On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter LXVII

It was a guttural sound, a deep pained growl so low anyone else would have thought it belonged to the tomb itself, that prompted Luna to pause and call on the Force surrounding her to allow her eyes to see into the Force-spectrem, tinted red, black, and even purple by the darkside. In doing so the ring of light that the glowing blade of the lightsaber gave her no longer limited her sight. She could see hollows of dark energies, Force laid traps in the walls to accompany the more physical ones around her. A handful of dark spirits watched Luna from this new plain—eyes being the most obvious parts of their body glowing red or purple depending upon the powers they had called upon to allow continued life—with silent interest from far and near, though the ancient Sith appeared to be mostly uninterested in her. She saw a flicker of transparent white from the corner of her eye and all but felt a hand touch her arm.

Mother, mother, what are you doing here? Luna asked herself though she did not speak—didn't even glance back and hint at the fact she could see. There was no reason to speak to a ghost who never bothered to appear. Besides, the girl had better things to do, and it wasn't like she cared enough to talk to Angelica Snow.

Beyond her, there was something. It appeared to be an animal, several actually, of some description, though from the distance—as it was rather far away and Luna was rather sure there was a wall or more in the way—and from the creature(s)'s positioning, it was hard to tell what precisely it was. Knowing the creatures of Moraband, whatever it was was unlikely to be friendly.

But if whatever it was had fallen into one of the many traps within the tomb, it would probably be a hell lot more merciful to put it out of its misery regardless of what sort of animal it was. It seemed Luna would be doing that before she tracked down any ancient scrolls, weapons, or holocrons.

The ex-Shadow allowed her vision to return to normal, though she did mentally note the locations of the Force-traps down in order to better avoid them. She'd triggered a few earlier and had no wish to do so again—the ancient Sith had clearly known what they were doing when they had been making the tomb, and if they were anything like ancient Egyptians, the more dangerous the tomb was, the more important the person buried inside was and the more treasures there were to be found.

In all honesty, Luna still had yet to figure out who's tomb she was actually exploring. There had likely been an etching on the stone archway at the entrance, but that part had collapsed leaving the grand gateway nothing but a relatively recently cleared hole in the valley as the collapsed rock appeared to have been gradually broken down. Not to mention it had been so long that Luna wouldn't have been surprised if the words had been eroded away by the sand even before the collapse. There were numerous traps though, only a handful triggered by a few unfortunate souls from centuries gone by, meaning that either the tomb itself had remained intact along with its treasures or someone like her who was rather skilled at avoiding traps had already been through and taken everything of value.

But what did Luna know? She'd visited a single temple the only other time she'd been here—Vader was not one for exploring tombs just on the off chance it may contain something useful. He'd never been one for historical explorations. History had always been her departement so they'd know something if it did suddenly become useful.

Mind on the present, Luna.

Now with an actual destination in mind, the ex-Shadow continued down her path, letting the Force guide her down the right halls to get to the creatures quicker. She was still careful though, and it could have taken anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour to finally come upon the correct corridor without springing any traps on herself.

As Luna drew closer, she could make out more sounds. Wines, growls, howls. It sounded like a pack of dogs fighting—or at least what the girl would imagine dogs fighting would sound like, she'd never witnessed such a thing herself.

....Please don't be what I think you all are.

Unfortunately, as was usual, Luna's luck wasn't on her side. She turned the corridor saber drawn and prepared for a fight to find no less than four tuk'ata huddled around something or other. The light of the ex-Shadow's lightsaber, however, immediately drew their attention to her. The Sith hounds bared their teeth, thundering growls resounding from the depths of their chests that Luna was near certain would bring the ancient structure down on them.

"Back off, and no one dies today," she stated, the Sith words leaving her lips as easily as though they were English—thank the Force that was one lesson Vader had forbidden her to skip despite her clear weakness with languages.

Her answer came in the form of a howl by either the Alpha or acting Alpha as the tuk'atas charged.

"Well, I tried," Luna muttered to herself as she gathered the Force, thrusting hand out to toss the Alpha into the wall before springing one of the Force laid traps that pulled a second tuk'ata back and trapped it in place, which left two massive beasts for Luna to deal with in a few seconds before the stunned one recovered.

And they were massive. She thought tuk'atas were basically Sith dogs. These were the size of a horse if not bigger. Anyone else would have turned tail and run.

Luna wasn't anyone else.

She used a mixture of the Force and lightning to toss the closest one back down the hall while the second came at her, mouth agar. Luna sprung forward, embedding her lightsaber through the roof of its mouth and brain, killing it instantly at the expense of her arm which had made like Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets and gotten stabbed by the upper teeth. Thankfully these didn't seem to be a breed of tuk'ata with a venomous bite—assuming those existed, but that was a theory for later, preferably outside of combat.

Note to self: Next time you're playing Laura Croft, wear your kriffin' armor.

The ex-Shadow naturally called on the darkside to numb the pain even as she pulled her saber out of the creature and cut off the forelimb of one of the other Sith hounds who had been about to claw her in half. It let out a howl of anger and pain as it came at her again, this time with the stingers from the wing-ish extensions on it's back. Luna dodged one and cut off the other before gathering the Force and lifting the creature into the air before throwing it at another incoming hound before she pulled on the darkside around her and channeled it into Sith lightning, hoping to cause enough pain to keep the two of them on the ground for a few moments.

Which may have worked half decently if the one she'd placed in the Sith trap hadn't managed to free itself and was bounding towards her. Luna cut off her lightning and threw her saber, cutting the legs out from under the charging tuk'ata, leaving it to collapse onto the floor and skid towards her from the momentum of the hound's charge. The ex-Shadow didn't have a chance to finish it off because the other three were all but on top of her. The girl bent over backward, dodging the razor sharp claws by a hair's breadth as her lightsaber returned to her hand just in time to cut off the hind leg of one of the hounds and a tail that was whipping towards her.

Half a second later, she was spinning to face them though she knew her back was far too close to the leg-less hound for comfort and Force only knew how big the pack was and whether or not more would show up behind her. The Apha, Luna managed to note, was the only one with the stingers—well, one stinger now since she'd amputated the other, but slightly less dangerous all the same.

Key word: Slightly.

Most Jedi and Sith would have probably been dog food by now.

Credit where credit was due: Vader knew how to teach a girl to fight.

The hounds paused, growling as they formed a partial delta formation, preparing to pounce on her once again though this time they seemed to have more of a game plan then charge. Tuk'atas were supposed to be smart after all.

Luna just happened to be smarter.

Or stupider.

She reached out a hand, grabbing the ceiling—already weakened and cracking from the centuries—with the Force, feeling for the cracks and weak points, before shoving the Sith hounds backwards and off their feet as she pulled the ceiling down, hand moving as quickly as she could managed as if she was trying to smash a mosquito.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only part of the ceiling that gave way.