Tresha Ad'Nort

"Dika," the voice came quietly. Tresha stood behind Mirdala, dressed in baggy combat fatigues and a form-fitting tank that revealed what remained of her extensive injuries. Her left arm hung in a sling identical to Kandor's, a synthskin-sealed nub where her hand should have been, and heavy bandages covered bacta patches on her right shoulder which itched something fierce. Determined to get a word in edgewise so that her disappearance would not be taken the wrong way, she held out her right hand noncommittally, where her rucksack hung from her fingers. "I'm going home. Taen's holding everyone together, but he shouldn't have to do it alone. Trita especially," she said, not needing to insinuate the crushing sense of uselessness the girl would undoubtedly be present to should her injuries not make any improvement. With a fatigued half-smile, she added, "And you have someone to look after you." Her eyes flicked to Kandor. Such an acknowledgement not only reaffirmed the massive amount of trust she had in him, but issued a subtle command that he would undoubtedly understand. Impulsive and brash, Mirdala's will and temper had never met its match until Kandor came along. Her body wracked with desperate aches, she opted not to embrace her cousin, but instead, slung her pack over her wounded shoulder and reached for Mirdala's hand, grasping it with a desperate fervor. She made no attempt to quell the quiet devotion that emanated through the family bond as she said her farewells wordlessly to her best friend's jade eyes.

"It's how he would have wanted to go," Tresha murmured quietly, no emotion crossing her features even as Kandor's hand rested gently on her injured shoulder. In their family, people had a habit of coming back from the dead when they were least looked for. But even TeVerd could not evade such a fate forever. "Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la." The salute to the fallen died on her lips as Tresha let her eyes drift closed. Mirdala's pain made all the more sense: there was very little besides the loss of her ori'vod that would have shut her down so effectively. At least now, in rest, some semblance of quiet could be felt from her cousin: not the locked-down silence of before, but the peacefulness of a mind and heart finally allowed some respite--even if it had to be gained through a forced shutdown. There was no telling what might have happened in Mirdala's psyche had the battle claimed both TeVerd and Tresha herself. How strange these family attachments were: both allowing the strength of numbers, of loyalty that could never be purchased, and exposing a singular weakness of the heart. Perhaps more hardened soldiers would distance themselves from such things and be the better for it. But it had been her love for Mirdala that had carried through her battle among the veshok forest, and her loyalty to her people that demanded such vengeance. "She was targeting adike," she said since no further words on the previous subject would be adequate, and Kandor's impassive silence showed he had come to the same conclusion. "The Kyr'tsad verd I killed in the forest. One of them--the spitting image of the little girl Jorbe brought home, trembling and spitting fire all at once." Her eyelids parted once more, but her eyes did not seem to focus on anything, staring up and away as if into the past. "There is more at stake here than just the sector, this war, our family. Someone, something, has a vested interest in destroying Mandalorian heritage." Her eyes traced the arm that rested on her shoulder up to Kandor's eyes, a rare sight out from underneath his buy'ce for most. "We can't let them do that."

"Dika," she managed weakly as Mirdala collapsed at her bedside, but Tresha was powerless to extend a hand in help. Rationale told her that the state of her cousin had nothing to do with her, but Kandor's confirmation did little to numb her worry. Silent tears leaked out of the corner of her eyes, not on her own behalf, but owing to the rippling anguish rolling off of Mirdala. It was crushing to Tresha's psyche; no wonder Mirdala had collapsed under its weight. Reaching through the empathic bond, she found only the quietude of turbulent sleep, her body in a forcible shutdown. Weak, battle-weary, hungry, tired, all were reasonable explanations, but couldn't come close to the pain that screamed through Mirdala's essence. When Kandor reappeared momentarily, Tresha's eyes were clear. "What happened, Kandor?" Her tone, rasping as it was, left no room to dodge the question. He would know what she was asking, even if she herself dreaded the answer.

Hot liquid chaos enveloped her mind, and she was swimming in the endless ocean without land in sight. She had been treading water with no hands, struggling to stay afloat, burning the rest of yesterday's energy, which was rapidly dissipating. The death toll reverberated through their family bond, and even during moments where her mind approached lucidity, she could not feel the outcome of the battles being fought nearby on Concord Dawn. Her siblings were all out of reach. The story circle on Chandrila was a bare, hazy memory. Pain spliced her nerves with every movement, every thought towards the possibility of moving, and this led her to believe she had morphed into some creature of pain, some underworld monster covered in smoldering flame, brandishing weapons in place of dextrous hands. It would be easy to slip into nothingness. The souls rejoining the Manda guided the way--and oh, how many of them there were. With grasping, desperate hands they called to her, inviting her into blissful oneness, abdication of body, and ultimate freedom. Then, slowly, as if fighting the current every inch of the way, a slow rope began to wrap around her ankle in the hot sea of nothingness. Aware that it was happening, but seemingly frozen in place, powerless to fight it, it began to pull her down, an anchor rapidly descending towards the depths. Panic seized as she gasped for breath, but the water over her head only increased its volume. Every inch she descended, however, brought an ounce of relief: the water, not the flaming misery of the surface, was cool, refreshing. If she had to die this way, she thought numbly to herself, at least it would end with some small measure of comfort. Then the anchor found words. Tresha, please... The voice was unmistakable, and the pain-creature remembered her name. Somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, a trap door was released and the water began to gush out as the anchor pulled her farther down towards the opening. I can't lose you too. Fighting for her consciousness against the speckled blackness she saw within her eyelids as the oxygen ran out, the anchor of her cousin's consciousness pulled her through the trap door to the other side. With a gasp, Tresha's eyelids flew open, the monitors wailing beside her as she panted and wheezed and coughed. The aquatic purgatory dissipated to reveal the familiar outline that was all she could discern through hazy eyes. Panic struck for a moment as the color of her opponent's armor was reflected before her--perhaps she had not actually vanquished her foe--but a moment's calculation asserted that the difference in height was extreme. She dared not move anything, lest she revert to the creature of pain, but over the space of several seconds, she hesitated as her vision cleared. "Kandor?" she managed quietly through her scorched larynx. "Did I miss the fight?"

The silvery blade, clutched in her iron fingers, punched its way through the soft windpipe of the demagolka, and with a swift slash, Tresha had left the demon headless on the ground. Her buy'ce, in the absence of its seal, tumbled free of its contents, the juvenile face of the aggressor peering up through sightless eyes, the lip curled in a last, dying snarl over jagged, sharpened teeth. Her face was young, too young to have committed such atrocities, one who had never known the true comfort and freedom of aliit. The barest inkling of pity welled up within her. Then the wall of flame hit, and with a guttural scream, she remembered no more. ---- When she came to, she couldn't fully wake. Her eyes, try as she might, would not open, and the only thing she was aware of was the breeze on her bare skin. Every inch of her body felt like it was still engulfed in flame, and a claustrophobic panic welled up in her throat. Tossing to and fro, she began to struggle against felt restraints, her movements finally attracting the attention of an aide who hushed her reassuringly to no avail. A hypospray pressed against her throat, and stillness took her. It didn't alleviate any of the claustrophobia, it simply removed the ability of her nerves to respond to her brain's impulses. Robbed of her ability to move, and still unable to open her eyes, she did the only thing she could think to do: she reached for Mirdala through the familiar bond. Nothing. Silence. Absence. Void. Mirdala, if she was still alive, was locked down tighter than Tresha had ever felt her. The rest were too far away or had also died in the fighting. Suddenly she wasn't sure if she wanted to wake up. "Tresha? Osik!" the voice was vaguely familiar, but the hypospray had made her drowsy, and it was too much work to make the association in her mind. She stopped fighting it, the deep grief sealing her lips and drawing her into comforting nothingness.

At any time, the sounds of agony were discordant and abrasive. Filtered through the tinny projection of her opponent's buy'ce, the sound drove a spike of chill into Tresha's hot veins. She had not counted on the wash of superheated adhesive, but positioned as she was behind the massive tree, a pocket of protection was afforded her, and the flames licking at her iron skin were repelled by her flame-retardant flight suit. Seizing the beskad from where it stood, aloft in the soft ground beside her, she wheeled around to the sound of a lightsaber's hiss. As if in slow-motion, the demagolka proceeded towards her, the blade blazing at odds with the flames around it, competing for the honor of being regarded as more deadly. The sound triggered a recall in her memory, the jetii Aryian bestowing upon her the weapon which now dangled at her hip, and the sharpness of her mind and her vision when his hand had somehow imparted clarity. It was this selfsame clarity which she prayed for now. Her armored fingers tightened around the beskad as the blade of her opponent's saber carved a too-visible swath through the smoldering air. In relentless hope, in cold fury, in justified vengeance, she threw herself into a tumble, smacking at her opponent's shielded gauntlet with her handless forearm, a blow which, if it landed, would not only redirect the sweeping strike from the jetii'kad, but allow for her good hand, clutching the tempered blade, to find its mark: the soft throat of her opponent beneath the lip of her buy'ce. Jade eyes swam in her mind as she did so: the murdered child calling for retribution, and Tresha's soul calling for her cousin's safety. Then everything was fire and smoke and death. Aliit ori'shya tal'din... forgive me, Mird'ika. ((3))

Blade found purchase as Tresha's opponent's momentum spiraled out of control, at the erratic mercies of her failing jetpack. Wisps of steam curled around her armored boots as she regained her footing in the smoldering grass. It looked as though spectres from the underworld were grasping at her ankles, inviting her to sink into the earth that had borne her people for millennia. Tiny tendrils of vapor, small as the fingers of those whose lifeblood now evaporated in the heat of the residual fires around her. A single crimson tear ran down the porcelain nose of a child who might have been standing except for the crooked curvature of her neck and the jagged droop of her head. The drop splattered on the ground, loud enough to send shockwaves through an empath's heart. Riddled with flechettes, the girl's body looked like a craft project the children might have demanded their caretakers should display, proud of their handiwork. Dressed in the ragged and grass-stained garb customary to such mandokarla children, her body now adorned the wall, this demagolka's gruesome hunting trophy. The wails from the little black-haired girl in the opposite corner would not abate, and the overwhelming scent of blood was peppered with the noticeable undertones of bile, vomit, and excrement, a smell that would linger long after Tresha replaced her helmet. "Stay with me?" the toddler whispered as Tresha gathered her in her arms, her jade-green eyes drifting out of focus as she fell to final sleep. With a shuddering reality, her eyes locked on her target. The Huntress's mind had done its work, invoking the images that had led her to this hunt in the first place, driving her to a necessary final vengeance. Teeth protested with a dull ache as her jaw ground them together in utter hatred. Tresha's eyes glittered with a deadened light as her opponent lay gasping for breath before her in the damp ground. Hesitation evaporated. Pity fled. Charging toward her opponent, set on retribution, she almost didn't see the glint of the wire clutched in the other woman's hands. It was the movement itself that gave it away, but not quickly enough. While her momentum continued forward, she pivoted instinctively, throwing up her left forearm as though she bore a shield on it. As the garrote wire caught harmlessly on her beskar gauntlet, horrified eyes turned back toward her arm as the wire pulled taut. As though it were some sort of magic trick, the wire slipped into nothingness off the end of her wrist gauntlet into the soft surface of her flight suit beneath as she brought her beskad down towards the wire, intent on severing the heavy end of it before it was recalled to its wielder for another strike. Searing hot agony threatened to stall her focus as she collapsed to her knees, pulling the bloody stump--where moments before her hand had been--tightly against her body, the sticky warmth of her own blood began to paint her chest plate a new shade as it mingled in the grass with the blood of those for whom she fought. But she knew, desperately, that she must not yet succumb to her pain: honor demanded recourse. In what would appear to be the final collapse of a brutally wounded opponent, Tresha brought her weight forward. At the last possible instant that she might still retain balance, she brought the hilt of her beskad to her solar plexus and pivoted away, darting behind one of the more substantial veshoke, thanking the Manda once more for the air scrubbers that kept her from coughing in the billowing smoke that rose from the embers of the woods. Yanking one of the grenades off her bandolier as she shoved her beskad momentarily point-first into the soil, she ducked out from behind the veshok and pitched the grenade--not at her opponent, but at the already-burning tree she had ricocheted off of just moments before. The blast radius would be enough, should the adhesive projectile meet its mark, to cement her opponent in place. Then Tresha would make an end of her. ((2))

Having hunted a thousand targets on five hundred worlds, the swiftness of her opponent's motion came as no surprise. WIth a carefully applied blink of an eye, Tresha's HUD switched to infrared, and the seasoned bounty hunter remained unperturbed by the cloud of earth that enveloped her as her opponent ignited her jetpack. Tracking the heat that the boosters emitted, she was not fooled by the sudden move to the opposite direction and dropped into a crouch, her opponent's blow landing on the left pauldron of her beskar'gam rather than finding the soft gaps between her chest and stomach plates. Had the strike come against her injured right shoulder, it would have had a much more devastating effect. As it was, the glancing blow of the Kyrt'sad's vibrosword served only to increase her momentum. TIghtening her fists around the feather-light beskad, she let the blow carry her in a pirouette to her left. With graceful ire, she plunged the sharpened point of her saber, not aimed fruitlessly at the stiff iron plates, but at the demagolka's jetpack. If her strike landed, it would certainly render her opponent's quick escape method ineffective. Stepping into the thrust, she kept her balance artfully, intending to drive the Death Watch abomination at the point of her sword into the flames that snapped and hissed as they consumed the stubborn lifeblood, the sap of damp veshok. ((1))

The propellant of her foe's jetpack had rendered her scoped rifle impractical in the ensuing tornado of mud and dust that folded itself around the demagolka. She was like some kind of earth demon rising from the depths of Mandalore's soil, as though somehow the planet, the people, the very culture itself had failed her in unforgivable ways, and she simply lingered here as a ghost, haunting these tainted grounds until some kind soul restored the truth of her identity among the Mando'ade. But Tresha was not feeling particularly kind. With two bursts left on her rifle, she scanned the treeline. She waited for a sign, any flicker of movement that would present her a target. Luckily, the heavy rains the previous morning and evening had moistened Keldabe and the surrounding forests such that the blast of the grenade had cleared the pit, and not set the forest and its verdant veshok canopy ablaze. As the dust settled back into the obliterated ground from which it had come, a flash on her HUD zeroed in on her opponent's location. Then the song began. Returning the rifle to its place on her back, Tresha drew the exquisite beskad forged for her by the armorsmith Ahzinger. Her gloved hands tightened on the hilt as she strafed to the edge of the treeline, rising to the taunt that the object of her ire presented. What did this aruetyc piece of osik know of the Resol'nare? A sickening snap sounded from beneath her boot, and with bile rising in her throat again, she dared glance down to the ground. The fractured, lifeless arm of an infant, covered in the telltale scalding from allied grenades, lay revoltingly alone in the damp earth of the forest, another reminder of her failure. The terror welling up in the eyes of the small child she had cradled into death came rushing back to her, and the rotting smell of humanity she stumbled upon in the tomb of a childcare center assailed her mind. Slowly, finger by finger, she pulled the covering from her left hand, crippling hatred strangling her throat. Her beskad clutched in her right hand, held at guard, she came into the light at the treeline and tossed the heavy armored glove with distaste into the scarlet sand at the feet of her honorless opponent, who had dipped her vibroblade into the veritable river of blood that oozed from what remained of the captive children. A gladiator from time immemorial she appeared, unworthy of even the insult Tresha had offered her. "You disgrace the beskar'gam you wear," she spat contemptibly through the amplifier in her helmet, her Concordian accent teeming with rage.

If her shot found purchase, she did not wait to find out. Scrambling back into the forest on her belly, the sudden blast of a grenade sent her flying, along with a solid two meters of the dirt from behind her, superheated plasma eating at her heels as the concussive blast of the grenade was echoed by two others from beside her. In a shuddering wave of sonic compression, the whole sandy pit blew to shreds. Tresha’s body slammed into the trunk of a tree some thirty meters away. The shock of the blast was enough to halt her thought process for a moment, and even the protection of her beskar’gam was not enough to entirely negate its effects. For the space of several moments, she lay stunned, watching as the trees nearest the arena went up in flame. The children, their small bodies secured to stakes like some ancient witch trial, had barely stood a chance. Assessing her own condition in compartmentalized denial, she concluded that the plasma blasts may well have saved her life, even if her calves smarted from the thorough singeing they had received north of her heavy armored boots. The momentum she had incurred in becoming an unintentional projective had worked in her favor, rolling her along the forest floor and extinguishing the flames in its damp earth. Abandoning her flechette rifle on the soil, she pulled her scoped rifle to bear, assessing what remained of the pit. Most of the insurgents and all the half-dressed cultists had been utterly obliterated in the blast--and with a pang of sorrow, she realized the bodies of the children were missing as well--but a single figure she spied from across the arena twisted knots of rage into her stomach. Blinking her comm to life, she announced to the remaining squad that had not yet been in the vicinity of the blast, “Ad’Nort. Strategic overlook on the far side of the pit, recommend caution in the cleanup. I have a priority target, moving to pursue. Over.” With a speed driven only by the fuel of her hatred, she moved through the trees like a wisp, irrespective of the flaring pain from her burned legs and the aching reminder in her right shoulder. Silently she moved, the greens and tans of her weathered armor making her appear to all onlookers like a veritable part of the scenery, until she had the demagolka in the sights of her rifle from behind, dropping the limp body of one of the Mando’ade from the tip of her vibroblade, having stabbed him in the back like the dishonorable shabuir that she was. The additional power packs she brought from the triage unit had been damaged in the blast, and from the readout on her rifle, Tresha guessed she had at most three high-powered bursts left. Drawing a bead, she inhaled, the familiar preparation to unleashing vengeance. But the exhale didn’t come, her breath nearly stuck in her lungs. Such an end was too good for this creature. Shifting her aim slightly, the scope’s targeting laser landed on the soft underside of the kidnapper’s knee. Exhale. Trigger.

The horde of zombie-like cultists that streamed thickly from the ritual site did not seem to thin in number no matter how many rounds were pumped into them by the advancing Mandalorians. Tresha had learned, however, that using the same tactics trying to keep an advancing enemy at bay hardly ever delayed the onslaught in the long run. No, she would look for a more strategic strike point. Strafing along the edge of the treeline where the sandy pit unfolded before her, she finally cut around toward the rear of the cultists' camp. The wailing of children finally met her ears beyond the cacophony of gore and death amidst the fighting behind her. From behind heavy cover in the treeline, ducking down under a significantly thick clump of bushes, she pulled out her rifle and trained the scope on the far treeline. The form of a boy hung limply, his face frozen in a mask of breathless terror, and beside him, several of the other similarly-trussed children were weeping. These were the same children she had watched disappear into the woods on the opposite side of the Kelita. But where was their kidnapper? Moving her scope along the treeline, it became obvious that there were additional forces present, hiding behind the stakes that held the children. A movement of shadow attracted her attention. There, lying in wait like some bloodthirsty predator, crouched the demagolka. Her squadmates' armor glinted in the trees behind her, giving Tresha momentary pause, but her desire for vengeance was strong. Confident in her invisibility along the ground, she lined up a careful shot aimed at the chink between the collar plate and the shoulder plate and fired before prostrating herself deep within the bushes.

All at once, it all dissolved into chaos. Traps gave way to bodies, screams and shouts, blood and entrails littering the path like so much flora, the emerald forests outside Keldabe painted crimson. The borrowed flechette rifle erupted indiscriminately into the horde of bodies that progressed towards Tresha and the other Mando'ade that were progressing to the second of the sites in question. Half-naked with crazed eyes, wave after wave of deranged cultists poured through the groves of trees. Shuddering raggedly as the rounds from her tightly-gripped weapon tore them asunder, the bodies fell as quickly as they progressed, their assault ineffective against their heavily armored and solemn adversaries. Then the grenades started flying like a stream of confetti. Insanity gripped the approaching horde to the extent that they did not distinguish friend from foe as they unleashed their attacks. From up on the slight bluff where Tresha found herself, she could see pock marks forming in the unsullied ground as explosion after explosion rent the ecosystem, a dozen flimsiplast foes falling in shreds and ribbons of flesh for every single Mando'ad debilitated by explosive ordnance. She found herself almost irritated by the sheer waste of life: there was an objective, a goal on the other side of the sea of advancing bodies. The demagolka had done more than just murder ad'ike, she had kidnapped them, forced small children to swim the swift Kelita, and marched them into the forest. There was no ransom to be earned in such tasks, nothing to be gained tactically. The whole thing reeked of ill intent. Cutting a wide swath around the advancing cultists, counting on the scores of her brethren filling in the ranks behind her, Tresha pressed on toward her goal.

Boots on the ground moved through the forest, systematically detecting and disabling traps as the skilled hunters they were. Some of them were trickier than others and had to be triggered rather than disabled, which resulted in a few minor injuries for several members of the combined clans, but nothing substantial. The sole representative of the Ad'Norts on Mandalore, since the rest of her family awaited whatever Ab'ki had in store for Concord Dawn, Tresha fell in line with the rest, the borrowed rifle feeling slightly alien in her hands. It was like prey weaving through a net, and though Tresha trusted Kandor enough to charge into battle when he said it was necessary, she could not help but feel like they were being drawn into some kind of trap, and the snare was tightening. Slicing through another gate of monofilament wire with the beskad that Ahzinger had made for her, it occurred to her that the entire combined force seemed to be pushing in one direction, a direction that the opposing forces had decided in advance, hence all the traps, but Kandor had mentioned two sites. She was about to activate her comm to page Verdeyuii when she spotted one of the vode up ahead with the Seeker emblem etched on his armor, walking at an angle to the paths the rest were taking, obviously set on a secondary objective. About two dozen adade trailed after him, and Tresha hurried to catch up, careful to bury the pain she felt in her shoulder such that it would remain empathically hidden. "Ke'pare, vod!" she called. "Let me come with you." He halted, buy'ce swiveling to face her. "Slanar norac. Stay with the rest. The other site may be a ruse." "I am Hwulf Ad'Nort's daughter," she said firmly. The Seeker's shoulders seemed to relax slightly at the drop of the veteran's name. He paused for an additional moment, but seemed to think that arguing with her would take more time than it was worth. For anyone who dealt with the women of her family, this seemed to be a fairly common realization. "All right, fall in line. But keep a wary eye."

Foreboding struck before first light. Tresha jolted awake from a nightmare she could not readily recall to the sound of Kandor's voice relaying instructions, immediately regretting the limited movement of her injured shoulder. The medical droid, spying her sudden alert, rolled beside her to administer a hypospray to the neck, which flooded her system with dull relief for a few passing moments before the throbbing of the shrapnel wound picked up once more. Rolling out of bed, she grabbed the plates that she had asked to be returned to her bedside, sealing them onto her armor. The borrowed collar and shoulder plates, a dark navy color, were slightly larger than her own and appeared to have been salvaged from a man's kit, but it made little difference. The blackened edge of her breastplate was the only thing obviously indicating the presence of a wound. A scoped rifle that had been similarly retrieved also rested by her bedside, which she slung across her back in the same fashion that she had become accustomed to with her now-defunct equipment. Similarly, she strapped on her grenade bandolier and her kale, making sure the daggers were accessible, before spying one additional item: across the room, where several of the bags had been stacked to be dealt with at a later date, Tresha spied a flechette rifle not unlike the one that had claimed the life of the girl from the childcare center. Once she had finished activating the mag-seals of her plates, she crossed the room silently to retrieve it, tucking it in the holster at her right thigh. Slipping out into the night before her cousin could get wind of her departure, Tresha moved carefully through Keldabe's streets to the north side of the city. Blood would be shed: the demon's, or her own.

"Gar serim, Dika," Tresha conceded, authentic weariness seeping into her tone and their empathic bond. "Let's all get some rest, and then we can make a plan." With her good arm, she drew her cousin into an embrace for the space of a couple seconds. Solemn, deadly-serious eyes honed in on Kandor's buy'ce. "She stays with you." Even knowing that Mirdala's injuries rendered her temporarily deaf, she kept her voice down such that Vy'ika and Rhys might not catch her meaning. Yet again, there was no room for argument in her tone. Tresha would give Mand'alor the gift of plausible deniability where her actions were concerned, but his opinions were clear enough to her that she counted on the fact that Mirdala would not be allowed to interfere in her pursuit of the demagolka. Releasing her crimson-clad cousin, Tresha gave her best approximation of a smile. "I still do need a shoulder plate, though, and a new rifle. You guys get some rest. I'll go dig through the reclaimed gear and see if I can find something workable before I turn in."