Disclaimer: I own nothing and I'm not planning on making any money out of this.
It's my first fic, written for the "How Malak lost his jaw" challenge on Trillian's forums. So, thanks Trillian! I had this idea in my head for some time, but if it wasn't for the challenge I doubt I would have ever actually written it.
There are surely quite a few grammatical errors, due to lack of proofreading and English being my second language.
Also, this is a standalone. It has been written simply to explore this confrontation with Nihilus. It leaves a lot of things unexplained, like how Revan and Malak fell or what the implications of this confrontation may be. Maybe I will get around to write a longer story about the Mandalorian Wars, Malachor V and the fall of Revan and Malak, but that will depend on a few things, including Reviews!
So please Review! I prefer reviews that trash the story in a constructive way. Sort of.
Here goes:
It was dragging at they're very essence. The dark figure in front them registered through the Force, but his…its….signature was unlike anything any of the two exiled Jedi's had ever seen. And they had seen many things. It was tall, as tall as Darth Malak himself, clad in obsidian black robes with a face covered in a red and white mask that revealed only his eye sockets, for the two had no idea if it actually had eyes. It stood there motionless, only its cape, its long black cape, flowing frantically in all directions with the howling and erratic wind in the caverns of Malachor V. If it had ever been human was a moot point, as it was nothing of the sort now.
It felt just like silence. If listening to the Force was listening to the Galaxy sing around you, then looking at the black-clad figure was like becoming deaf all of a sudden – all the tunes and acoustic harmonies suddenly vanishing, leaving only a heavy silence. It felt empty – but an emptiness that tugged at you, a bottomless abyss, not the serene darkness of space, but a never-ending depth of darkness that griped to the very Force within them. The two former Jedi had both, at some point or another, spent hours on end gazing into the darkness of space from the deck of a ship, but now… staring into the two pool of darkness that were his eye-sockets, it was as if they were staring into the depth of a black hole, and they were parsecs past the black hole's horizon – the point of no return.
It felt … hungry - and this hunger was stirred by their powerful Force presences.
The Mandalorian Wars had ended for almost a year now. A year since the Mass Shadow Generator brought about its end. Revan referred to that event simply as "The Silence". Much had happened during that year, though the complete story of what happened would only ever be known by two people, the two people that now referred to themselves as the Dark Lord of the Sith and First Apprentice to the Dark Lord of the Sith, otherwise known as Darth Revan and Darth Malak. Their fleet was en route to Foerost, but they had been compelled to visit Malachor V along the way, to take advantage of the Trayus Academy and its powers. Or maybe that was how they had explained it to themselves – there really was little rational reason for both the supreme commanders to go on such an expedition just as their new fleet was preparing for its first, crucial, strike. Without completely understanding what had lured them here they made their way to an encounter in the Trayus Core
"Who are you?" Revan asked, determination obvious in his voice.
The dark figure said something in a guttural language neither of them understood, and then raised a hand towards them. "I am your end! You exist only to feed me and make me stronger! When you will have fulfilled that purpose you will die and for the Force it will be as if you never existed. " The voice boomed directly in their head, no words spoken from the creature in front of them. "I am Nihilus! I am Hunger! I am the Silence "
And I am Darth Revan, Dark Lord of"
"SILENCE!" The voice boomed in their head, making both former Jedi drop their knees, and cringe in pain. They could already feel themselves weakened; they could feel their brightness in the force slowly drifting towards the emptiness that was Nihilus. "I know who you are! I was here when General Kenali brought this whole world down upon itself! I embraced the pain, the death, the desperation of those being crushed by the hand of gravity and, finally, I embraced the silence! That was what allowed me to reach my full potential in the dark side!
...Die...
And with that it started. Pain! Pain the likes of which they had never experienced before. They felt the Force leaving them – no – being torn from them. Nihilus was absorbing their very essence, their Force Auras drifting towards him even faster. Malak had been close to dying before, but it felt nothing like this. Revan had saved him, he had latched on to him and dragged him back just as he was becoming one with the Force, but this was nothing like it. If this went on Malak felt like there would be no Force for him to become one with. He felt like he was dragged towards a pit of darkness, but there was no blue light of the Force at the far end of the pit. "But, there is no death!" Malak whispered mostly to himself. "There is only the Force!" Or maybe this is what it means to die in dark side; maybe this is what oblivion feels like. Without Malak knowing it, Revan was mirroring these exact same thoughts – before Nihilus' attack became so formidable that it required all of Revan's concentration.
They were strong in the Force, Revan and Malak, but if Nihilus were cynical, he would have summed up their brightness in the Force in one word: appetizing. For now, their strength was leading to their undoing, as whatever strength they could gather to themselves, it only made Nihilus stronger by feeding of it. If Nihilus had a face capable of a smile, he would have smiled. Revan had been called "The Heart of the Force", but Nihilus knew what his attack would leave behind: an empty carcass of flesh, devoid of any trace of the Force.