Episode 1 Part 1- Beginning of the End

My name is Varus Wynn.

It's the name the Jedi gave me when I was their pet slave. Long story short: I was a Miraluka taken in by a Sith, I became a Sith to exact revenge on him for wiping out my family and to remove my own guilt, I killed a lot of Jedi in the process under the name 'Starkiller, the Jedi brainwashed me, named me Varus Wynn, and handed me over to Anakin Skywalker. Nihilus, my Sith master, was not happy. He orchestrated events to restore my memory, and wiped the Jedi out. I had been impacted enough as a Jedi to make a choice, and I chose… neither, really. I chose to turn my back on being a Sith, but also to walk away from being a Jedi. I went to prison for my crimes. Following events turned me into a slave, where I gained a niece and brother, and because some big-bad Sith decided that one of me wasn't sexy enough, he had to make a dozen more.

The answer for what happens when you put two of me in the same room: A lot of fun for all the little me's. Not so much for everyone else. Turns out my clones were unleashed to hunt down Anakin and Nihilus. In the confusion, I was broken out of slavery and hired to help fix it all. There were ups and downs. Had my family restored, and lost it again. Started on the wrong side with Ahsoka, but then we got married. Don't even get me started on the situation with my own people, that's a rollercoaster of its own. As well as the drama with my brother… and with Anakin… And with just about everyone really.

Did I mention Nihilus is imprisoned in a crystal used by the Prior's of the Eternal Hand?

Or that we found Anakin's long lost family? Turns out he is ascended from demi-gods.

Or that my mother commited suicide to not kill my brother who tried to destroy my entire people and was clinically insane with half of his body skeletonized and was considered the Son of Nihilus?

And people wonder why I am insane?

'You know you are just standing there talking to yourself right?'

See? It's starting already.

'Varus, come on.'

I have to get myself pumped up. Shush. I put my hands out and breathe in and out. Be tranquil. Be at peace. Be in control.

'So you stand around saying 'I am Varus Wynn' to pump yourself up?' Ahsoka mocks me. 'I am Varus Wynn. I am idiot. I am man. I am make fire.'

You're breaking Varus's zen, 'Shoka.

'I am speak third-person.' She continues.

Don't make me get back there and kick your ass in another spar.

'You love kicking my ass. As well as staring at it and touching it and-'

Hey! Not in front of the kids.

'WHAT KIDS?! Stop being delusional and go.'

Fine, fine. I'll be back before dinner. Don't let HK start your spar without me.

'I will. Have fun.'

I will. Love you. She returns the feeling, and I put it all out of my mind. I breathe in and out. I close my eyes. It stick a breather in my mouth. I lean forward and right out of the door of the Ravager into a free fall down into Coruscant orbit over the destroyed Jedi Temple.

What little air remains on Coruscant gently brushes my face. It only goes to show how little atmosphere there is, that it doesn't burn. It's a gentle wind. I'm not stupid enough to wear anything that isn't skin-tight, but there is something on my back as well. Consider it an invention of Tree-Hugger's. I technically don't need it, but he thinks it would be fun.

The Mandalorian Clan's fighters zoom by me. The Mandalorians have a major operation going to restore the planet alongside the Republic. (The New Republic and Old Republic factions assimilated.) They have space stations and stations planetside to restore oxygen and give something to the soil to make it work again. There are also cleanup crews to clean up ruins and work on the infrastructure. It is a monumental task and practically everyone is pitching in, even the former bad guys. People are still at war, but Coruscant is the only true neutral zone. No one dares touch each other here outside of lawyers and politics.

Speaking of war, Koj should be finishing up soon. He is stepping up as a father, and has helped fix everything between Squirt and Ashley, but has spent the last few months working alongside his little slave rebellion. He had made it as a Prior and wanted to take out the Eternal Hand from it. What he had made was good. He just made it while on the wrong side. The United Systems Alliance made a deal with him to provide his rebellion all they need to become their own nation, in return for leading it against the Prior-lead side, and I'm sure the Mandalorians are appreciative of them getting involved. They have been at war with the Cartel so long that the cartel surrendered some time ago. Now its mostly just the rebel alliance lead by the Prior's and the rebel alliance lead by Koj at the forefront of that. I even heard his primary condition was that Tatooine be given to the Ghorfa and were to be under the protection of the United Systems Alliance, as well as Mandalorians. (It is kinda close to both.)

Shouldn't be too much longer. He wants to return home and be a proper father.

The Ravager, namely Ahsoka and I, are here to deliver a ship full of goods. Take a Leviathan-class starship, give it a crew of two, and fill it to the gills with junk and you have yourself a lot of stuff. As well as a lot of money when you don't have to pay for things like… repairs, crew, and supplies for more than two people. A credit of profit per ton being delivered is still… many thousands of tons. I don't even know how much money we have now, it's not something I care about. I leave that to Ahsoka. She cares. It's her business. The only thing I know is that she puts most of the profits into donating to things that she feels strongly about, and helps as many people as possible. I just step in to point the Ravager at where to go and periodically hunt things when we are asked to get a prize that is a bit dangerous.

I swear, if I have to bag us another Rancor, I'm telling them to shove it.

'You enjoy it, admit it!'

Not when they want to use me for a toothpick!

It's been a relaxing two years since I stepped away from the Miraluka. Miraluka… Jedi… Sith. I don't give a crap. I have my family. I don't really need much more. And probably about time I did something about the fact I'm still free-falling. The skyscraper's are zooming past me. The air becomes thicker and soon I have a trail of air following me like a line being drawn through the clouds. A skyscraper's peak shoots up at me and I turn to narrowly avoid it. I zoom past the windows. The clouds disappear and all that is left beneath me is an empty highway and the burning surface of a planet miles below.

I pull back on the string and Tree-Hugger's little invention pops out. It's a board. I curl up, slip it under my feet, and snap my boots into place. Just as my feet snap in, a sail pops out and suddenly the whole thing jerks up. "Whoa!" I exclaim. That was a bit more jerky than I expected. But it flies nicely. I grip a bar around the sail tightly, and the board is solid as well. Now what else did he say? Push and pull the bar or point it up or down? I know how to use a sailing board on water, but his little solar-surfer idea is just…

It's actually kind of fun. Ahsoka, tell Tree-Hugger he has a winner. This is a lot better than his last idea. I'm actually surfing in the air.

'I'll send him a message.'

It takes a lot of learning. Like I said, I know how to use a surfing board with those sail things on water, but in the air it is a little different. I let myself enjoy the surfing in the air for a while. I lower the sail and have some fun without doing anything crazy.

Okay, fun over. I head toward the Jedi Temple again. The air had pushed me off course. I guide the solar-surfer down close and… How does this thing land? I search for a landing mechanism.

I glare at nothing. Tree-Hugger never made a landing mechanism. Dumbass. I jump off. It goes crashing without me and I wince as it bends violently into the ground and snaps.

'What did you do?'

Yeah, tell him it needs a landing mechanism.

'What did you do?'

I landed.

Ahsoka groans in my head. 'I'll ask the station to send a guy to pick you up.'

Thanks, Love.

I head into the temple. I'm not just here for a joy-ride or to deliver goods or see the galaxy. Granted, Ahsoka and I are doing that. When you give two people a ship that can travel the galaxy, give them more money than they know what to do with through a business that takes a lot of traveling and entire weeks spent doing nothing but watching things get loaded and unloaded: You get a lot of sight-seeing, vacations, and going to places to help out because what else are we going to do with our time?

I'm here for another reason. Something I do with my free time is try to understand a life-long obsession and the drastic turn it has taken. Nihilus lied to me. He lied about leaving a bond on me. I knew he had something, it would only be natural as his apprentice, but for Nihilus to have a bond with someone means immediate death. He did it with me, and he didn't kill me. He did it to keep tabs on me. He didn't trust me despite my devotion. Most of all he lied.

The one thing, the one truly honorable thing I held onto about him was his sense of honesty. He was a murderous psychopath but he did it honestly. And one thing I have learned that defines a psychopath most is that they can only think of the positive consequences, never the bad ones. Why lie about something you think is a good thing? He considered lying to be cowardice, and I do as well. Why hide? Only people that hide are people that are too weak to fess up and take it.

And he lied.

Made me wonder what else he lied about. Being a psychopath, only able to consider positive consequences of your own actions, then I guess it was foolish of me to assume he wouldn't consider lying to be a good thing as well.

Perhaps some deep part of me, the part that is betrayed, that had his hair cut in moments of peace, that was trained and taught about life… wanted something more.

I am re-reading his journals again from a new perspective, and while we are here, I've arranged to have a little moment.

I enter the living quarters of the Jedi Temple and pull out my datapad. I tab through pages of Nihilus' journal on my screen and find what I am looking for. "402-A." I recite. Nihilus lived in that room while he was a Jedi. From when he joined to when he left. That is what the journal says. Let's see if it's true.

It takes some time but I find it. I read the decayed tag on the door that reads 402-A. It's the room. I enter in and immediately have to take a step back out. I nearly double-over in pain and remembrance. Years of being under Nihilus's tutelage flies into memory, and I hear Ahsoka calling out to me in the back of my mind. She's panicking, and I'm numb. All I hear is the screaming, my own heartbeat, and the echo of nothingness and Void filling the room.

It's a simple room. But it was definitely HIS room. I feel it in every obsessively aligned strip of wallpaper, I see it in the utter lack of furniture or personality, I taste it in the air devoid of any smell.

The same kind of room I wanted before Ahsoka. If left to my own devices I would have growan

n in in a barren room with nothing but a floor, walls, and ceiling. I could put my clothes on the floor, work on my tools on the floor, sleep on the floor. I grew up having no need for anything.

Before Ahsoka…

I take a breath from the device in my mouth and enter in. I push away at the shadows surrounding me and trying to enter my heart as I comb the room. His power holds no sway over me. Not anymore. I won't deny killing Nihilus is still pretty high on my bucket list, but… okay how do I say this without being sappy… I've learned that what I do with my life is just as important as who I spend it with.

According to the journal Nitheal, Nihilus' name in life, had more journals. Some of my collection is missing. He stored them in a holocron. A holocron shouldn't be hard to find, especially if it is from that piece of work. However I know what the holocron on the Ravager does, and it's not store memory. So where is the other holocron? Nitheal was obsessed with holocrons. He believed them to be a way of preserving the soul and gaining eternal life.

I check the tile walls and find no plates are loose. The floor is solid as well. I extend my Miraluka senses through the room… and come up with a giant wad of NOTHING!

Why is there nothing here?! Where is the damn holocron! I came all the way here only to come up with nothing!

Ahsoka gently steps up in the back of my mind. 'Varus, calm down. It's okay.'

Don't tell me it's okay! We just wasted a trip!

'No, we didn't waste a trip. We came here to help and ship supplies. You are just being angry.'

Damn, right! It… this is just another way Nihilus lied… I don't know whether to scream, curse, or cry. For a moment I feel lost, listless, drifting. My rage and anger disappears and leaves me exhausted and empty.

The thing is, I feel the answer is close. I feel it is just within reach. Its like a memory that is beyond you, or something that moves out of the corner of your eye. When you turn to look at it, it is gone, leaving you with no idea what it was. You only know something was there.

The answer is that close. I feel it. I feel it in my bones… I just can't see it and why can't I see it? What direction am I supposed to take in my quest?

I feel Ahsoka sitting patiently in the back of my mind just listening. She doesn't direct any of her thoughts directly to me. I feel her emotions and her thoughts, but nothing is being specifically directed at me to pay attention to.

I sit on the floor, put my head back against the wall, and just let myself feel her company.

What am I going to do?

'Well, first thing you should do is come back up. You aren't doing yourself any good sitting in HIS room of all places. Then we can decide whether to go sight-seeing, helping with the cleaning effort, training, watching something on the holovid, or something else.'

I sigh. Those things do sound a lot better than what I am doing right now. I intertwine my fingers behind my head and leave, but not before releasing a Force burst into the room that collapses the ceiling.

I will continue my quest to find the answers to killing Nihilus, and I know the next step involves finding that blasted holocron with all the journals in it; but for the moment, even if Nihilus is not dead, it feels good getting rid of some part of him. I'll put aside the quest for today and enjoy being with my wife.

"Mandalore!" A soldier exclaimed. Just as soon as he entered the room, he saluted.

Mandalore took a moment to finish reading the paragraph he was on, and acknowledge the soldier. The soldier's composure was horrified and serious. Mandalore, in turn, felt his gut twist. Something serious had happened. "Report."

"It's Nihilus… sir."

Nihilus sat patiently within his chamber. The lights flickered at seemingly random times, and there was no interaction with the outside world. He heard nothing of what was happening. In every sense of the word he was in isolation. Time lost all meaning to him. Days and nights passed without notice. Boredom ate away at him.

He knew what was to come, and he was content to wait for it. He didn't know how it would happen, and in what form, but he knew that the crack had been made. He knew that Valkorian's time was coming, just as much as Valkorian would inevitably know. The Sith was watching. The Sith Emperor was always watching.

Days passed, weeks passed, months passed. For all Nihilus knew, years passed. The only reference for time he had at his disposal was the occasional sound of an HK assassination droid patrolling. They were a later model than the one Revan preferred, but then Nihilus also recalled that particular HK droid was custom made and had a knack for evolving.

As if in answer to his own thoughts, gun-fire erupted outside of his chambers. Nihilus stirred and listened. There was no yelling, no grunt of pain. It was a silent battle where the only sound was the HK droid's metallic movements and the sound of guns firing. Before long the silence returned, brief as it was, before the sound of something heavy hit the door. The door to his chamber imploded, but held. Again it was hit, and again a third time before the door collapsed.

Turrets all across the room appeared, gas poured out, and alarms screamed. Nothing entered through the door. Nihilus watched in curiosity.

What entered was a swarm of small metal spiders. They clambered across the floor, the ceiling, the walls. The turrets fired on them, and the spiders fired back. Every spider to be shot fell to pieces, and the pieces were used in the repair of their comrades, making them not only fixed up, but larger and faster and stronger than before.

A large snake, hundreds of meters in total length, slammed its through the door. It was much too big to fit its entire body within the room, but a portion could enter. It spun around Nihilus' pedestal and laser fire erupted from its spine in every direction. A thousand energy crystals in its face lightened up, combined their beams, and a laser beam shot out. Using the beam, it cut the cage surrounding Nihilus's pedestal where his mask and crystal ball sat. The defense turrets were taken care of, and the poisonous gas had no effect on the droids.

Nihilus recognized the droid models as being ones made from the Star Forge. A model specifically made by Darth Revan at one point. However, Nihilus had not anticipated them moving. The droids had no will beyond basic instruction.

Nihilus watched the door. He waited. The droids had to have a leader of some sort, and he expected the 'leader' to walk in at any moment.

A sound drew his attention to the side, and what he saw astounded him. The spiders crumbled freely and their pieces started merging together, but not in the shape of a spider-droid. The pieces merged in a shape of a bi-pedal man. Or… rather a droid.

HK looked down on Nihilus.

"So, you have finally merged with the Forge." Nihilus concluded.

"Statement of confirmation: Indeed." The droid replied.

"Took you long enough, but then I have to wonder about your timing. You and Starkiller found the Star Forge again a while back, and only now have you completed your programming."

"Explanation: Revan's direction was contingent on timing. A requirement for this function was that the war with the Sith begin or that I have direct orders."

Nihilus' interest was piqued. "So the war has begun?"

HK revealed its palm and a light emitted from it. A small hologram appeared and on it was a map. More specifically, there was a point highlighted on the map. "The Sith Emperor, Valkorian, sends his personal invitation."