Jedi Insurgency 280 (Interlude 41)

Black clouds roiled over the perpetually swampy skies of Dagobah. Sickly flashes of green lightning scorched the air, birthing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Rain poured through the tangled canopy in warm, unending sheets, striking leaves broad enough to shelter speeders and turning the swamps beneath them into churning seas of mud. Trees older than the Republic rose like pillars from the murk, their roots coiled around one another as though the entire planet were a single vast organism strangling itself.

Darth Maul moved through that suffocating world without complaint.

Mud clung to his boots and rain streamed from the horns of his crown. His black robes had been torn by thorned vines and stained by the blood of the creatures that had tried to devour him, yet his stride never faltered. Rage kept him warm, rage gave rhythm to his steps.

Revan’s victory still burned inside him.

It had not been a clean defeat, nor an honorable one. Maul remembered the crushing force that had hurled him aside, the intolerable calm behind Revan’s mask, and the certainty with which the ancient Jedi had dismantled every advantage placed against him. Revan had treated Maul and his allies not as equals, but as obstacles to be cast aside.

He treated Maul as a tool, trusting that he would not dare rebel against Revan! Ha! Yes, his Mandalorians, and what feckless criminal scum that called him master made war upon the Empire, but it was a half hearted thing. Without Beldorion, without the funding of the Hutts, his war effort had stalled. Fine. His Empire would continue to expand, sacking those neutral worlds, and slowly growing one by one. However, he needed more power, which was why he had come to this stinking planet.

Maul could endure pain, he could endure loss, but he would not endure irrelevance! How he hated the man, how he wished to rip him apart, just like how Kenobi had done to him.

Ventress followed close behind him, pale and silent beneath the rain. A hood covered her shaved head, though strands of enchanted crimson smoke drifted from beneath it, coiling around her shoulders like serpents. One hand rested upon the hilt of a lightsaber at her belt, the other held a small talisman fashioned from bone, red thread, and a sliver of black crystal.

She shared Maul’s bitterness. Revan had stolen her sister, and humiliated the man who realized her potential. That humiliation had sunk hooks into her pride. Whatever uneasy gratitude she might once have felt had curdled into resentment. She was done being other people's playthings.

After the defeat on Nar Shaddaa, they had spent weeks searching the forbidden records of Dathomir. They had bled over ancient altars, inhaled the smoke of poisonous roots, and listened as dead Nightsisters whispered through the mouths of corpses. Every ritual had pointed them toward Dagobah. Every vision had shown the same place: a black pyramid beneath a dead tree, surrounded by kneeling warriors without faces.

The bone talisman in Ventress’s hand suddenly twisted and shimmered.

“We are here.” She hissed, and began chanting some words in a low vlice.

Maul turned toward the swamp ahead. At first he saw only trees, fog, and stagnant water. Then the wind shifted, and an illusion before their eyes shimmered as it broke.

A colossal tree stood at the center of a circular marsh, its trunk wider than a starship and its branches stretching over the canopy like the limbs of a dead god. Nothing grew beneath it, even the rain seemed reluctant to touch the ground around it. Beneath the tangled roots waited a doorway.

It was incredibly large and formed from slabs of black stone that had not weathered despite the countless ages pressing upon them. Figures had been carved along its frame: horned warriors, robed sorcerers, crowned kings, and armies kneeling before a blazing sun. Their faces had been worn away, or perhaps deliberately erased.

Maul approached the entrance and laid his palm against the stone.

The planet’s signature within the Force screamed into him. Pain assailed his senses, yet beyond that was the thing he most craved.

Power.

For an instant, he saw Dagobah without swamps. Towers of gold and black pierced a clear violet sky, cities, people, this was once a place of grandeur. Within this vision, warships filled the heavens from horizon to horizon, and legions marched across stone causeways. Then came fire, betrayal, and a shadow descending from beyond the stars, ruining Dagobah into the swamp it was today.

Maul tore his hand away.

Ventress watched him closely. “What did you see?”

“Our inheritance.” He said in a deep voice.

Together, they pressed their hands against the sealed doors.

Dathomiri magic poured from Ventress in emerald streams. Maul answered with the raw violence of the Darkside. Green flame and crimson lightning entwined, crawling through channels carved into the stone. The ancient symbols ignited one after another, and the earth began to shake.

Mud leapt from the swamp, trees bent away from the temple, and the sky rumbled. With a groan that rolled across Dagobah like distant thunder, the doors opened inward.

Cold air escaped from the darkness beyond, and a last gasp of warning in an alien language met their ears, but was ignored. Igniting their sabers for light, they entered the temple.

The passage descended at a shallow angle, broad enough for a hundred soldiers to march abreast. Their footsteps echoed far into the depths. Along either side stood armored statues arranged in perfect ranks. Each warrior was taller than an ordinary human and encased in dark plate, with narrow visors and weapons clasped against their chests. Some carried rifles of unfamiliar construction. Others broad swords, polearms, or heavy shields marked with an eight-pointed emblem.

Ventress brushed her fingers across one warrior’s breastplate.

“This is not stone.” She remarked with a frown, feeling that something was suspect.

Maul studied the figure. The armor had been coated in mineral deposits, giving it the appearance of carved rock, but beneath that crust lay metal. He sensed something deeper as well, something…a presence he had not sensed the like of since…

Shaking his head, he advanced deeper into the temple. The object of their desire, the item they had prophesied was up ahead. These stone soldiers were nothing compared to that prize.

The temple was as large as a mountain. Stairways spiraled around shafts so deep their lights could not reach the bottom. Bridges crossed vast subterranean chambers packed with more silent warriors. Every gallery held thousands, with vaults holding tens of thousands more. They stood in ranks along walls, upon balconies, within sealed alcoves, and behind translucent barriers clouded by frost.

Ventress’s confidence slowly gave way to unease. “And they are all to be ours?”

“The prophecy was clear, my Queen. He who awakens the sleepers shall claim the title of Awakened.” Maul explained, barely able to keep his patience in check.

Ventress frowned, yet held her tongue. They had sacrificed a great deal of time and energy into finding this place. She refused to believe something wrong could occur this far into their journey.

The deeper they traveled, the stronger the Darkside became. It did not possess the feverish hunger of Dathomir, nor the decaying malice of Korriban. This power felt disciplined, almost similar to Revan, nearly balanced. It was rage forged into law, suffering made orderly, conquest elevated into a sacred duty. This series of contradictions served only to make Maul hungrier, and Ventress more wary.

At the temple’s lowest level, the stairs ended before a pair of golden doors. Unlike the rest of the structure, these doors bore no images of kneeling Sith or Jedi. Instead, they depicted a lone armored figure standing before a grid-like fleet. One half of his face was hidden behind a mask, and in his hand was a shattered crown.

Uncaring about the decorations, Maul slammed the door open with a heavy [Force Push], revealing the final chamber. Immense in size, the circular room contained statues of much more elite looking armored warriors, their equipment were large shields, and saber staffs.

A sarcophagus rested horizontally upon a raised platform at the room's center. It was fashioned from black metal banded with gold, with an icy blue light pulsing beneath its surface.

Upon the lid lay a scroll.

The parchment appeared fragile, as if it could shatter from a touch, yet the air recoiled from it. Crimson letters crawled across its surface, and Maul heard voices whispering from within. He was certain the scroll contained battle plans, forbidden rites, names of vanished worlds, methods by which armies could be bound through the Force and stars could be bent to serve the will of a single sovereign. It was his! All his!

Ventress stopped at the foot of the platform.

“Maul.” She said in warning, feeling that something was amiss.

He barely heard her as he stepped forward, his eyes practically glazing over with obsession. The scroll promised what Revan had denied him. Not merely strength, but dominion! Revan, Sidious, Vader, Kenobi, they would all learn to fear the name, Maul!

He reached for the scroll, and the moment his fingers closed around it, the temple awakened.

A shock wave erupted from the platform, hurling Maul and Ventress backward as pillars of blue light blazed into existence around the sarcophagus. The floor split along geometric seams, and ancient machinery thundered behind the walls, its first movement in forgotten ages sending tremors through the planet.

The sound of a large quantity of ice rapidly melting upon a frying pan rushed through chamber after chamber, floor after floor. Stone-like shells encasing those ‘stone’ soldiers shattered as clenched fists moved for the first time in millennia. Rifles lifted, blades slid from ancient scabbards, and men took in deep breaths. Across the temple, the countless ranks inhaled together, and the sound was like a hurricane being born beneath the earth.

As one, they kneeled towards the altar, the sound of their knees striking the hard floors birthing a cacophony of sound.

Ventress rose into a crouch and ignited both of her crimson blades. Green lightning played at her fingertips as she wearily stared them down. “I knew something was wrong. I knew it. They are like those who have just left carbonite. If we act now, we can escape before their vision is fully restored.”

“They are ours. You overreact, my love.” Maul said over his shoulder, intent on the scroll.

“No.” Ventress said, staring at the sarcophagus. “They belong to him.”

The awakening spread beyond the temple, and all throughout Dagobah.

Entire islands split apart as armored battalions rose from chambers hidden beneath the mud. Carbonite casings burst open in drowned valleys, beneath twisted forests, and within caverns no living creature had entered for millenia. Soldiers emerged by the millions, steam pouring from their armor as they climbed from the depths.

The planet’s mountains opened, revealing a fleet. Hangars the size of cities broke through roots and stone. Warships rose from the swampland beneath curtains of black water. Frigates tore themselves free of petrified trees. Cruisers climbed from flooded chasms, their ancient engines igniting with deep blue fire. Dreadnoughts emerged from beneath the continental shelves, lifting oceans upon their hulls before the water cascaded from them in thick muddy waterfalls.

Ten thousand warships rose, blotting out the sky. The signal had been sent, the message, received! All across Dagobah it passed between ancient systems on loop:

AWAKEN.

AWAKEN!

AWAKEN!!!

Billions of soldiers emerged from their facilities, their loyalty reaching a fanatical, fever pitch.

Back under the temple, the sarcophagus floated into the air. It hovered above the platform, wrapped in crimson lightning. Golden bands that had contained it in place ruptured one after another. The blue channels along its sides flared so brightly that the entire chamber vanished in their radiance.

Something inside opened its eyes, then the Force, wild and overbearing crashed down upon Maul.

The Zabrak's knees nearly struck the floor. Every bone in his body screamed beneath the pressure. This was not the uncontrolled vastness of Sidious, nor the veiled complexity of Revan. It was the weight of a throne, the absolute certainty of someone born to command worlds and conditioned from childhood to crush anything that opposed him.

Ventress gasped and dropped one lightsaber. Its crimson blade vanished as the hilt rolled across the floor.

Then, the sarcophagus shattered, and the scroll binding it with.

“No!” Maul screamed, unwilling to believe what he had just lost.

A figure remained suspended midair from where the sarcophagus once was.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, clad in black and gold armor. A dark cloak streamed behind him, untouched by age or decay. One side of his face was strong and severe, marked by the hard beauty of a warrior-prince. The other was concealed beneath an angular mask of gold and black.

The Force sang his name, for he was one of the galaxies most favored children. He was:

Arcann the Awakened.

Twin son of Vitiate, and inheritor of the Eternal Throne, his enemies had frozen him in carbonite, unable to slay him during his time. Cast away on this forgotten planet, and sealed by a powerful scroll, only a powerful sorcerer such as Ventress could trigger the artifact. His loyal followers-unable to free him-had chosen to imprison themselves alongside him, awaiting the day he would be free…today, that day had come!

Arcann exhaled his first breath in millennia, the Force unconsciously pulsing along with this action. As a result of this casual flex, the fragments of his sarcophagus disintegrated into silver dust.

He then stared silently at those who had freed him from his prison.

Maul forced himself upright. Every instinct demanded defiance, but defiance had become difficult beneath that gaze. For the first time since facing Sidious, he felt not like a Sith Lord, but like an animal unworthy of the title.

“We awakened you. You shall serve us, now.” Maul demanded, igniting his blade.

Arcann ignored him, seemingly staring at the ceiling off into nothing. In reality, his mind was reaching out to the stars.

“My empire is gone, my throne stolen. The galaxy that feared my name has forgotten it.”

Power erupted through the chamber as he shared a vision of what was with his two new servants, so that they might understand.

Visions filled the air: Zakuul shining beneath a golden sun, the Eternal Fleet sweeping through Republic and Sith alike, knights marching beneath white banners, and Arcann upon a throne before which the galaxy knelt. Then the images blackened. The throne stood empty. The banners burned, and his grand fleet broke apart one by one. Although he had found redemption with the Outlander, he sensed that the Jedi & Sith were still at war. His sacrifices had meant nothing.

Arcann closed his fist, and the visions shattered. His rage struck the Force like a lightsaber driven at the heart of creation. As if he intended to truly destroy the Force as Darth Kreia had once fantasized.

Across Dagobah, every creature cried out. Clouds spiraled around the temple, and the planet’s rotation seemed to falter.

Maul looked upward, sensing the incredible power surrounding them. He had come seeking a weapon against Revan. Instead, he had awakened a rival to the galaxy itself.

Arcann turned toward the doors. His army rose with him, billions moving as one.

“What is the name of the ruler of this age?” He asked. “What have become of the Sith, the Republic?...the Champion?”

“Darth Sidious, Revan, Vader…perhaps more that I have sensed. The Republic is on its dying legs, nearly extinct.” Maul explained, the words compelled out of his mouth against his will.

Arcann’s expression did not change.

“And the one who defeated you?”

“Revan.”

Arcann paused.

That name drew something from him, not fear, but interest. The faintest spark entered his visible eye, the recognition of a challenge worthy of a conqueror.

“Revan.” Arcann repeated. “Yes, I had heard he played a part in my father's defeat. How interesting.”

Then with a flick of his wrist, shadows enveloped him and the pair of Dathomiri, teleportating them to the tip of the temple. The rain ceased, and a clear sky full of ships greeted their arrival.

“As thanks for your services, you may play a part in my conquest. Order must return to the galaxy. The Jedi & Sith have proven themselves to be fairweather guardians.” Arcann stated, placing his hands behind his back, and speaking in a deep voice.

Maul-internally swearing revenge-reluctantly took one knee. Ventress was soon to follow.

And the galaxy, though it did not yet know his name, had already begun to kneel.

Before long, all would bow before the Dragon of Zakuul!

~~~~~~

AN: I believe this short video helps capture what Arcann is all about:

https://youtu.be/maZvDam1WgE?is=Kts_iwE0l7bzqMwe

https://youtu.be/Nzq9epS2b1A?is=Uadst90pU5rxeM5r

Poor Maul! Dude's collecting L's like they're infinity stones!