Ashes of Redemption Chapter 7, a star wars fanfic

Ashes of Redemption, a fanfic by Captin Azza.

Chapter Seven.

For a moment, Bastila really was afraid.

Darth Malak glared at her in just the way she remembered him doing, for all that could be said about Malak; that he was a fool; that he was incapable of military command, he was still well and truly a being that one would never ever want to meet. His skill with the lightsaber had been undeniable, he had been the strongest of his generation and not by a small margin, Revan alone had been capable of defeating him and even Revan had admitted that his victory over Malak had very nearly not happened.

To Bastila, this was all suddenly very clear, whatever arrogant thoughts she'd had about being able to beat Malak had abruptly deserted her as she looked upon the man himself, exactly as she remembered him. He towered over her, a mountain of a man, the shadow he cast seemed to stretch forever and his eyes were like the blades of a lightsaber, they bored into her soul and impaled her with fear and self doubt. This cannot possibly be! The part of her mind that still thought logically screamed at her; however, the rest of her had already decided that it was.

The announcer hastily exited the ring and declared the fight underway; Malak fixed her in his vision, his long lightsaber extended in his hand. Bastila could not really tell his expression because of his lack of jawbone but his eyes seemed to be burning with delight. The crowd melted away into nothing, there was only Malak and her, then he spoke, the same metallic growl that she remembered, she felt her soul shudder as the words left his, well, what qualified for his mouth.

"Bastila Shan…..ha ha ha ha….I see you were not expecting this little reunion,"

Crazy ideas flooded her mind as she searched for a way to explain what she was seeing, visions of Malak secretly escaping the Star Forge alive after somehow fooling Revan, perhaps even Revan had lied. Then, as quickly as it had begun, her moment of fear ended, realization dawned on her like a gentle morning sun.

So this is what Lina meant, Malak is supposedly my greatest fear then, nice try Solus but you'll have to do better than that.

"These tricks won't work on me Solus," She regained her composure and fingered her own lightsaber,

"Hahahaha!" Malak chuckled menacingly "Won't they Bastila? I disagree, it seems they already are, you see, I am not really Malak, this is something within you, you have chosen this appearance Bastila to represent the dark thoughts that you hide in the deepest parts of your soul,"

"How do you claim to know my soul?" She challenged,

"I know all about you Bastila... and I know what it is that you fear the most."

"I fear nothing."

She activated her lightsaber and jumped at him in a single movement, chopping sideways with the deadly blade so as to separate his upper and lower body but Malak easily blocked her move with his own lightsaber. She perhaps was not surprised to feel their blades clash, thinking that maybe he had been purely an illusion but once contact occurred, she realized that she must have been facing some sort of physical recreation of Malak drawn somehow from her mind.

She launched into a series of aggressive attacking moves, deftly swinging her blade with all the skill and precision that she had accumulated over the years. With experience she had progressed considerably in the art of lightsaber combat and had become many times more skilled than she had been the last time she had fought Malak, in fact, at that point she was one of the most skilled operators of the weapon that lived. As the battle progressed however, she found Malak to be every bit her equal, every time she swung at him he met her lightsaber with his own, his red blade moving equally as fast as hers, blocking it at every strike, Malak did not even seem to be finding her attempts very troubling though he made no counter attacks.

She broke off her attack for the time being, realizing that the battle was something of a stalemate, she knew that if she were able to goad him into attacking, as Malak had often been known to do, then perhaps in doing so he would make an error. Disappointingly, Malak made no moves to attack once he had turned the last of her strikes away, instead he continued to stare at her before speaking again in his low, emotionless voice.

"Your greatest fear Bastila is your own inadequacy." His words stung of a distant truth, Bastila ignored them.

She attacked again with added ferocity, her yellow blade sweeping through the air in crisp, dexterous and well-practiced formations, she moved with aggression bordering on anger but again found no way passed Malak's defenses. It was just like the last time she had fought Malak, again she broke off the pointless attack, a layer of sweat forming on her brow.

"You can think of occasions throughout your entire life where you have fallen short of what was required or been incapable of completing a particular goal. Take 'looking after Revan' for instance, you well and truly failed at that, you ultimately failed as a Jedi and as a Sith, as well as essentially everything else you've ever tried to do. You'd been gifted with a strong affinity to the force, as well as your battle meditation ability, attributes that others would have killed for and yet those have not enabled you to achieve success."

The Sith Lord's eyes burned with passion as he spoke, Bastila remembered him saying similar things when he had captured her, it had taken her a long time to believe him then and even though his words were like a damp towel on her soul, she refused to allow herself to believe him, despite the truthfulness she saw in them.

"Your words mean nothing to me Solus," she replied,

She summoned the force and blasted him with a force wave then followed up with force lightning, a black power she'd picked up during her time as a Sith. Her hope was that she might somehow catch the real Solus with the wide range attacks, or reveal whatever means it was using to conceal itself. Malak was unaffected by either of her attacks, he used his lightsaber to absorb the force lightning with confident ease, it seemed as though Solus was also unaffected, she began to wonder if it was actually present, or if it even had a physical form. She had heard of beings composed entirely of energy although she had never seen one or knew whether they would be even visible to her,

"You are a fool Bastila, you have given away every chance you had for successes, even when it was dropped right into your hands by my actions in betraying Revan, you still failed to kill him. Even when he helped you to redeem yourself for your earlier failure to resist the dark side, you still failed to hang onto this, to hang on to Revan, you failed to read the signs, you failed to anticipate his actions even though it should have been obvious to you. You are pathetic Bastila, a failure, a fool."

Bastila stood for a few moments, gasping for breath as she thought for a minute about what to do next, the respite gave her a chance to ponder her situation and invariably Malak's words sunk in to her thoughts,

I must not listen to these lies.

"Remember that I'm not really Malak, I'm you, this has all come from within you Bastila, thoughts that you hide from, thoughts that you bury. You truly know that you are a failure, you have hidden that truth from yourself Bastila but no more, realize it Bastila, know that it is true….. you are a failure."

High above the battle, perched amongst the scaffolding that supported the weight of the roof, Motten watched as his target did battle with the Solus creature, from his position he had a view of one of the giant screens which showed Bastila's perspective and a bird's eye view of the actual battle itself. He actually found it amusing to watch while pretending he did not know what was really happening, from that perspective it seemed as though Bastila was fighting against thin air - and loosing.

To watch the screen made more sense but he knew that in actuality the Sith Lord Malak existed no further than in her mind, embodied by the hallucinations caused by Solus. He had seen Jedi he tortured do that before, he knew that as long as they actually believed they were fighting, their mind would make it real to them.

Resting in his hands and pointed directly at Solus was a high-tech sniper-blaster riffle of which Motten was a very skilled operator. Although most of his assassinations in the past had been of Jedi, against whom the riffle was useless as they generally were able to anticipate and deflect its shots, on the occasions when he had assassinated non-Jedi targets, the riffle had proved more than handy. He had determined that the best way of achieving his current mission was to use the long range weapon on Solus, since short range options were ineffective against the creature and its ability to hide itself from the minds of anyone nearby.

Motten was loathe to destroy the creature, to him it was the perfect weapon, more deadly than any vibroblade, lightsaber, blaster pistol or scalpel. He had seen it mutilate minds, cut down even the very strongest willed Jedi in a way that no other sort of torture could and then reduce them to sniveling, quivering husks, pathetic shells of their former selves. To him the creature was beautiful; he would even go so far as to say that perhaps he loved the creature for what it could do and now he was tasked with destroying it.

Bastila will pay for this, he determined as he placed Solus in the cross hairs of his scope, paying careful attention to Bastila's state, at the same time allowing Solus as much of one last triumph as he dared while preventing it from destroying the former Jedi completely. This would mean that when Motten finally did have his way with Bastila - he had decided that whatever happened, he would make sure to take an opportunity for this at some stage – she would be fragile and not as resilient as she otherwise would have been. This disappointed him since it meant less torture would be required but no matter, he would finish what Solus started and take revenge on its behalf. Thoughts of what he would do to her warmed him in what was otherwise the darkest moments of his life, he imagined what terrible pain she would be in as he exacted the price of Solus's death from her body and soul. Her tormented screams echoed inside his head.

It's a shame I can't hear what Malak is saying, he thought as he watched Bastila's hallucination of the dead Sith Lord on the screen, lips moving but no sound was emitted, this remained completely in Bastila's imagination. Regardless, it did not worry him; he would just have to take more time breaking her.

No! This is not Malak! These are lies!

"Are they Bastila? Examine them yourself; you will see the truth as Revan did,"

"You know nothing about Revan," she swore through gritted teeth, 'Malak' had repelled every attempt she had made to kill him and so she no longer bothered. He did not attack her with his own lightsaber, further proof that he did not exist, something she may have deducted had she thought about it at all.

Part of her was still screaming at her, begging her to examine the facts and use logic to determine what was actually happening but increasingly, this part of her went ignored. Her mind went circles about what to do, she could not kill 'Malak', she did not know whether she needed to in order to find and stop Solus, she did not even know if that was possible, nothing about her situation made sense and she could not see a possible way out of it.

"Yes but you do Bastila, you know that when Revan says something he tends to be correct, what do you think his absence from your life says?"

I can no longer listen to these words, or else they will poison me.

"You can try Bastila but remember; these words come from within you, they are your own thoughts and you can no sooner ignore them than you can deny them."

Get out of my head!

"Fool! I am your head!"

Motten watched and he knew that the inevitable was taking place; Bastila seemed to have all but given up. Oddly, the crowd seemed to be enjoying the display immensely despite the lack of any sort of action, jeering and yelling filled the stadium, Motten knew Solus would have deafened Bastila to it.

He had the creature firmly within the sights of his riffle, knowing that the former Jedi would not last much longer, his finger rested on the trigger, any point from then would be a good time to end it, still, he wanted to give Solus as long as possible and he truly was loathe to kill it.

"You will never find Revan Bastila and you know it, deep in your soul you know it. Revan will not be found if he does not want to be and if he wanted you to find him, why would he have left you? You will spend the remainder of your pathetic life alone with your failures Bastila,"

She fell to her knees.

It's true, it's all true! What chance do I really have of finding Revan, he is many times more ingenious than me.

She felt like she was looking in a mirror and disliking what she saw, she knew that as 'Malak' had said, everything he was had been drawn from her mind, including his words which echoed true within her, even though she outwardly denied them.

Her lightsaber dropped out of her grip, she felt a stinging in her eyes as salty tears began dribbling down her checks, she almost didn't notice her lightsaber float up into the air, into the hands of 'Malak' from her perspective. The yellow blades ignited like a sudden fire.

Motten almost could not believe what he was seeing, he had never seen Solus manipulate a Jedi into using the force to use their own lightsaber against them, well, he knew why that was; all the Jedi he'd seen Solus manipulate had force suppression collars on at the time.

He watched speechless as the burning yellow lightsaber floated above Bastila, suspended in the air by her own mastery of the force, even if she were not aware that she was doing it. Motten glanced at the screen and although he couldn't see what was happening too well since Bastila was not even looking at Malak, he gathered that she was unaware that her hallucination was holding a real lightsaber and seemed intent on using it to kill her. If she was aware then clearly she did not have the will to stop it, the former Jedi was broken he knew, Solus had taken control of her mind, it was using her force powers to do what Solus did; destroy.

My gods… that creature is brilliant… how can I possibly kill it!?

"You have always known you were inadequate haven't you Bastila, you know that was why your parents sent you away,"

It was…my belief at the time, it made me determined… to show them, it also made me hate Mother… but I have since found out the truth!

"Is it really Bastila? Do you truly believe this?"

I… I don't know… no! I will not let you do this to me!

"Ah… the overconfidence with which you always have acted, others believe this is because you are arrogant but you know that really, your overconfidence is just a mask for your fear of inadequacy. Revan figured this out too didn't he!"

Revan… there is nothing he can't figure out.

"Revan would always have found the Star Forge without you, in the end you even served Malak and made things more difficult for him, the thousands of deaths you caused at the battle of Lehon are on your shoulders Bastila, your battle meditation killed them."

No…I… I tried…No… these are lies…this is not true!

"What you have been telling yourself are the true lies Bastila, the way you have been justifying to yourself what you know to be your own inadequacy, telling yourself 'It wasn't my fault' face the truth Bastila, it was your fault!"

I… I have done everything I can…

"Everything you could do was never enough Bastila - you were never good enough! Not to save the Jedi, not to destroy the Triumvirate, not even to stop the Republic from becoming corrupt. You are fool Bastila, a blind, pathetic fool!"

Stop…

You failed!

Please…

You are weak!

No…

You are a fool!

I…

Face it!

You…

I…

I… failed! I am a fool…a worthless, pathetic fool!

He was paralyzed,

No... I can't do it…I must

Lining the creature up in his sights again he slowly, regretfully squeezed the trigger.

Nothing.

Motten's heart stopped, he hastily examined the weapon even though he knew that it was too late, he quickly discovered that a faulty power unit was the cause of the problem, he had checked the power unit before the mission and it had still failed him. Unconsciously he swore that he would never rely on any weapon other than his vibroblades again, well, those and a few others but whether they were weapons or tools was another question. Consciously he reached as fast as he could for his spare unit then hurriedly attempted to swap them even though he knew that he would never get it done fast enough. Bastila was doomed.

There were often points in people's lives that seemed to set the course of their destiny, decisions upon which everything they ever did from then on hinged. It seemed that time slowed for Bastila, whether this was because of the force somehow, or just a part of her imagination, she would never know.

In slow motion, she looked up and saw her nemesis holding the lightsaber over her, slowly bringing it down on an arc that would intercept her neck, the golden beam that had protected her for most of her life now poised to end it.

In slow motion, she became aware of the hostile crowd, jeering and yelling, lusting for blood, her blood.

Let them have it, I no longer want to be part of this hateful galaxy.

That was when it happened, the maelstrom of mixed up, crazy thoughts that had become her mind and soul was penetrated by a single command, it seemed to echo inside her, pervading the deepest points of her consciousness.

Stop!

Bastila's eyes flicked open and it was gone but the instant during which she had felt it was enough. The instant during which she had felt him.

A force bond was a strange thing, she doubted that anyone had ever understood them fully; she understood that in the beginning, memories and thoughts had passed between Revan and she easily and that since then that had seemed to slowly decline until it ceased to exist. Until that moment.

Suddenly she was alive, suddenly she could breath, she felt like the shackles that had bound her soul had been broken. Her mind was still awash with chaos and fear but a single unifying thought gave her the strength to brush that aside, from that point on she forgot her previous worries and focused on a single goal.

He is alive, he knows I am here; he wants me to go on.

Her lightsaber clattered noisily to the ground and she realized in that instant that Malak had never been there, he had never held the lightsaber above her, she also realized something else.

Not pausing, she almost flew to her feet, scooped up the weapon and jumped then rolled several meters before bring it down. That move was like breaking out of a glass prison to Bastila, suddenly she became aware of everything again, in particular the crowd, although a deathly, shocked hush had fallen over them.

She looked at the ground before her and saw the smudged remains of some sort of truncated worm like creature, it was approximately the size of her lower leg, it seemed to have no head or face and only a large bulge differentiated one end of it from the other. She had sliced the bulge directly in half, clearly killing the creature, she did not linger on it, the crowd was still silent but somehow Bastila sensed that things were about to change and that she did not want to be around when that happened. She ran.

He knew what he had just seen was impossible but it had happened anyway, his mind reeled and his body lay inert, unable to act as he struggled to come to grips with what he had just seen.

… ………How?

He blinked and the thought was gone, filed away for future examination. He collected his whit and planned his next move, he watched as seconds after Bastila's hasty exit an explosion of fury erupted amongst the spectators, blasters were unleashed and the riotous mob had begun to destroy the stadium, to Motten it seemed unlikely they would stop with that. Some of them had already began storming out the stadium's doors, no doubt to begin a path of wanton destruction that could easily consume the entire colony, a colony that relied on the integrity of it's relatively fragile dome to protect it from the void.

Suddenly Hades did not seem like a good place to be.

Bastila all but flew out of the stadium, not even stopping to collect her robe or visor; she had made it out of the competitor's entrance by the time the silence within the stadium had abruptly ended. She kept running as fast as she could and she was halfway down the road by the time furious spectators began spewing from the stadium's doors. A single thought unified the chaos in her mind.

I must find Revan.

Few times in her life had she ever ran as fast for as long as she did then and all the previous times she had been a lot younger. She was heavily fatigued by the time she arrived at Erghyz, fortunately the force allowed her to recover much of her energy.

Only staff occupied the bar at that stage and when she entered, three bodyguards/bouncers attacked her straight away, Bastila easily avoided their clumsy moves before cutting them down with her lightsaber. The man behind the bar, the sole remaining staff member present, had become terrified of her by that point and he dashed toward the next room. Bastila was easily fast enough to catch him but instead she knocked him over with the force and then pounced the distance between them, picked him up, held his shirt but used the force and pinned him against the wall above her,

"Where is Garetos!?" She demanded furiously,

"Up- Upstairs! The top floor! Please!" the guard pointed desperately toward the lift in the center of the room and then began struggling for his life, she allowed him to escape, having the information that she required and then hastily made her way toward the repulsorlift.

Garetos was indeed in the room on the highest floor and so was Lina. The bar owner was pacing and seemed to be in a state of desperation, Lina was sitting in a corner. The room itself, obviously Garetos' private quarters, featured lavish decorations and a large bay window that looked out over a section of the colony.

"You!" Garetos yelled when she entered "What the hell have you done!? I'm finished!! You.. you… I'm going to kill you!!"

The crime lord produced a knife and jumped at her, she used her force powers to send him flying in the opposite direction, he slammed heavily into the wall, breaking a case of expensive glassware as he did so, the entire display shattered and glass flew everywhere, Bastila shielded herself with the force. Lina held up her arms to protect herself from the shrapnel but after a few moments had blood running from minor punctures all over her body, it didn't seem to bother her. Garetos struggled to lift himself but covered in blood and glass, he could barely move,

"Where is Revan!" Bastila demanded, Garetos saw an almost primal rage in her eyes, the crime seemed to realize he was doomed and surrendered, apparently with the desire to cause as much to the ones who had destroyed him as he could,

"I have no idea!" he shouted between chuckles and coughs of blood, the betrayal sent Bastila over the edge, she felt raw fury building up inside her, not the sort of fury one might normally experience, this was white hot, blinding fury that consumed her last shreds of self-control.

"You fool!" Garetos shouted as though he were telling history's funniest joke "I've never even met Revan, never spoke to him, I don't know anything about him! I-"

Garetos voice ceased as he felt his neck being crushed, Bastila held her hand out, calling on the darkside to constrict the Twi'lek's airway, the power of the dark willingly and gratefully returned to her. He made a few gurgling noises and his face began to redden as the oxygen supply to his head was cut, his eyes budged and the veins on his forehead were expanding, he gripped his neck and struggled in a futile, instinctive attempt to release himself. Somehow, despite his situation he managed to push out a few last words, strangled and barely audible gasps that Bastila was only just able to understand,

"It was Lina… she gets inside your head…"

Bastila released the now dead Garetos and his limp body slumped, she looked on him and shock at the realization of what she had just done hit her like a bucket of icy water, she staggered back as she looked at the limp form of the Twi'lek she had just killed. It was not that she regretted Garetos' death, he had certainly done enough to earn it, it was the fact that she had killed in cold blood, ended his life despite the fact that it had been completely unnecessary. Bastila hadn't considered herself a Jedi for a long time but the thought of needlessly killing still sickened her.

Force… what have I done?!

The realization shook her deeply, jarring her into thought, she felt her sanity begin to return and her thoughts begin to organize themselves, she forced herself to stay calm and control herself, you didn't intend to kill, you just didn't realize what you were doing, she consoled herself. Somehow, her consolation seemed hollow but she vowed to prevent a repeat of her killing.

It was then that she became aware of her surroundings once more, as her consciousness began to take control of her behavior, she felt the force surrounding her, she became aware of the anarchy that had engulfed the colony and indeed, the room she was standing in afforded a commanding view through the bay window. Fires had begun across various parts of the city, blaster fire was evident, Bastila wondered just how long it would be until one or the other penetrated the dome.

Lina stood before the window, her back to Bastila, shoulders slumped as if the burning of the colony was also the burning of her dreams,

Force, she was behind all of this, Bastila realized, her time with Lina playing through her mind, it was her intention to bring me here all along… Garetos was her puppet…

"Lina," She said calmly, after a pause and several deep breaths as well as a straightening of her back and having reached for her lightsaber "What is going on here?"

For a long time, Lina remained silent and still, her long, straight platinum hair flowed down her back, it had taken a reddish hue from the fires that were burning in the colony. Then finally Lina turned and as she did so, Bastila saw her for the first time; she saw that Lina was not a human female at all, she was a creature that looked rather a lot like Solus.

She spoke through a mouth that was a slit in the middle of the bulge that seemed to be her head, like Solus, she had no eyes and no face but she did have worm like arms and legs. Her voice was strangled and barely understandable,

"Bastila, Bastila, Bastila… my brother, Solus, was right about you… you are a fool,"