AN: I'm back with another chapter, hopefully this meets your expectations.
There is an extended version of the Code that this Revan goes by in this chapter (a longer version of the one at the beginning of chapter 1), found on Wookipedia, I feel that it was necessary to change the views of certain characters in the story.
Nothing else to say, enjoy!
2 weeks after their resignation from the Jedi order saw Revan lead the three ex-Jedi towards the ruins holding the location information of the Star Forge, the many jagged stone pillars decorating the plains just in front of its entrance. two weeks of preperation finally leading up to this moment of inevitability.
Standing outside the heavy stone doorway of the ruins entrance Revan pushed the central plate inward, making the doorway split open like teeth, half up and half down. Behind him Akana, Bastila and Juhani steeled themselves before walking in behind Revan into the main room, cold, dark and filled with untouched power.
"I can feel the remnant evil of this place, of those that built this place…" Juhani said, mystified by the feelings she could feel emanating from the subterranean shelter.
"Ignore it, it won't do you any good now, concentrate on the task at hand Juhani." Revan said steely. The cathar woman nodded in affirmation. They hadn't passed the threshold of the centre room before the door slid shut behind them, sealing them in.
"Well this is encouraging." Akana snarked but immediately ceased when the four legged stick like droid with a rotating rusted head whirred to life, speaking in a language that none of them had either heard of no understood.
"Next!" Revan called, getting quizzical looks from his companions. The droid however changed languages letting them in on what he meant. Again the droid spoke a tongue that they were unfamiliar with.
"Next." Bastila said quickly, that language was scratchy and hard on the ears.
"It obviously understand us, but isn't programed with the phonemes of languages that we understand."
[I can reproduce any languages spoken by the slaves of the Builders.] the droid said in yet another language, though this one Bastila and Revan understood.
"That's an ancient variant of the language spoken on Menaan by the Selcath." Revan explained to those that could not understand the droid.
"I recognize it too." Bastila admitted.
"Why would a droid on Dantooine be programmed to speak ancient selcath?" Akana wondered.
[Communication was vital to ensure that the slaves constructed this temple according to the wishes of the Builders.] the droid explained. Revan translated the droids words to his party of three, even though Bastila understood most of it, the dialect was ancient, so she missed a fair bit.
[But you are not of the slave species. Neither are you of the Builders. You are likes the one that came before.] the droid continued.
"It must be referring to Alek and I when we were here the first time." Revan realized. "I am Revan, the one that came before, do you remember me?" Revan heard the eye of the droid zero in on Revan's form.
[Negative. You match no description of anyone of those that have come before.] the overseer replied. Incensed at the droids refusal Revan focused upon himself, warping his visual appearance to accommodate appearance of the armour, hood and mask that he remembered wearing during the Mandalorian Wars.
"I am Revan, the one who came before." Revan reiterated, with far more emphasis than last time. Again the droid sized him up.
[You are the one from before, you have proven to be worthy, you may pass.] the overseer said before going silent, the door behind it opening like a set of jaws. Revan was quick to move passed the droid and into the new room. Stepping into the equally dark and damp chamber, Revan and his party saw a moderately sized free standing structure, with three armatures supporting an orb at the base.
'Ever get the feeling of Deja-vu?' Revan quirked mentally, careful to approach the dark coloured artefact, feeling great anger and hate radiating off of it.
"There is no Dark Side, nor a Light Side.
There is Only the Force. I will do what I must to keep the balance.
The balance is what keeps me together.
There is no good without evil, but evil must not be allowed to flourish.
There is passion, Yet peace.
Serenity, Yet emotion.
Chaos, yet order.
I am the wielder of the flame, the protector of balance.
I am the holder of the torch, lighting the way.
I am the keeper of the flame, soldier of balance.
I am a guardian of balance.
I am a Grey Jedi." Revan recited from memory as he approached the artefact. The metal arms, engraved with runes unfolded, the three prongs opening up showing a projector orb that began to glow with light. The orb ascended from its cradle before projecting a holographic image of the galaxy for all four people present to see.
Looking the map over Revan felt a flood of Force energy rush through him, images of the last time he was here with Alek flashing through his mind, having to fight two ancient droids of similar design to the Overseer and passing the tests to prove themselves worthy, which was identifying both life giving and death giving worlds or risk having to fight the guarding droids.
Revan recalled answering his set of questions correctly but Alek had gotten his wrong and had to combat the droid guardian. Revan was able to steady himself this time, before he fell unceremoniously to the ground, instead taking a knee as his mind, at the no to gentle nudge of the Force, retrieved a small part of his missing memory. Akana and Bastila were immediately by his side, each grasping him by one shoulder each.
"Revan what is it?" Akana asked.
"Part of his missing memory is coming back to him, for some reason this map jostled something, starting a recall." Bastila explained to the others, feeling what was going on in Revan's mind through their bond.
"Record the data on the map for Kashyyk, Manaan, Koriban and Tatooine." Revan grunted. Juhani quickly did as Revan said, taking down the indicated information from the map quickly into a datapad. Slowly as not to agitate anything, Revan rose from his kneel and ushered the three girls to move away from the map, him doing the same. The map stayed activated for a few moments before the hologram fizzled out, the orb dropping back into its cradle and the arms closed back up.
'I could try destroy the bloody thing, but then the droids would probably attack us, and their auto repairing capability is not something I want to test out.' Revan deduced before making a quick exit from the ruins, his pseudo students on his heels. After they cleared the ruins Revan dropped the illusion of his past appearance and turned to his three companions.
"What was all that about?" Akana asked, turning to face Revan and Bastila.
"I must have left an imprint of myself here when I was here the first time with Alek, and it triggered some of my lost memories. Some things are clearing in my mind, I remember I built a droid, an HK model, assigned to be my bodyguard with assassination as its main directive." Revan told them. Three sets of eyes went wide at his admission.
"You built an assassination droid?" Akana gaped.
"Do you have any idea how illegal that is?" Bastila shot out stonily.
"Hey, when you have people attempting to kill you it helps to have every advantage you can, especially if that advantage is a homicidal assassin droid with a trigger finger that likes to blast things for fun. It also helps that he was an expert interpreter, some languages just can't be learnt, like Sand people language on Tatooine. I, however, do not know where HK-47 is, he could be scrap for all I know but it would be good to have him around all the same, another fighter amongst the crew wouldn't be so bad now would it?" Revan asked rhetorically. Begrudgingly Akana, Bastila and Juhani were forced to agree, they did need all the help they could get. Wanting to change the subject from homicidal droids Akana spoke up.
"Err, Revan, what was that you were muttering before in the Star Map room?" she asked curiously.
"Oh that? It's the code of the Grey Jedi, I'm sure I don't have to convince you that they exist, now do I?" He asked with a raised brow. "For obvious reasons, they are not mainstream information, our existence is such because the Jedi see us as dangerous because we don't see the Force as they do through black and white." Revan explained.
"On our journey to locate the Star Forge I will teach each of you the ways on the Grey Jedi, where we're headed you'll be glad I did." Revan said ominously.
"We're headed to Koriban so you want us to be prepared." Bastila deduced. Revan simply nodded.
"That's right. Before this journey continues however, I believe a crash course with the Grey code is in order, come to the ancient grove, where eyes and ears are scarce, and I'll begin instruction of a new and larger universe." Revan said before blurring out of sight, a streak of colour showing Revan's trajectory. Doing as they were told the three of them went after him.
When they got to the grove they saw Revan at the epicentre of the stone pillars, 5 kath hounds bound in stasis off to the side. Coming to the front and stopping in front of him, Revan turned to them.
"Good, you're all here, so we can get started. First of all, do you have any questions before we begin?" He asked, having not left his mediation pose.
"What's with the kath hounds?" Akana asked.
"They're here for demonstrative purposes only, all will become clear soon. Now the first lesson I will teach you is remove from your minds of the notions of Light and Dark sides of the Force. The Force does not have separate sides, all abilities garnered from the Force are neutral, how you use the abilities gained through the Force is how people judge what alignment you are, you can use anger or peace to channel the Force but you can use peace for evil just as you can use anger for the opposite. The evil of Force lighting," Revan sent arcs of electricity to a kath hound, its smoking carcass dropping to the ground in seconds. "Can be used with peace just as anger can be used to focus a Push." Revan slammed a palm forward to a kath hound ruthlessly sending the animal flying like a rocket out of a launcher to the stone pillar, the animal's body crumbling inward and the pillar collapsing from the Force of the impact.
"Do not kid yourselves into thinking that you are above evil, each living, sentient being is very capable of causing evil on a range of different scales; you have to acknowledge that evil is a part of you, where there is good there is also evil to balance it out, we all have the equal opportunity for evil deeds and good deeds, it is one's own choice that determines which path they walk." He let his words hang for a moment before continuing.
"The second line of the Code: I will do what I must to keep the balance; the balance is what keeps me together. This decrees that at the end of the day, the ends justify the means; we believe that without this balance the galaxy as a whole would fall apart. If we had to destroy a planet or a whole system of planets to promote balance, we would do it. One side cannot erase the other, if that were to happen then the balance would be thrown off completely, so we'd attack those threatening the balance, it is as simple as that." Revan said sternly.
"But that's barbaric!" Bastila cried out. "The sith have to be destroyed, they are too evil to be left alone!"
"Quiet! There is no good without evil, but evil must not be allowed to flourish. This is the next part of the code, while there is good and evil in everything there was no good without evil, and no evil without good." "Just as there is no dark without light and no light without dark." Revan powered onward, cutting Bastila off roughly. "However, if one side is allowed power over the other, catastrophe can happen. So with this in mind you have to understand that grey Jedi don't condone evil but it has to exist, for if evil didn't exist then there would be nothing for good to fight against, thus the balance would be destabilised. For balance to be made the amount of good in the galaxy must always cancel out the evil, thus we attack those that do evil acts to keep evil in check." Revan tutored on, his voice now calmer.
"There is passion, yet peace. We grey Jedi need passion to survive, what is life without passion? It is something that the Jedi do not understand and as a result, they fear their passion. Passion yet peace, you need passion to live life but you must have peace to make sure that your passions don't get out of hand, there must always be a balance of both in a grey Jedi's life." Revan intoned.
"Serenity yet emotion, a grey Jedi, or any force user for that matter, needs emotion to fuel his power, just like they need passion to live or become a droid. Whilst you need emotion to empower you you need to remain serene in order to turn their emotions on and off." Revan said serenely.
"The Masters always decreed that emotion wasn't allowed, that we had to remain serene at all times, were never allowed to feel anything at all." Juhani said sullenly.
"The Jedi Masters are hypocrites of the highest order, no pun intended. How in siths name do you think that they became so powerful in the Force and in their other fields? They used their emotions to fuel their power, that's how, they just don't think that anyone but them could handle the temptation of such powerful feelings, which is why they forbid them entirely for everyone else." Revan spat. Juhani bristled at this, she had a lot of trouble with this.
"In order for life to exist, there must always be a constant level of chaos and order, such is the same with a grey Jedi, for they must be both to a point. Sometimes laws need to be broken, sometimes chaos should be brought to order but neither should be ended permanently, to even attempt such is madness."
"So your saying only obey the rules and laws of societies were in at the time until or unless it interferes with the task at hand, to bring a sense of balance where there was once none?" Bastila asked curiously.
"Precisely, the Jedi masters said not to leave till they were ready, when Force knows that they were ready for a long time, people such as them cannot miss the Force aura that I exert, so I broke their rules, just like I did when I went to fight the Mandalorians, while not evil, they were throwing out a balance and I could not let that stand, so I rallied all the Jedi I could under me and went to war. This brings me to the next part of the grey code: I am the wielder of the flame, the protector of balance. Those that disrupt the balance will burn to dust by our hands, for they, in the case of the mandalorians, threw out the balance by attacking the Republic and had to be dealt with. In the case of organizations, Czerka and the Exchange are also factors that throw out this balance, so any chance I get to screw them over I see it as a chance to tip the scales a little further into neutrality."
"I am the holder of the touch, lighting the way. This talks about showing the way to those that are lost, those that disrupted the balance, the way to balance their lives out to make their lives easier. In addition a grey Jedi must light the way for himself, if not kept in check it would be too simple for him to fall into an unbalanced lifestyle.
Next: I am the keeper of the flame, soldier of balance; the grey Jedi would be the army of balance, waging wars against all who would threaten the natural balance of the universe. The next one: I am the guardian of balance, indicates that we are first and foremost a guardian of balance, in every way possible; if I see something that is out of balance, I will do everything I can to correct it, which is why I am going to find and destroy the Star Forge, not because the Jedi or the Republic wish it, but because the Star Forge is an imbalance in the universe and must be removed.
The last part is a declaration: I am a grey Jedi, this is meant to show that those that recite this code, to be a true grey Jedi, you must embody every single one of these traits. Now, granted, knowing the words and actually living by them are two very different things, but in time I am sure that you three will get what I'm talking about, should you choose to. What say you, do you think you have what it takes to learn of the Force, like it was meant to be learnt, before the notions of the light and dark screwed it all up?"
"I already left the Jedi order to follow you, I'm not about to turn tail now, I'm with you for as long as you need me." Akana said almost instantly, Juhani following suit seconds later. Three sets of eyes turned to a thinking Bastila who was chewing on her lip.
"This goes against everything that I was taught to believe in," Bastila began. "The Masters of the order have broken my trust, I hope that you will not do the same to me Revan." Bastila said rhetorically.
"Full disclosure of all information then, not like I could hide much from you anyway, given the strength of our Force bond that is still increasing in strength." Revan offered, earning nods from his now three students. "Ok then, we can iron out the details of this arrangement a bit later, right now we have to round up the rest of our crew to be ready to leave before dusk."
"Oh? Where are we headed?" Akana asked.
"When I find the parts I need, I'll make a receiver to locate what I hope to be HK-47, when I built him I installed a homing beacon into him so I would be able to track him down if he got lost. Once we've found my pet droid we're headed to Koriban to attack the sith problem at the source, there is a settlement there with an academy for aspiring sith wannabes, I'm going to destroy it and anyone that cannot be convinced to find a balance within the Force. That will be slightly easy, as a lot of the people there are former Jedi and would have had a taste of all that the Force is capable of outside the notions of light and dark. The plan for bringing the academy down to the ground will take a bit of time to concoct but with what I'm thinking of doing it will be really simple, because the sith there are very easy to manipulate." Revan let out a slow breathe.
"You can each dispose of the kath hounds I've still got in stasis, I'll see you three later." With these last words Revan blurred away in a quick burst of Force Speed.
"Why in siths name can't I send any transmissions to the Republic fleet from the ship?" Carth demanded immediately when Revan came back into view on the Hawk, with his blasters drawn on Revan again. Revan let out an aggravated sigh.
"Look Onasi, I'm not the bad guy like you seem to believe I am." Revan grunted. "Think of it like this, after the Mandalorian wars the Republic was left scarred and wounded, you know what happens when a bone is broken and is set wrong when it heals? That was the state of the Republic after the war; I returned and attacked the Republic because was a crippled beast waiting to die; when your superiors on the core worlds, when the Jedi didn't listen to me when I returned I took matters into my own hands to prepare it for the oncoming invasion of the sith that were hiding in the unknown regions, for the chance to strike after the mandalorians had weakened the Republic." Revan exclaimed. Carth sneered.
"Why'd you start a campaign against the Republic then?" was his quick fire response.
"You idiot, it wasn't me that fired the first shot! The Jedi were the ones that told your superiors that I and those I took with me were now the enemy. With no way to talk the Republic into a ceasefire I went ahead with a plan to reform the Republic's military by conquering it so it could be changed and rebuilt, I only ordered the attacks on military targets, any civilian areas were left alone until Alek began his decent into madness and started bombing everything he could! I nearly killed him for what he did to Telos, would have too if I didn't need his strength for combat, so I removed his jaw with an added warning not to do anything more than what my orders were. Of course Alek never quite liked the idea of taking orders so he planned to kill me soon after and we all know how that turned out." A blaster rang loudly as Carth blew off a few rounds at Revan, who used a very strong Force Barrier to deflect the potentially deadly laser blasts into the ground, it too being shielded to absorb the damage as not to do harm to the Hawk's hull integrity.
"Your fleet decimated the whole of Telos, you killed my wife and son!" The decorated Republic soldier cried, tears running down his face.
"My fleet yes, but it was not my orders that had the planet so utterly bombarded, Alek extended my order from the military bases I mapped to include the whole planet. While I am to blame Alek is the one you should direct your anger and resentment to, not me, I don't kill civilians unless it can be avoided at all costs." Revan shouted back before sighing heavily.
"Look Carth, I get that you want revenge for what has been done to you and your family and to Telos, but letting yourself be blinded by that will doom you, if you let this hatred consume you then I'll have you sequestered here at the enclave where you can't interfere with this mission. Killing me won't bring your family back, won't change anything that's happened, and in the end you'll feel hollow after you've done it and doom the galaxy to Alek's demented fantasies of power." Revan said trying to placate the now quivering soldier.
"Revenge against Saul, you and Malak is all I have left." Carth muttered pathetically, his blaster no longer pointed at Revan, instead aimed at the ground at his feet shaking with his silent sobs.
"If revenge is truly the only way you can let the past go, I will help you take the life of Admiral Saul Kareth and help me stop Alek, but I ask you, after that, what will you do? Think of that for a while." Revan said before walking past Carth and through the Hawk to the cargo hold for something to eat. While fishing around for some food in the cargo hold Revan sensed Mission hovering just outside, quite nervous of all the shouting she'd just heard. Deciding on what rations to eat Revan waved in her general direction.
"You can come out Mission, I'm not going to yell at you for overhearing my conversation with Carth." Revan said tiredly.
"Wha…? How did you…?" The teenage twi'lek stammered, coming into view of the former sith lord, if only in title.
"I can feel your nervousness through the Force, it wasn't that hard to figure out why." Revan explained moving to the main area of the ship, beckoning the blue twi'lek to follow him. "Something tells me that you've dealt with situations similar to that, in fighting between people you care about. Speaking of which, I know that you can take care of yourself, as demonstrated by what happened on Taris, but how did you end up on Taris by yourself?" he asked her. She went on to explain the backstory on how she and her brother got to Taris and the events that followed them, including the small pile of debts that were following Griff around. Revan did note however that Griff was very recourse full sometimes, you didn't just pick up knowledge on how to survive by yourself and look after a younger sibling without that.
"He taught me how to survive. He showed me how to slice into a computer's security system; how to get inside a locked building without the entrance codes, and how to spot a wealthy mark for a quick shell game." She went on.
"Pretty handy skills seeing as where I ran into you, don't think you'd have survived on the streets of Taris without them, Zaalbar or no Zaalbar."
"Yeah, Griff did good by me." She said with a faraway smile.
"Then why did he leave you by yourself on Taris?" Revan inquired, it didn't seem like a very brotherly thing to do, leave your only family behind. Missions face scrunched up instantly at the subject matter.
"He fell in with a bad crowd. It's all Lena's fault." she said, just about spitting the name out like it was poison. "She's the one who took him from me! Just batted those long lashes at him and off he went! But I don't want to talk about Griff and Lena - just the thought of that space tramp makes my blood boil! Subject's closed as far as I'm concerned! If I'm going to be any help to you I can't be worrying about my brother running off with some intergalactic skank!"
"Whoa, you really don't like her, huh? Well if you don't want to talk about it then I'll leave it at that. If you need anything, just say call ok?" Revan said pleasantly before moving to the work bench to make the hyperspace receiver to locate his assassin droid.
After disposing of the kath hounds the three newly dubbed Grey Jedi apprentices made their trek back to the enclaves docking station, on their way they had settled a family feud between two 'noble' families that settled on the planet, and assisted a protocol droid in his dilemma of having an obsessive owner, as well as point out to a twi'lek Jedi, Balook, that the two parties he had detained in relation to a murdered body were both at fault and neither were innocent.
Coming to the outermost courtyard of the enclave they were met with a single person, as they got closer Akana and Juhani recognised her as their friend Belaya.
"Belaya what are you doing standing out here by yourself?" Akana asked curiously. The brown eyed, brown haired woman eyed her incorrigibly.
"I hear that you and Juhani have openly gone against the Jedi council and left the order and you think to ask me why I'm standing here? I'm here to beg you to return to the order and seek forgiveness from the Masters for the disregard you've shown for the Jedi, I want you two to come back!" she implored.
"We haven't gone anywhere Belaya, nor are we no longer your friend." Juhani started.
"We left the order because there is a greater picture than the one that the Jedi see, while we don't seek power, what the Jedi teach will not help us win against the sith, let alone survive, what Revan promises to teach us will." Akana continued.
"Revan is dead, you," Belaya looked at Bastila. "killed him! Even if he was alive Revan is evil, has defied the Jedi and fell to the dark side, as will you all if you don't return to the Jedi." Belaya implored.
"Revan is not dead, and never 'fell to the dark side', he is a grey Jedi, and embraces and views the Force as a whole, not in notions of light and dark as the Sith and Jedi do. What he has to teach, what he has learnt is what we should all be taught but the Masters and the council refuse to, out of fear." Bastila argued. The prodigy at Battle Meditation gave pause after these words, never would she imagine saying anything remotely like this a week ago.
"Lies! Those are tricks of the sith to corrupt you to the ways of the dark side! You are all going to face the council for this!" she cried, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes before turning around swiftly and running back to the Jedi council's chambers. There was a moment's pause between the three grey apprentices.
"I think we should get to the Hawk and get out of here before the council decides to try stop us from leaving." Akana said quickly.
"Agreed, we don't need them delaying us any more than they already have; we should leave as soon as possible." Bastila agreed before they sped off to the loading dock.
The sound of rushing footfalls was the first thing that Revan heard that indicated that their peace time on Dantooine was quickly coming to an end. Setting the tools back on the workbench Revan inspected the hyperspace transceiver in his hands, noting that it would do for now, though it would only hold a charge to be useful for about a 5 minutes before the parts he used would become crap through overheating.
"What's going on?" He asked quickly to the slightly panting threesome of woman.
"An old friend of ours thinks we're evil now and has gone to warn the council of our leaving. We should leave as soon as possible to avoid them trying to detain us." Bastila got out through her laboured breathing.
"Very well then. Everyone is accounted for and on board, tell Carth to start lift-off procedures and fire up the engines while I use this doohickie I invented to find my droid so I know where to go when we reach orbit." Revan instructed before doing just that.
'Say goodbye to peace and quiet for the next while.' Revan thought idly as the receiver flared to life. After about 3 minutes Revan bolted from the cargo bay to the cockpit, just as his device fizzled out.
"Set hyperspace coordinates for Tatooine as soon as we break orbit, that's where we're headed first." The irony of this development not lost to him.
The burned lines of sky where the Ebon Hawk took off from the enclave were the only things to greet the council when they got to the landing pad.
"We just missed them." It was unnecessary to say but Master Zhar said it anyway.
"And he corrupted three Jedi as well, Bastila amongst them." Vrook added stonily. "We should have dealt with him when we had the chance."
"We have been over this many times Master Vrook, it is not the way of the Jedi to take the life of any sentient being, no matter that they have done, this was the best option available to us." Vandar counselled. There was silence for a moment before Master Doorak broke it.
"This may yet work out for us; if what Revan said to us is true we may be able to take advantage of his stopping Malak's conquest with the Star Forge and prevent him from doing something at the apex of the conflict." Master Doorak advised, earning quizzical looks from his colleagues that begged further explanation.
"Well…"
AN: That is the original Grey Jedi Code of the Grey Jedi, the leader of that particular group was of the same race as Yoda and Vandar.
With the resignation of Bastila from the Jedi how will this change the outcome? Tell me, please, it gives me food for thought when writing these chapters.
Thoughts, feelings and general comments are appreciated. Until next time.
R&R
