Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to the Assassin's Den! The Rise of Mamine is coming to a close with the War for Iokath today and the Traitor Saga tomorrow!
Six months had passed between the Alliance dismantling the Eternal
Throne and now, and Mamine had worked tirelessly to repair the damage
that Vaylin did. Zakuul was slowly learning how to rule themselves, but
so much of their infrastructure was tied up in the droids performing
all tasks for them that they didn't know what to do once they were shut
down for good. Mamine had hoped that they would have some semblance of
survival instincts, but she was proven wrong time and time again, forcing
her to take a heavier hand than she liked in teaching them how to
survive. It didn't help that, for the first time in their history since
Valkorian took over, there was famine and disease for the general
populous, so Mamine was forced to bring in supplies and medicine for
them, which cut down on the resources she could be using to help the
people of the Republic.
She also had taken the time to continue her Padawan's training, though now, it was focused on more peaceful arts like emotional control and meditation. A LOT of meditation. Suthazi didn't have the luxury that Mamine had at her age with the blood hunts of the kiltiks, though maybe that was for the best; for Mamine, it only made her problem with her rage worse, since Mamine thought she could always depend on the kiltik nests to bleed off her darkness. She worked closely with her Padawan over her feelings, and the life cycle of beings and the Force; she reminded Suthazi that having feelings for others wasn't wrong, nor was being attached to those around her, but she had to accept the cycle of the Force, of birth, life and eventually, of death. Mamine reminded Suthazi that one day, she was going to die, and she accepted this willingly. It was an honor to become one with the Force, connected to all those she had ever cared about.
She also spent quite a bit of time with Arcann, also training him in emotional control. Like Mamine's path to redemption, Arcann carried a LOT of regret over what he had done and the pain he had caused, and Mamine said that was fine. She told Arcann that those regrets would push him to be better for both the people he hurt and those he would come to care about in the future. But she also told Arcann to not let regret consume him; self hatred was a path back into Darkness, and he didn't want to go back down that path that Valkorian wanted for him. Arcann said that was hard, because everywhere he went, he was reminded of his failure to be a good person; by the members of the Alliance, by his own people, and by Mamine's Republic and Lana's Empire. Mamine said the path to redemption wasn't easy, and while it was still his path to travel, he didn't have to do it alone. He had people that cared about him; his mother had risked everything to see his potential realized. Suthazi cared about him, even if she didn't outright like him, and Mamine cared about him.
And Suthazi showed she cared about Arcann her own way, when she asked him to train with her. She told Arcann that she wanted to do a training duel with him, as his fighting style was new to her. She'd dueled Mamine many times, Master Anstrisil many times, Yokonari and Casek several times as well. But she said the Zakuulans had a unique version of Form VI, and she wanted to see how well she would fare against it. However, this training exercise was to see if Arcann was worthy of Mamine, since that's where Mamine's heart lied. When the duel was over, Arcann coming out as the victor due to Suthazi's lack of experience, Suthazi said that she cared deeply for Mamine, and if Arcann ever hurt her, Suthazi would come after him. Arcann was confused about this, not really catching Mamine's subtle advances toward him, but promised Suthazi that he wouldn't do anything to hurt her Master.
It was at this point when the radiation levels on Iokath had finally
subsided, and Lana led an
Alliance team to claim it for the Alliance. She contacted Mamine
and Theron with a status report, which was interrupted by arrival of
Imperial and Republic forces on Iokath, who were fighting
for control over a superweapon. Mamine summoned the Eternal
Fleet to Iokath, where contact with it was mysteriously blocked and
Theron suggested to look for the source of the transmission on Iokath.
After landing, Theron, Suthazi and Mamine fought their way across the surface and
finally got to the the Fleet Spire to meet with Lana, where the
Alliance began landing their forces and started setting up a base of
operations. Lana also mentioned that she managed to capture two
emissaries send by the Republic and the Empire; Captain Elara Dorne, former member of the previous incarnation of Havoc Squad, and a Captain
Quinn, whom Yokonari later mentioned was a relative of Malavai Quinn, whom Yokonari had killed for siding with Darth Baras against him almost 13 years
prior.
It turned out that Quinn represented Empress Acina, while Dorne was
working for Supreme Commander Jace Malcom.
Both sides arrived on Iokath looking to claim the superweapon and both
pleaded to the Commander to join forces against the other, both trying
to appeal to Mamine's honor. But when the time came to choosing an ally, Mamine simply stated that "My people have been protecting the Republic since the formation of the Alliance. I see no reason for that to change.", which
got an insult spouted from Acina, who then ordered Captain Quinn to
implement her back up plan by throwing a flash bang, setting off several
charges on Alliance vehicles, and ran off before being confronted by Yokonari, who choked the life out of him while saying "siding with the wrong Sith
must run in your family" before joining Mamine in the command center. Mamine, after glaring disapprovingly at Yokonari for again taking matters into her own hand as her vision cleared, ordered Dorne
to keep them in contact with Malcom as they reinforced the Republic's
defenses.
After doing so, Mamine, Suthazi and Theron went into a weapons cache to
retrieve Iokath weapons and knowledge on how to use them. Theron
downloaded the files from an ancient console, learning about the
superweapon that both the Republic and Empire were chasing; it was
powerful enough to wipe all organic life on Iokath in
the distant past, in addition to ten trillion lives on other planets. Both Mamine and Suthazi recoiled in horror, with Suthazi saying that no one should ever get their
hands on something like that, and they needed to covertly do everything
to prevent the Republic from getting their hands on it while they
actively doing the same for the Empire.
When the three reunited with Lana, she revealed to Mamine that
the conflict was orchestrated by an unknown outside force, which leaked
identical data regarding the superweapon to all three parties, luring
them all in the same place and at the same time. And since the "Eternal
Throne's" control over the Eternal Fleet could only be sabotaged by an
Alliance member, Lana suspected a traitor in their ranks. Mamine just
shook her head, saying this was the last thing they needed while trying
to prevent both sides from getting access to a superweapon.
However, she was forced to push these thoughts out of his mind as she, Suthazi, and
Theron moved to prevent the superweapon's activation by Acina, who had
called to taunt them about her now controlling it, as well as Brosra, who stated that even though she lacked the power to do so herself, she wanted to be there when Acina died after the Empress' taunts, but they were
unsuccessful and the legendary Six Gods
of Zakuulan legend were awakened, however, not without Acina dying as she did so. With the control over the Eternal
Fleet was restored,
Theron, Brosra and Suthazi stayed behind to delay the superweapon activation, while Mamine
went inside superweapon command point, taking control of a
throne similar to the one that she had dismantled, and witnessed Tyth,
the first of Six Gods, revealing itself to be a very powerful droid.
Tyth looked at Mamine's soul, and stated that he was an "unworthy
sacrifice" given her lack of unending rage being not enough to empower
it, something that made Mamine feel good about; she had fought long and hard to let go of the rage that drove her for so long, it was nice to have that recognized. Tyth then revealed what Lana suspected, that a close companion of Mamine's was responsible for starting the war and awakening the Six
Machine Gods, hinting it to be someone consumed with anger and despair.
And while Mamine was beginning to become consumed by Tyth while he was
still was plugged in, Brosra had managed to sabotage the throne, and Mamine ordered the Eternal Fleet to
fire on the droid, knocking it
out of commission, but not destroying it.
She awoke back at the Fleet Spire a few hours later, and confirmed Lana's
suspicions that there was a traitor in their midst. And since there was
no way to narrow down the list of suspects, Lana
asked them to approve full-time surveillance by an independent party,
monitoring of even herself, to
which Theron strongly opposed. Mamine was tempted, but in the end,
chose to alert the Alliance to a traitor, and to watch out for any
unusual activity while still performing their day to day. This, Mamine
figured, would make them suspicious of each other for a while, but still
content that their Commander trusted them. And after a brief
conversation with Malcom about them controlling the resources of Iokath,
she was alerted that a Scion of Zakuul wanted to speak with him. The
Scions informed her that their Machine Gods were now active, and that Mamine needed to gather his forces to destroy them.
It was at this point when many of her strongest allies had gathered
around him, ready to aid him. She expected Suthazi, Yokonari and Casek, as they
had come to Iokath with her, as well as Master Anstrisil, who came in later, and his mercenaries. But she was surprised that Senya and Arcann join the fight, though she understood that both wanted to end the threat of the Machine Gods once and for all.
Mamine led her team into battle, going through Tyth, Aivela, Esne, Nahut
and Scyva, before finally confronting Izax in one massive, climactic
battle, finally destroying the Six Machine Gods, Iokath's greatest
superweapons, once and for all. However, Mamine remembered one more name
from Zakuulan legend; Zildrog. If these Machine Gods were the gods of
Zakuulan legend, Zildrog must be a real entity as well. She would need
to deal with Zildrog when it eventually appeared, but for right now, as her allies returned to Odessen, she decided that dealing with the Traitor
was more important at the moment. She'd need to keep her guard up for
the near future.
Traitor Saga tomorrow, and that's it for the Rise of Mamine! Until then, stay beautiful freaks!
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