feeling of triumph. Almost there. His feeling of unease wasn't abating. He began to push himself harder in the force, increasing his speed.
Raezyr turned the corner to a long hallway, and saw his apprentice turn the corner at the other end. The boy stopped at the intersection and waved, panting heavily.
His lips parted to yell something to his master, but instead he let out a piercing scream as his body was engulfed in flames. Raezyr dashed down the hallway as quickly as he could, helpless to help a young boy who was falling to his knees, being tortured and eaten alive by the scorching inferno.
Raezyr dove forward, wrapping his arms around Mannix and pulling both of their bodies to the left and out of the reach of the continual flow from the other direction. After rolling to a stop, the Sith could see that there was no flame to douse on the boy. Anything on him capable of burning already had.
A quick glance in the direction of the original attack showed a man in Mandalorian armor, laying on the ground and weakly laughing. His own strength was fading quicker than Mannix's, though from this angle it was impossible to tell where Mannix had managed to subvert the man's armor. It didn't matter. Raezyr picked the man up in the force and squeezed as hard as he could before throwing his body crashing into the next room. His life force flickered out before his body skidded into the far wall.
The Sith quickly turned his attention to the small body at his feet. The damage was bad. Really bad. There was no time to worry about how it looked though. He quickly went to work administering stims to hopefully keep internal organs from shutting down in shock.
The stims seemed to be working, as they had the unfortunately necessary side-effect of keeping the person conscious, and also that much more aware of their own agony. The boy began thrashing around aimlessly, with his body taking over for logical thought. With no hope of reducing the pain or damage, his instincts forced his muscles to do something. Anything.
He screamed again, feebly through his vocal cords, but deafeningly through the force.
"Damnit Mannix, hold still!" Raezyr shouted at him, trying to restrain him from hurting himself further and overriding the chemical powers of the stimulants.
What the hell is that?! Trychon asked him over the constant force 'noise' that Mannix was somehow creating.
It's Mannix. He's down. It's bad. I've kept him out of shock, but he won't hold still. He's going to kill himself. I'm going to have to... DAMMIT! Trych, I can't get him to hold still!
Trychon didn't have to respond. Raezyr knew what he had to do.
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Trychon got on the comm.
"Trident to group. No more time. We're exiting as quick as we can, whether that's through the front door or we need to make a new door. Meet up at 'Point Delta'."
He took off through the building, knowing that Deera and Dianna would be following as quickly as they could. He chose the meeting point nearest to where he believed Raezyr and Mannix to be. He didn't think there was anything he could do to help at this point, but he had to try.
The Force scream got suddenly louder as Trychon heard his brother mentally mutter 'dammit' several more times.
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Dianna and Deera caught up to the two Sith brothers standing next to a smoking, charred lump hovering in the corner of the room they'd labeled 'Point Delta'. As they got nearer, she was able to recognize it as some semblance of a body as she noticed the limbs dangling awkwardly to the sides and she feared the worst.
Then as she stopped at their side, her hand flew up to cover her mouth, shocked to see the lump was moving imperceptibly.
It was Mannix, she knew it in her heart and because of his size. His eyes were darting back and forth rapidly, and his jaw was locked open, though only the raspy remains of what was surely once a scream came through.
Their comms came alive, as Schyrt called from the Razor. "Ship to ground team, we're inbound and locked in on your comm. We'll be there momentarily, please clear back from the center of the nearest wall." Good. Dianna thought. Plan Delta had been for he and Reed to double time it to the ship and bail them out at the nearest point. It meant a hasty exit. It meant things went bad.
Dianna's eyes went back to the boys arms and legs, which were hanging unnaturally from their joints. She was doing everything she could to keep her wits about her.
"Raez?" She stammered.
"Raezyr, what happened?"
The Sith turned to her, but she couldn't see his expression behind his mask. His voice was different than she'd ever heard before. "I had to Dianna. I had to do it. He was thrashing, and the growing cellular damage would have killed him." Then he shook his head as he turned away from her.
She couldn't understand what had happened. She reached out for Trychon's shoulder. As he turned to look at her, she could see the pain in his eyes as he closed them.
"His arms and his legs have been shattered, Di. We have to get to the Stalker to have a chance at saving him."
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