[Fic] Between Shadows

[The_Catto]

That chapter really had an impact on me. I mean really.

I was actually suprised as to how much of an impact it had. The seperation of the crew from lei was sad. Especially at the last coupld of paragraphs.

 

Great work! That's what i like about a story, something to bring the emotion out! Excellent stuff! Cannot wait, for the next installment!

[mailboris]

OMG its so sad!! quick quick end it....i wana know what happens!!

its so beautiful and yet so tragic... *sob*

magic.

[Bee Hoon]

Thanks Mr_BFA and mailboris:) There's going to be a few more long chapters... Next one's not done and I've got a test on Friday that I *should* be studying for. Erm. I better go=p

[The_Catto]

Hehe, ahh exams. How i despised them so ... How i still despise them so, (even when i don't have to do anymore, they still bug me) lol.

 

Anyways, back on topic .... hoooope theeee neeext chaaaaps are sooooon-ah

[Bee Hoon]

What, no more exams? Good for you... I'm going to be taking them till I'm old and grey=p Here's an extremely long update!

 

* * *

 

The exile stepped out of the shadows and strode towards me. She stopped several metres away, and lowered the hood of her robe. I hardened my heart, calling the power of the Dark Side to me, but her beauty still made me waver. There was something about her that was terribly sad, a wistfulness that only served to sharpen her beauty.

 

“You should not have come to Malachor. She will break you. Your mind… Your body. Return to the surface. Let the planet claim you, as it claimed the other Jedi. There is no reason for you to suffer at her hands.” I would not give Traya the chance to destroy her. It would better if she died by my hand, or perished in the storm that raged around this dead planet.

 

“Are you showing me mercy?” Her voice was very quiet. She did not realize that those who had never received mercy would never show such weakness.

 

“It is not mercy. What awaits you will weaken you. She will break you, as she did me, and you will no longer know yourself.”

 

She was silent for a long moment, her eyes taking in every detail of my broken body. The crew of the Harbinger had been repulsed by my grey cracked flesh, but she simply gazed at me with that same melancholy that had marked her all along.

 

“Why are you telling me this?”

 

“You and her are alike, yet different in all the ways that matter. And I hate you as I hate her. I hate you because you crawl within my head as she does, but your presence holds no thoughts, no teachings. You are just…there. Unspoken. I hate you because you are beautiful to me. And in that weakness lies death. Perhaps in that weakness is the death of my master, as well.”

 

“What is Kreia’s weakness?” Her eyes were so very dark, betraying nothing of her thoughts.

 

She should have realised what my master’s weakness was, after traveling with her for so long. “What it has always been. Her weakness is you.” For once, I understood my master’s mind. The beautiful exile would be forged into perfection, or she would be broken.

 

“Kreia told me your will is what holds you together.”

 

“The power of the dark side is what holds me together. Many times have I been near death – and always have I been in pain.” That was what had sustained me when the shadows had engulfed Malachor V, the planet reaching out with greedy fingers and crushing us to it. The pain and the darkness that had already been growing in me made me live.

 

But I had fallen before that. On Dxun, where my entire unit fell to mines and Mandalorian traps, I had gone mad with rage, slaughtering the Mandalorians. My first taste of the Dark Side, and I can remember still, the sweet taste of power. I had almost died, but a healer had saved me.

 

“You can turn away from the Force, Sion, as I did. It holds you here. Let go.” Her voice had always seemed oddly familiar. The gentleness with which she spoke now made it even more so.

 

My blinded eye throbbed painfully, momentarily overwhelming the pain from the rest of my body. The fool, she didn’t know what I endured, how only the Force kept even more agony at bay. “One cannot abandon the Force, any more than one can abandon one’s will.”

 

She had looked away, and I could feel her reinforcing her mental guards. Now she looked straight at me. “We need not do battle, Sion. You have been a presence within my mind as well.”

 

She was not lying.

 

“Then turn from this place. Do not go to her. Preserve yourself.” She felt me, as I felt her. It was strange, this connection. It has been almost a decade since I had experienced such a thing. The emptiness within my spirit was somehow amplified by her presence. “You are strong… I cannot see as she does, but I know, that in time, you shall surpass her power. But not here, not in this place.”

 

She would not be dissuaded. I could see it in the set of her jaw. “I’m not turning back. Stand aside.”

 

“I cannot. If you pass, you shall not return as you are now.” It was not something I could allow. “Return to Malachor - or go through me. There is no middle ground.”

 

“Then let us end this. I bear no hatred for you, Sion, but I must pass.”

 

I hesitated. But how could I? Here was the bane of my existence, the reason Traya would never respect me. “I am ready for you, exile. I have waited years to see the last of the Jedi fall before me, to join the rest the lie buried within this planet’s core. The end of the Jedi is at hand.”

 

They were our brothers and sisters.

 

Her grief thrummed through my mind. How dare she invade my thoughts!

 

I ignited my lightsaber and was upon her an instant later. She merely dodged my Force jump gracefully, ducking sideways and parrying with her silver blades. My lightsaber slid down hers harmlessly, sending a shower of sparks which burnt minute holes in her oversized robe and singed my skin slightly. Before I could react, she kicked me forcefully in the back of my knees, and her short lightsaber sliced upwards, searing into my chest.

 

She stepped back after I fell to the ground heavily, still on guard. As the scar tissue sealed off the new wound, I could hear her heart fluttering, feebly sustaining her fragile life. The pain drove me on and up, and I got back to my feet as the Force wove its dark tendrils into the fibres of my scarred being.

 

“Now you realize the true power of the Dark Side. As long as the dark places of this world flow through the cracks of my flesh, I cannot be killed.”

 

She was completely unimpressed. “This battle was never about flesh, it was about belief.” An instant later, she rolled backwards as my lightsaber came plunging down. Still on the ground, she slashed at my legs, and used the Force to propel herself to safety when I parried and struck at her with all my strength.

 

We eyed each other warily, both on guard. She was breathing heavily. All I would have to do was wear her out. Only a fool would have sought to challenge me here, where the Dark Side had transformed me and the gravity was twice that of Coruscant. The weakling Jedi would soon be exhausted.

 

The flesh on my face stretched painfully into a grim smile as I closed the distance between us. She locked her sabers together and deflected the blow sideways, staggering slightly from the force of it. I kicked out at her exposed abdomen, and she only managed to twist sideways slightly before it connected solidly.

 

Cariaga Sin.

 

I knew Cariaga. She had died on Dxun. There were just too many of them. We had fought, and fought on even with the death-cries ringing in our ears. She died…painfully.

 

Curiously, I scarcely felt any pain as the lightsaber cut through my arm smoothly. The cho mai. What a clever little Jedi. Seeking to literally disarm me instead of killing me outright, which was impossible.

 

I could feel the heat from the silver lightsabers held to my neck. She really was quite impressive. No Jedi thus far had both the strength and the intelligence to survive so long against me. “You are strong…as strong as I had believed. But she knows you cannot defeat me. Surrender now and return to the surface of Malachor. Do not force me to destroy you.”

 

She watched with a sickened fascination as I used the Force to lift my severed arm to its proper position, and grey flesh joined it, before the bones realigned in the hinge joint. Her dark eyes glinted as she spoke, “She has chosen me because I gave up the Force – and you could not. Let go, and you will understand.”

 

After seeing what the Force did for me, the fool still could insist that letting go of this power was wise! “There is no life without the Force…the Force is a blade, without it, one is defenseless.”

 

Her lip curled in amusement. “Yet I survived. And I am strong enough to face you now.”

 

“She sought you out because both of you were wounded by the Force – and because she had no choice. She would not willingly return to being the helpless woman she once was… nor would her apprentice.” They had experienced the helplessness once, and she was hypocritical enough to suggest that she would do so twice.

 

That is not the reason I use the Force.

 

Then why?

 

Because I want to feel the fabric of the universe, experiencing it outside of these limited physical senses. Because I want to save as many as I can.

 

“Surrender now, Sion. I don’t want to kill you.”

 

“If you will not leave this place, then I cannot allow you to pass. If you go before her, you will be broken. If killing you will spare you what lies ahead, then kill you I must…”

 

My master would destroy her.

 

My lightsaber hilt hit the back of her head with a dull crack. She instinctively dropped into a tight roll before it reached my hand. Getting to her feet unsteadily, she barely could fend off my powerful flurry of blows.

 

Xasat Terep.

 

He had been a good man. His bones rested somewhere on this graveyard planet. No one mourned him. He was lost to his family as a child, and lost to the Jedi when he defied their “good and Light-sided ways” to fight for the Republic.

 

My head snapped sideways when she struck me, augmenting her own strength with the Force. Disoriented, I fell over after a few steps, the pain everywhere else subdued compared to the throbbing in my skull. For the first time, I actually considered the possibility of her beating me. She seemed to already have recovered from the blow I had dealt her.

 

“If I die here, then you will have sealed your fate.”

 

“I am stronger than you expected – and I am stronger than Kreia expects. Let me confront her, and we shall see.” For a moment, I saw her burn bright. Her fire was indomitable.

 

“There is truth in your words… but there is nothing left for me except my master.” I had destroyed everything else. “I fight because it is the power that the Force fills me with. To survive, to inflict pain on others. I can die a hundred times, exile, and still I will rise, as strong as before.”

 

The Force was so easy to manipulate. The burst of energy hurled her backwards and she reflexively cut off the flow of the Force that she used to keep her lightsabers burning. It was a good thing that she did, as she would have had multiple injuries from the deadly weapons otherwise. Springing to her feet, she coiled her legs and jumped. I misjudged the distance of her jump; I had stepped onto the spot that I estimated would be just behind her point of impact with the ground, but the hilts of her lightsabers pressed into the hollow behind each collarbone. In that brief instant when she was fully upright, standing on her hands above me, she ignited her lightsabers and my torso exploded in pain.

 

She must have landed behind me, because I felt the burn of lightsabers searing into my back as I fell. Slowly, she circled me until she was facing me, still wary.

 

I coughed as the acrid smoke of my own flesh filled my lungs. “I will not fall. I cannot die.” Never had I been so…tired.

 

“You already have been defeated, Sion. Surrender, and I will spare you.”

 

“Why… why did she choose you? What makes you able to defeat me, defeat me here?” I had pushed too far. The wounds remained. The pain intensified as the Force began to drift out of my control.

 

“In giving up the Force, one can gain strengths that would be impossible otherwise.” She kicked my lightsaber out of reach. She need not have worried.

 

“It is not possible to walk away from such things unscarred. To keep living when the universe dies around you.” I knew I was dying. I had been dying all these years, but these were the final minutes. She had been my weakness. I had known it from the moment I had first laid eyes on her.

 

“To face death and keep standing- it leaves scars, yes. But it leaves room to heal.” She knelt before me, and I could hear the subtle whispering within her mind. The deathwatch she kept for all the dead, both for those who had died fighting for her or died by her hand.

 

“The Force is who I am – the dark side fills me. It is what I am.” It was deserting me. The pain was unbearable. As I fought for air, the exquisite agony made my vision fade into blackness.

 

“It is the truth, Sion… you feel it. Let go. It is not such a terrible thing.”

 

I forced myself to my feet, wheezing and weakened. It didn’t matter. She had to be warned. “Kreia, she will try to break you, to teach you how far someone can fall. Her weakness… is you. As you were mine. I am glad to leave this place… at last.”

 

She caught me as I fell, and I felt my pain flow into her. She gasped, and then gently soothed the sharp edges of the agony. I felt that familiar healing touch and I understood at last.

 

Dxun. Talvon Esan.

 

In the pupils of her eyes, I saw myself… as I had been. Her final gift to me.

 

You will not be forgotten.

 

* * *

[mailboris]

OH god i love that one. you've finally given me the action i crave...wahaha i jus love the way you killed him!!! *gleefully evil grin* i wonder if we can get lucasarts to include a jump-over-rival-and-land-on-top-of-him-then-ignite-lightsabers move i really really enjoyed that bit. keep 'em comin won't ya...?i'll be waiting

[Bee Hoon]

I know it's been a long while, but constant exams+ alternate plot gizkas= distracted beehoon. I definitely need to revise the fic, which I shall do in July. Or August. Heh.

* * *

 

The Force was simultaneously deafeningly silent and raging in a maelstrom, drowning every sense I had. It was too much like that moment nine years ago. The crushing weight of thousands of deaths which preceded the long silence taunts me again, pulling at my mind and scattering all coherent thought in a thousand directions. I struggle to collect myself, and she watches me with her atrophied eyes.

 

“I owe you explanations, do I not? I promised that there would be no more secrets between us.”

 

“It’s not too late to turn back.” The words come out as a whisper, caught by the wind and borne away into the vortex. I fight back the numbness permeating my heart, cut off from all things by the echo’s resonance.

 

But she understands. Her expression softens, and for a moment, she just looks tired, so very tired. “My fate was sealed years ago, exile.” She casts her gaze about her, perceiving the titanic monument through the Force. “This is the final piece of the puzzle. In this place, you are alone, as you had been for so many years. This is where it began. What will you choose, exile? Will you choose silence again?”

 

She straightened up abruptly, and ignited her lightsaber. The blood-red light pierced the gloom, accenting the harsh lines of her bitter smile. “Come, exile. I have waited for this long enough.” And her dark shadow bore down upon me.

 

I side-stepped quickly, and she twisted around with unnatural speed. I parried her blows mechanically, and I could sense her anger.

 

“You do not use the Force. Is silence your choice?” She knocks me back powerfully, but I drop into a backward roll, not fighting the momentum, and spring to my feet.

 

“Did you not compare it to poison?” She slashed at me, and I used both of my sabers to catch hers in a lock.

 

“But that is not how it is to you!” She used the Force to augment her strength, and broke free. I let the screams echo through my head again, and kicked her hard in the solar plexus, the Force bursting out of my fingers as I pinned her in stasis.

 

She grunted as she struggled out of the stasis. “You do not fight me with everything you have. And you cannot keep living in the past!” I felt her settle the Force around me like a heavy mantle, and she snapped it tight, lifting me off the ground.

 

My ribs cracked, the crunch of broken bone loud in my ears. I could feel the pressure in my blood vessels building up, and fine pinpricks of pain on the whites of my eye as the capillaries burst. The voices roared as I burned through her grip on me, gasping for breath involuntarily as I fell to the floor.

 

She waited for me to get up, saber held loosely by her side. “You cannot undo what you have done. Do not keep doubting yourself! Consider this: what would have been the outcome if you did not choose what you did?”

 

My answer is punctuated by shallow breaths. “I don’t know. I tried my best, and I failed them.”

 

Swinging her saber upwards, she aims for my vulnerable left side. She broke most of the ribs on that side by design, apparently. I spin around, ignoring the pain and the voices, and there was a soft sound as her arm hit the ground.

 

“There’s still time to save you. I will not strike you down.”

 

Her face contorted in rage. “I will not suffer your pity!” Three violet lightsabers ignited before her, spread out in a fan.

 

They looked exactly like Revan’s had.

 

She smiled knowingly, and all three lightsabers launched themselves at me. I threw them back with the Force. The one nearest to me exploded as I brought my own saber down on its hilt. I ducked as the other two swooped towards me, and threw myself into a tight roll as both of them stabbed the ground where I had been an instant before, melting the stone. My lightsabers scythed through the air towards them, and a powerful shockwave threw me backwards.

 

I did not feel any pain with the impact. I felt the side of my head meet the wall with great force, and I felt my brain thumping with the aftershock. It felt like a dream, the painful pulsing of my brain, the echo of the voices. I saw two violet beams of light flying towards me, and I gathered the Force to me, and unleashed it as the maelstrom that raged in my head. The lightsabers were pushed into the void, and she staggered backwards.

 

My step was strangely light as I walked towards her. She was wrapping me with the Force again, getting ready to crush the life out of me, when I ignited both of my lightsabers, and the silver beams of energy pierced her body.

 

She fell to her knees, gasping in agony. “It is done. At last, it is done.”

 

I kneel beside her as she falls to the floor, and take her hand. “It’s never too late.” My voice is slurred, and her white death mask is dancing before my eyes.

 

“It means much to me, that even now, you still would try to save me. But it’s too late for me. Save yourself. Know this, child. I have only ever lied to you about one thing. I knew who you were all along. I knew of your bond to Revan.”

 

“Why?” She did not reply for a long time, her eyes staring at the grey sky, unseeing.

 

“You don’t know why he fell? That is where it all stems from, and that is what you wish to know. And you do.” She chuckled dryly, and it ended in a hollow cough. “You can’t keep running forever. You can’t keep hiding from the truth.” Her voice grew weaker yet she spoke with a strange fervor. “Trust in yourself, Lei. I have told you this before, and now I tell you again. All of your choices up to this point have made you who you are. Do not live in the past. Trust in yourself…Face down your demons. Let me tell you of the future.”

 

When she had finished, for a moment, she looked straight at me, and she smiled. It was the first genuine smile I had seen on her face, a mother’s smile as she looked at her beloved child.

 

Kreia’s voice grew softer. “I wish I could show you how you truly are.” She sighed, and I felt her spirit leave her body.

[Lord Spitfire]

Wow.

 

This is Fic is beautiful. Where do I start. The character conflict is amazing and well done, you've changed the dialogue perfectly to match the mood and the pacing of the current situation, you have great details, LAYERED details and fit perfectly onto each other and with amazing flow.

 

I'm really looking forward for the next chapter.

 

My Rating:

 

9.8/10

[Davinq]

The first person perspective is rarely pulled off as well as it is here. Well done. I'm now inspired to make a fic of my own KOTOR story.

[Bee Hoon]

Lord Spitfire, thanks:) It might be a while in coming, 'cuz I've a major exam in July, plus I haven't decided whose POV it should be from. There's a rough draft, but needs heavy editing before it's readable. The game's very inspiring...

 

Davinq, by all means, write it! I'll definitely read and review when I have the time. I'm still not completely happy with the first person, but I think that I can't possibly add anymore detail without boring my readers out of their minds:p

[The_Catto]

Another wonderful installment, Beehoon

Excellent work. And it will be even better once it's polished up!