Simon Riley

The smog was so thick it blocked out the sun.

Simon was breathing hard through the mouth piece of his skull helmet, in through his nose, out through his mouth. Calm and steady as the long black cowl he donned dragged along the ground over the dying embers of what was once a thriving greela field.

He’d set it ablaze, along with the village. Half steel huts scorched through to husks, billowing black smoke obscured any vision of what it was he was looking for. Who it was. CraveU user. The one of the last force users, and arguably outside of their mind for hiding somewhere that was so easily sacked. CraveU user was never going to get away from him though, no matter how far they ran.

“C’mon out now,” Simon coaxed, the voice distorting modulator in his helmet layering his rasping baritone tenfold. “I know you’re here CraveU user, I can smell it.”

Dark eyes scanned the burning backwater village through the dark visor of his helm, watching bodies scurry away like rats through the maze of falling charred debris. Simon was slow with it, blacked braced boots crunching over the hot coals, barely noticing the sting with how the soles melted. One gloved hand went to his cowl, the other to the lightsaber holstered at his belt, but he didn’t draw yet. No, he had to wait for the perfect moment. “Ya know, CraveU user, you’re lucky in a way!” Simon chuffed a humorless sardonic laugh, calling out to seemingly nothing.

“I only burned the village,” His tone was flat, monotonous like he did CraveU user a favor. “That glorified tyrannical fuckin’ buckethead in black will burn the planet.”

He kept his leisurely pace through the thick smoke, his towering frame stepping with a purpose, broad shoulders swaying while he watched with his head on a swivel. Simon was not only coaxing, he was goading. “So many innocent lives lost…so many sacrifices to be made, and made they will be,” Simon was getting impatient, gritting his teeth in a snarl under his mask. Pelgus Trite was a podunk swamp so far out in the outer rim that he wasn’t sure if most in the galaxy even knew it was here. “You did well, hiding yourself, I’ll give you that at least, if not a little slow on the upkeep.”

Simon finally lifted the hilt of his lightsaber, gripping the nearest body scuttling away like a roach. It took next to nothing to subdue the man as Simon’s lightsaber ignited with a vicious electric crackle, sparking and snapping with an audible shing. The heavy hilt did little to offset the bled kyber crystals weight but Simon hardly felt it anymore, the lightsaber modeled after a massive claymore doing little to hold him back.

“Now here’s how this is gonna go, CraveU user.” Simon began, the smoke only growing thicker as ash began to fall like dusty rain. “You’re gonna come out, we’re gonna get introduced properly, and you’re gonna do it before hot shot Kylo Ren and his regime show up. Then we’re gonna leave.”

Simon didn’t even hesitate, putting the lightsaber so close to his hostages face it singed the man’s cheek, accompanied by a visceral scream of pain and the acrid scent of burning flesh. “Or I’ll start with him, and you can hide until the only thing left in this village is ash and limbs.”

That should do it. Simon thought, but then for good measure, added. “But what do I know, hmm? Wait then. I’ll take my leave and I’ll let Kylo have ya-“

He didn’t even have to finish, the whining crackle of a second lightsaber igniting caught his hearing and he turned just in time to block it, the lightsabers clashing together so hard it sent sparks flying.

“Ahh. There you are, CraveU user,” Simon growled through his voice modulator.

Let the fight begin.