Note: Just prepare for ass-kicking. And keep Cumberbatch in mind. I do not own Star Wars. Please review.

Darkness

Chapter 2- Death and Revelation

Ben stared at the near-thirty Sith that surrounded them at the steps of the temple on Dromund Kaas.

"I know we're spectacular Jedi and all, but they might be approaching overkill territory." He murmured.

"We're not here for you." A deep, melodious voice rang from the center of the circle. A voice they all recognized. Gavar Khai stepped forward. He gazed at Vestara, an barely concealed expression of pain and relief on his face. "For the entire journey here, I had thought it better that Tahka could not now see how very far you have fallen, daughter."

"What do you mean?" Vestara asked, pain and fear in her voice.

"Tahv has been destroyed. Your mother is dead."

For once, Vestara's composure seemed to crack. Her face became a picture of horror and sorrow, and she just stopped short of cupping her hands over her mouth before she regained control of herself.

"You can't possibly think we had anything-" Luke began.

"We know who committed this act, Skywalker. Abeloth told us many things in the wake of the loss, and it is our understanding that the man responsible is of interest to you as well."

Luke would have laughed if he hadn't been surrounded by a pack of angry, grieving Sith.

"If you're proposing an alliance, I remember your claims the last time we tried to chase a supposed mutual foe. And I remember exactly how truthful those claims were."

Khai slowly unhooked his lightsaber and handed it to the Sith on his right. He slowly approached Luke.

"What would you have me do to convince you that I speak the truth?"

Luke thought, and realized he could easily tell whether Gavar was being honest.

"There's a technique-"

"From the Listeners of Nam Chorios. I will consent, if it will convince you."

That caught Luke, and everyone else, off-guard. If Khai was willing to let Luke into his mind, view his memories… maybe he was telling the truth.

The process had been slow-going, something Ben attributed to the innately distrustful nature of the Sith. But eventually, Luke accessed the relevant memories in Khai's mind, and let them play out for all to see.

A ship, darting above a city of exquisite glass buildings, raining down lazers and fire and death. Khai's rage and loss as he felt his wife die in one of a series of strikes. The ship crashing and detonating. The face of the pilot. The same man they had encountered in the pumping station on Nam Chorios. The man who had murdered innocents in the process of being corrupted by Abeloth, claiming death was the only way to ensure they would not turn to serve her will.

Luke let the technique end.

"Do you believe me now, Skywalker?"

"I do. But that doesn't explain how you know this man is of interest to us."

"As I said, Abeloth told us much before we came here. And she gave us something as well."

"What?"

"A number of devices. Devices that might bring our mutual enemy to heel, that we might make him suffer for all he has done."

Luke was about to ask what exactly Abeloth had given them that would stop this man, when a series of lazer bolts struck the back of the Sith ranks.

Turning, Ben could see a tall man standing at the top of the temple steps, clad in a gray cloak, his face mostly concealed, firing a large rifle down at the Sith. He held the rifle with one hand and wielded it as easily as he might wield a blaster pistol. In his other hand, held lightly, was a massive cannon, easily large enough to be mounted on a starship as a weapon.

Lightsabers flared to life and Sith began charging up the steps.

"Bring the ships in, now!" Ben heard Khai yell. There was a loud booming noise and Ben saw three attack shuttles break through the clouds, streaking towards the man.

The mysterious assailant hoisted the enormous cannon in his right hand up and a giant burst of red light and heat erupted from it, casting the courtyard in a pale red. The cockpit exploded in a ball of fire. Turning the cannon as if he barely felt its surely massive weight, the man shot down the other two shuttles, which crashed into the ranks of the Sith. Circling around to avoid debris, Ben watched as the man fired bursts from his rifle, causing Sith to raise their lightsabers to block the initial shot, only to fall as others blew through their legs or shoulders and heads. Turning as one approached him, he leapt vertically over the swinging red blade. He swung the cannon in his right hand around, catching the Sith on his head. Bringing himself down, he used the barrel of the weapon to smash the Sith's head against the floor. He then brought the weapon to bear on those who had yet to reach him but had passed the wreckage of the ships. The lightsabers proved ineffective at halting blasts of such force, and the weapon's and man's speed both negated the Siths' abilities to dodge the beams. Turning the arm possessing the rifle and firing a flurry of bolts into a Sith attempting to sneak up on his left side, the man tossed the cannon to the ground and yanked down the mask surrounding his face.

He was the very man they sought.

The man ran forward and jumped, high above and over the wreckage of the ships, sailing across the steps at a height of almost ten feet above them. He descended firing, blowing holes in one Sith while he drove his boot into the head of one directly beneath him, crushing her head to pieces beneath his heel.

Such a leap should have been impossible for anyone but an extraordinarily powerful Force-user. But Ben hadn't sensed even the slightest exertion. The man threw his rifle to the ground and ducked a red lightsaber, punching up and catching the arm at the elbow, snapping the limb. He tore the lightsaber from the warrior's grasp and decapitated the man. Spinning around he hurled the blade straight into the heart of another Sith before turning to the final few that remained. One stood slightly separate from the group that now rushed towards him, heedless of the danger he clearly represented. The man reached out and flexed his fingers.

Ben felt the Force heave and writhe, and the one Sith who stood apart seemed to explode, ripped to pieces by the Force. The man thrust his other arm outward violently, and a blast of telekinetic power tore into the rest of the group, blasting them back while crushing and pulping those at the forefront, uprooting trees and shifting water and dirt for yards behind them as they flew out of sight.

The man reached down and grabbed his rifle from the ground, approaching Gavar Khai who had stared, disbelieving at the carnage.

Luke activated his lightsaber and started forward.

The man's arm blurred and seemed to burst into light and suddenly Luke found himself missing his cybernetic hand from the wrist downwards. His clenched fist, lightsaber still gripped, fell to the ground beside his foot.

"How many?" the man demanded, turning the barrel of the weapon back towards Gavar Khai. He hadn't even turned to look at Luke when he'd blown the Grand Master's hand off.

"What?" Khai asked softly, the expression of disbelief still on his face.

"The devices, the objects you received from Abeloth that you claimed might bring me to heel. How many are there?"

"Seventy-two."

The man stepped closer. He was within arms' length of Khai now.

"And where are they now?"

Khai did not answer. "You can tell me, or I can tear the answer from your mind. I'm told the experience is supremely unpleasant."

Khai remained silent. The man reached out and grasped his head with one hand while closing his eyes in concentration. Khai's face twitched. His expression slowly shifted into one of intense pain. The man's eyes opened and he removed his hand. The man turned, an expression of disbelieving hope on his face. He seemed to remember where he was and what he'd done when three lightsabers activated and pointed towards him. Luke had retrieved his still-active saber from his lost hand and followed suit.

The man tossed his rifle to the ground and held his hands up.

"I surrender." He said.

Vestara started forward, deactivating her saber as she did so. Ben moved to follow her, but Luke reached out and held him back. That left him utterly perplexed. Granted, the fact that this man who clearly had no reason to give himself up but had done so anyway was also strange. But his dad letting Ves take the lead? Especially considering what this man had done. Unless that was the point; a passive-aggressive test of her ability to control herself.

"Your surrender is accepted." Vestara said calmly, but Ben could just feel her anger, the barely controlled rage she felt towards the man standing before her. She turned and began to walk away, before she spun around and swung the hilt of her saber into the man's face. She did this several more times, occasionally driving it into the man's gut or ribs. The man stumbled back a few steps, but when Vestara finally had to pause for the weakness caused by all the blows she'd struck, he raised his face.

There wasn't a mark on him. No bruise, no cut, nothing. The only sign anything had happened to him at all was a slight shift in the position of a few strands of his sweat-drenched hair. This seemed to enrage Vestara further and she resumed her attacks, driving her saber hilt and fists into the man again and again.

"Ves!" Ben yelled.

She stepped back, panting. Yet again, there was no sign of any damage to man. He smirked at her, then held his arms out, wrists close together and awaiting stun cuffs.

Now, I realize that Khan might be a severe case of The Worf Effect, but the reason he's so powerful and nigh-unstoppable will become clear. And hopefully make sense.