Chapter Text
There were brilliant flashes of light in the dark. Lines of blue and green blurred with the motions of close combat, the low hum of the glowing blades echoing in all directions. That sound would have been almost soothing if not for the interrupting harsh cracks of flaring plasma rising above all other noise. Those lines of light were projected from the hands of four keepers of the peace, each of them now fighting for their lives in a place of darkness that went beyond just the literal sense, each of them now in a deadly situation they might have never expected to encounter in their lives. They were Jedi, all of them knights of the Republic— save for just one among them.
A padawan entirely out of his element slowly retreated backwards and up the dilapidated stone steps, his emerald green blade held out in defense. The steady mechanical tread of the droids that should’ve been too ancient to move with any semblance of grace filled his ears as they came up after him, the electro-swords they clutched in metal hands crackling with arcs of yellow energy. The young Jedi swung his saber to catch the blade of a droid at his right, immediately dragging it over to his left just in time to fend off another that might have brought him low.
The padawan’s blue eyes were blown as wide as they could go in his attempt to take in as much information as possible, his lips tightly pursed, his shoulders tight with tension even as they constantly shifted with the violent movements of his arms. The impacts bathed him in the green glow of his lightsaber, every successful act of defense nearly blinding him as he took one backwards step after another. Two droids were bearing down on him now— but he could see the six-eyed heads of more at the base of the monolith just beginning their ascent. A hurried glance over his shoulder showed him what he already knew: The three other Jedi with him were in similarly dire straits, droids closing in from all sides, ready to beat them all down, and then to death.
His head snapped back forward— the Force alerting him to the coming danger— and he just barely managed to sidestep the downward swing of a crackling sword, the weapon passing close enough by him that he felt the displaced air it sliced through. He’d been right to dodge instead of blocking. The droid had overextended, and the padawan was quick to capitalize. His blade came in a horizontal arc, cleaving through the neck joint of the warrior droid with an accompanying shower of sparks heralding the end of just one of the droids bearing down on him…but there had been another close by, and the padawan had made the same mistake as the droid he’d just destroyed. He’d overextended. His hands moved blindingly quick, a desperate twirl of his blade to try and meet the one coming for him, but he was just a fraction too slow. The heavy blade slammed into his upper arm, the weight behind it and the pain that spiked up his arm making him sure that it was broken. He’d never broken a limb before.
The shock came after, a searing heat that traveled down and up his arm to spread across his body, his muscles locking painfully tight, the skin at the point of contact blistering. He tried to take another step back, only for his boot to catch on something soft. He fell back against the stone, and found himself parallel with the hooded corpse that tripped him up, the droid looming over him. That corpse, the body of a mad cultist…it’d been one he’d made. The first sentient life the padawan had ever taken. Ironic that it would be that taken life that might spell the end of his own. He stared up into the crimson optics of the droid as it raised its sword, and lifted his lightsaber with his good arm to make some last attempt at defense.
“Kovus!” Came a cry from higher up, the once distant sounds of another lightsaber rapidly closing in, growing louder until they matched the padawan’s own in volume. A blue blade was swung by a figure who dropped down from a higher level, the droid proving completely incapable of defending itself fast enough. It was split straight down the middle, a cross-section of glowing metal revealed as it fell apart into ancient junk. The padawan stared up into the blue-lit face of his master, an immediate wave of relief washing over him at the sight of her. “Thank you, master…” She nodded, and held out a hand to him. He took it with his injured arm for lack of any other options, and ignored the pain as she hauled him up. “There’s more, apprentice. Stand ready.” Her padawan Kovus nodded, and they both looked down the steps at the mass of droids still coming up after them.
Each droid had a trio of crimson optics, all of them blazing with what felt like hatred, even if the robots were incapable of feeling such a thing. How many had they felled already? The padawan couldn’t tell, but it clearly wasn’t enough, not with so many still left standing. He let out a heavy breath, the fatigue weighing on him almost more than the pain in his arm did. He wasn’t sure how many more he could cut down before they dealt him the same blow. He felt his master’s attention on him then, and turned to look reflexively at the blindfold where eyes would have otherwise been. “Together, Kovus. We can’t let them reach us again.” The padawan sensed the master’s intentions, and nodded, shifting his hilt into the hand of his injured arm. The two Jedi raised their dominant hands as one, pulled them back, and pushed forward. A violent and invisible wave of power projected from their palms simultaneously, joining together in a single blast of telekinetic force. It slammed into the oncoming droids, the armor-plating of the nearest and most unfortunate of their number crumpling inwards and then flying apart, unable to handle the strain. The entire mass of them was thrown back in a tangle of metal limbs spewing modulated beeps and cries of alarm all the way back down.
The padawan let out a sigh of relief and exertion in equal measure, such a powerful move having taken quite a toll even with the help of his master, but they’d given themselves some breathing room. Both master and padawan nearly allowed themselves to take a breather…when they felt the jolt of dark power pierce their minds from above. The heads of all four Jedi whirled around towards the source of the spike, regardless of any danger that might’ve approached from below. There at the summit of the monolithic pyramid, they saw the blood-red crystal— the artifact they had come to destroy, if they could do nothing else to stop it— and the being that had just activated it. A cultist who had already been half-dead to begin with was hunched over the crystal, his body impaled on its sharpest point, blood pouring endlessly over its glassy surface, a crimson glow within its depths beginning to grow in intensity as it was fed by the dark ichor. It was a seed of darkness watered by the blood of a slavering devout, and then, in the depths of that temple devoted to that same darkness, it awakened.
The body of the cultist impaled on the bloody artifact disintegrated in a flash of crimson light heralding yet more pulses of energy, the encroaching darkness immediately overthrown by searing arcs of crimson lightning firing out in all directions. The padawan raised his green blade to catch a bolt headed straight for his heart, the saber flaring as it bore the full weight of that crimson power, his grip tight on the handle as he fought to not be blown over entirely by the sheer force behind the attack. His fellow Jedi raised their blades to do the same— only one of them seemed to fail to react entirely. The padawan watched in horror as his master not only failed to block the arc flying towards her, but seemed to fail to even perceive the incoming danger. The Miralukan Jedi Master had always seen the world around her through the Force with a perception that seemed to go beyond what the others around her, her lack of normal eyes never having seemed to be a hindrance in the slightest in all her years. Her padawan had never once caught her unawares, nor had he ever thrown a strike in their training that she had not perceived and expertly countered. Her Force sight had never failed her…until now.
Somehow, the crimson electricity had evaded her perception and her defenses, and struck her chest in a flash of red, her cry of pain reaching the ears of her padawan even over the near-deafening sounds of the lightning crackling against his lightsaber. He sensed the pain she felt, shared the sensation of her lifeforce being drawn out of her body and into the crystal through their bond. He couldn’t rush to her side, couldn’t move to destroy the source of her pain, and couldn’t even be sure he’d be able to resist the full power of the artifact bearing down on him for much longer. He grit his teeth, biting down the un-Jedi-like growl of frustration and desperation that threatened to come out, and felt the strength of his one good arm failing with every passing second…when the assault suddenly ceased. His shoulders slumped forward as he let out a ragged breath, the manifestations of the dark side retreating back into the crystal to fester and gather for a second onslaught he could sense would be coming. His master needed his help— she was alive, he felt it, but even if he could rush to her side and defend against the next attack that sought to drain her lifeforce…but he didn’t trust that he’d be able to withstand a second, himself. There was only one choice.
The padawan rushed up the stone steps in a blur of motion, the Force lending his limbs speed and strength as he bound up the steep blocks of rock several at a time, headed straight for the artifact even as it gathered power. “K-Kovus, No!” Called his master, but he wouldn’t stop. Why should he have? Destroying the crystal was the only way to save her and himself, and his other fellows clearly felt the same way. He saw the flashing light of two other lightsabers approaching the crystal, their owners no doubt having reached the same conclusion after feeling that power firsthand, but Padawan Kovus wouldn’t be beaten to his quarry. The young Jedi leapt into the air, thrusting the emerald point of his saber forwards as he sailed into range, its light clashing with the crimson glow that grew ever brighter, the sound of crackling lightning reaching his ears once again in the moment before his weapon pierced the artifact’s outer shell. The red light exploded out of the crystal once more, yet whereas once it had fired in all directions indiscriminate…this time it focused on just three points. The Jedi coming to destroy it. The two knights approaching from the sides were overwhelmed even when they made an attempt at defense. The padawan, for his part, had never intended to defend in the first place.
Draining electricity seared through their bodies, burning and destroying whilst simultaneously pulling out the very lifeforce of its victims, ripping out the very aspects of the Force that gave them their power. In that single, mind numbingly painful moment of time, Kovus understood why his master had tried to stop him. She had felt the artifact’s power herself before any of them had, and because of that brush with death, understood that she’d only been spared thanks to her distance from the artifact, even that brief contact nearly draining her entirely of the living Force. For the three Jedi who had come within whispering distance of the dark crystal…death was certain. Every last drop of power was torn from their bodies, ending their lives before the depths of their pain could even be fully experienced, but not too soon for Kovus’ blade to reach its target. The green lightsaber cut into the flaring crystal as easily as it did all else, and in the same moment that the Sith artifact had finished sucking up all the power of the Jedi— it all exploded back out in a rush that shattered its form into countless raining crystals of blood-red glass.
With nowhere else to go and the padawan’s soon-to-be corpse the closest one at hand, the power could only flow into him. The power and potential his body had lost came rushing back as quickly as he had lost it, alongside that of the other Jedi in the chamber, but it did not come gently. The body flew through the air like a ragdoll, crashing harshly against the stone steps of the monolith more than once on its way down, tumbling roughly all the way to the bottom. It landed in a heap at the base of the great pyramid amongst the wreckage of so many destroyed droids, the remnants of the red lightning crackling over the charred robes before sputtering out into nothingness. The would-be corpse laid there in the settling silence of the chamber, completely unmoving, and completely devoid of life. Kovus had died instantly, and the return of the Force to his body had done nothing to change that fact. His master lay doubled over halfway up the monolith, flickering in and out of consciousness, the sole survivor of the Jedi team sent to stop the artifact from causing just such a tragedy. Kovus had destroyed it…but only at a cost that would be felt harshly by the Order in this time of relative peace.
The corpse of Kovus Tayn laid there for a few moments longer, its closed eyes facing up towards the distant ceiling. But only for a few moments. Aching muscles tensed, and a rasping breath blew past a pair of bloody lips. The eyes were last. The padawan’s eyes blinked open in confusion, staring out into the darkness above and all around. But the being who opened those eyes was not Kovus.