Jedi Insurgency 183

For a brief second, following Corvus’s announcement, the chamber had gone utterly silent.

The Bad Batch lay where they had fallen, scattered across the scarred marble like broken toys. Their helmets were askew, weapons slack in lifeless hands. 

Death was a certainty in this universe, it was like that for everyone…but these men had sworn oaths of service to him. In some cases, died once already for him, paying the ultimate sacrifice. And still they fought for him! Bled for him, did the dirty work no one else would, or could do! They ate with him, laughed at him, made him feel human in a galaxy that wanted to make him into something more than a man. 

“Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair, Echo, Tech.” Their names left his lips in a whisper as his face was covered by the shadow of his hood. 

“Oh hoh hoh.” Beldorion deeply laughed at his plight. 

The air folded inward, and the slime choked on his words. A [Mind Trick] briefly entered his psyche, an image of Jabba wailing in his salt bath. 

“Bah! Shootaka, nmm vaer!” Beldorion bellowed, whipping his tail on the pristine floor, he cracked it with his might. 

At the same time, a tectonic wave rushed towards Corvus’s position, swallowing the building's floor, and threatening to crush him underfoot. 

Corvus stared down at Hunter's corpse, then tuned in to the thriving energy coalescing around him. Behind him stood his two apprentices, their presence feeding into him like conduits, their wills enhancing him greater than any stimulant ever could. Immobile, and turning somewhat gaunt, it was evident that they could not keep this up for long. Even further back, the 300 elite warriors maintained their chant, and had willingly offered themselves to him, their intentions sang in the Force, clear as day. The Revanites gave their life force, and through no technique of his own-rather, through the machinations of the Force-Corvus found that he was absorbing their lives. The Ongree were not natural Force Sensitives, and this was the cost they bore for their messiah. 

Corvus noted all of this, but did not have time or the ability to stop this outpouring of freely given love, loyalty, and sacrifice. 

His heart became resolute, as he accepted their intentions. 

Power poured into Corvus. 

Too much power.

The Force did not flow through him so much as collide within him. Light surged, birthing clarity, purpose, resolve, only to be devoured and reforged by abyssal Dark. His body arched as the strain took hold. Skin split along his arms and neck, luminous fractures crawled beneath his flesh as if his very form were a vessel cracking under pressure.

If he were a higher level, perhaps his body could sustain so much energy at once, but alas, he was merely a [Jedi Master low], hardly capable of bearing such a strain. 

Bones cracked, muscles reknit. Flesh burned and reformed, again and again. This hellish experience was brutal and unrelenting. But the potential was there. Shadows stitched his skin together, surrounding him like a living cloak. Tendrils of darkness laced with blinding radiance coated his form, holding him together like a mummy is held together by their wrappings. The Force bent toward him in terror and awe alike. Every breath ached his lungs, his eyes were stitched open, otherwise they would be clenched tight to endure the generational pain. That time his skin was partially melted by the thermal detonator had been excruciating, but this, this was spiritual pain on his very soul! How he wished to just sit down, but he could not! He would not. 

At last, the transformation slowed.

Corvus found himself slightly hunching, and felt a slightly springy quality to his step, as if he were bouncy, or walking on the moon. 

He flexed his gloved fists, power rippling outward in invisible waves that rattled banners and shattered loose stone. He held a hand out towards the collapsing floor, and seismic shock. Shadowy tendrils latched forward, and absorbed the shock like a sponge, effortlessly halting it in its tracks. 

Cracks formed on the back of his hand, and this time, they healed significantly slower. 

This body would not last.

Like a pot left too long in the kiln, it was already beginning to fail. The power consuming him would finish the job soon enough. This transformed state would last for minutes, perhaps less. 

But while it lasted…

Shadows bled across the walls, swallowing light. The Force convulsed, warping upon itself, Light and Dark screamed as if some great beast had taken a mouse, and dropped it down its throat alive. This palace, once dedicated to vice and sin, now became a place as black as the void of space. 

Revan had arrived.

Yellow eyes narrowed across the chamber as Maul took an involuntary step back, his wordless snarl was tinged with unease. Beldorion thumped a meaty fist on his muscular chest in defiance, and stood to his full height. 

Using their lightsabers as a focus, the pair of Darksiders slashed crimson into the hallway, barely illuminating a section of the dais with red light. 

Corvus’s gaze found them both, and he smelt fear. 

“You have failed, Sith Assassin.” He mocked, his voice came out distorted, as it was both calm and wrathful, light and void speaking as one.

The shadows coiled tighter around him as he took a single step forward, causing the floor to crack beneath his boots.

Maul hesitated no longer, and resumed his attack from earlier. 

He surged forward with a snarl, one tattooed hand carving a vicious sigil through the air as Dathomirian magicks answered his call. Necrotic green lightning erupted from his palm. Witch-energy screamed to life, and the ghastly wails of slain souls lamented their torment. 

Support beams began to wilt like dying flowers. The chamber groaned under the weight of loadbearing walls suddenly collapsing. The rot of Maul’s technique took decay to a metaphysical level, cursing anything it touched. 

At the same moment, Beldorion drew in a titanic breath, and bellowed at the top of his lungs. 

The sound was one part Force-amplified sonic roar, one part telekinetic prowess. Chunks of ceiling and pieces of the floor that had fallen earlier were now moving. Layer upon layer of debris ripped loose, accelerated by invisible pressure towards Corvus. A storm of stone, metal, and shattered bodies screaming towards his position, towards his immobile students, the corpses of the Bad Batch, and the warriors who were supplying him with this buff. 

The combined assault could have annihilated a regiment, or maybe even brought down a capital ship. But Corvus would not retreat, he would not! 

Shadows peeled away from his cloak as he spread his arms, fingers splayed, and reached inward. He felt every fracture in his flesh, every scream of overstressed bone and burning nerve. He knew precisely how close he was to coming apart. The feeling of being broken, of being torn apart…it was something he had become intimately familiar with when pursuing the combination of Light & Dark. 

The Path of Balance was one wrought with much experimentation, pain, suffering, and joy. It was a journey where he had guided others, and supped deeply upon the cup of wisdom. 

This latest experience was but one more key, one more light in pursuit of his goal. An ability he had practiced with not much great success had eluded him. 

That is, of course, until today. When that key had sparked a fire in his mind. As his body constantly broke apart, and his students desperately did everything in their power to hold him together, he finally understood a secret of the Force. 

Watching the foul, pale, necrotic lightning surge outward, and the sonic shock filled with a thousand miscellaneous objects traveling at impossible speeds, he felt no worry or fear. 

Instead, his shadowy, wraith-like image smiled. This rictus-like grin spread unnaturally from ear to ear, and the power thrummed through his veins like the most thirst quenching of poisons. 

Feeling himself coming apart at the seems, he channeled this feeling outward. 

Seconds later, a warped inversion of [Force Repulse] flashed forward. Light and Dark braided together, stitched into one weave by the same shadow stitches that prevented his body's collapse. 

The witch lightning hit the field and unraveled.

Its necrotic energy was pulled apart strand by strand, its corrupted intent stripped down to vibrating particles before dispersing into harmless motes of green light. Collapsing beams slowed, then shuddered, their molecular bonds loosened just enough to rob them of momentum before they crumbled into dust midair.

Beldorion’s sonic wave struck next.

Corvus's weave did not stop. The [Shadow Repulse] met the oncoming attack with the same unending hunger as that of a black hole. 

The debris cloud froze, every fragment became suspended midair, as if it had been caught in amber. Dark shadowy stitches around Corvus shuddered like a spider's webbing, demanding he put more of himself into the technique. Cracks split his chest open, oozing neon colored blood as he met the demand. Power unrelenting gushed forth like a broken dam. The incoming debris was grinded into dust, bleeding energy harmlessly into the air. Beldorion’s roar of defiance died in his grasp, like one squeezing a fly in the palm of their hands. 

This immense weave of shadows continued forth, meeting the twin Darksiders. Maul began to chant something, and held up a bone necklace. A green barrier shimmered in front of him, and met the darkness head on. Almost as soon as they clashed, the barrier almost collapsed, cracking in several places. 

“Nhggh!” Maul gasped as he was pressed back a step. 

Ghostly green wisps left the necklace one after another, flying into the barrier, they slowly mended the cracks, yet the shield remained transparent, as if it could shatter at any moment. 

“A little help, Beldorion?!” Maul snarled as the necklace began to slowly lose its luster, as the souls empowering it were swiftly running out. 

“This was'a your idea, Sith.” Beldorion angrily spat back. 

Despite this fraying of alliances, the Hutt did not sit back, and slithered forth. Closing his eyes, he held out both hands, and bypassed Maul's failing barrier. Meeting the [Shadow Repulse] head on, his bulging muscles rapidly contracted, and then expanded to ridiculous proportions. Taking all of the molecular erasing attack into one of these enlarged arms, Beldorion decisively cut the limb off, and redirected Corvus’s attack downward, to a floor below. The [Shadow Repulse] continued on its journey, tearing through layer upon layer of the palace, permanently damaging its foundation. Groaning under a massive strain, the mega structure started to tilt, sending everyone forward. Although the skyscraper hadn't collapsed, everyone could feel that it wasn't long for this world. 

Corvus, meanwhile, gasped from the immense exertion that the technique had taken out of him, and felt his knees buckle slightly. Staggering forward, he spat up bright light-blue neon colored blood. 

Cracks of light crawled farther up his neck, glowing white-hot beneath his skin. Blood seeped from beneath his gloves where his fists clenched too tightly, his body protesting the impossible equilibrium he forced upon it.

Using all of his will just to stand, he glared at the pair of them, his eyes white hot, like a pair of suns. 

Maul stared back, refusing to yield an inch. And yet, that confident poise he once possessed had vanished. He had thought that the power denied to him by Mother Talzin would be enough to deal with this somewhat famous Jedi Shadow. That he could beat the Jedi into submission, and take the fight to his Master. To Sidious. 

How naive! This was no mere terrorist! Nor was he a simple Jedi! He really was beginning to believe! 

Beldorion, meanwhile, felt the darkness in him flow into the living shadow. As the Darkside that had poisoned his psyche for so long began to be drawn from him like one draws poison from a wound, he recalled his days at the Temple. Of a simpler time, when he had friends, when people looked up to him, not because of his size or demands…but because he inspired hope. Of what a Hutt could be! 

The Hutt gripped his lightsaber tightly, and then glanced at the clone corpses, and at the ruined husks that had once been his kin. Indecision flickered in his gaze. 

Glancing at the students pouring everything they had into their Master, Beldorion, for the first time in centuries felt something he thought he had abandoned long ago: admiration. 

For a moment, he dared believe the impossible. 

“Is it true?” His deep-voiced question cut through the air, pausing the other two Force Adepts in their tracks. 

Twin lightsabers hissed into existence in response. Red & blue coated the wraith-like Jedi from head to toe, only his baleful eyes poked through. 

The air shuddered, as Revan’s silence spoke louder than any words could. 

This was it. 

~~~~~~~~

AN: Will the real Phantom Menace please stand up!