Disclaimer: Characters/factions/items that were not mentioned in the Star Wars franchise belong to me. I do not own any characters/factions/items that do belong to the Star Wars franchise (e.g. Anakin Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi).

A/N: I FINALLY KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH LOVELIGHT AU! THANK GOD! I was worried that I wouldn't but when you mix procrastination of work and determination to do work, you end up getting enough endorphine to THINK A WHOLE PLOT THROUGH EYA! But for the most part, Lovelight will still be under works; and then the remaining three aus, we'll see? ^^"

Unorthodox: Part VI

Barriss could not keep the worry from her voice, despite having taken the title of Sith. "Master!"

Ahsoka turned away from Rex and the others, the issued orders drying in her mouth as she saw the two generals limping towards them. Well, really it was her Master dragging a half-dead Serpentus with him. She ran towards them when her initial surprise and relief faded, and worry took place.

"What's his status?" Barriss asked immediately, taking note of the scorch mark on her Master's armor, right above his heart. That did not bode good news.

"Blaster fire." Skywalker answered, grunting as he helped Serpentus along. He lowered him to the ground as slowly as he could. "Right at his chest."

"He needs medical attention!" Ahsoka cried out to the troopers at the back.

Barriss scowled at the answer given, a hundred possible diagnoses and complications running in her head. "I can heal him while we bring him over to the medical tents." A pair of clones brought out a stretcher, putting it down besides them..

Skywalker gave her an incredulous look, but made no comment. He helped place Serpentus onto the stretcher. The medics then lifted the stretcher up, the three Force-users following them as the jogged through the rainforest. Serpentus was quiet for the most part, merely grunting in pain.

Good, Barriss thought as she put a hand above the man's chest. It's like you say Master...pain means you're alive.

"'m-" Serpentus ground out, "fine."

"With all due respect Master," Barriss coldly replied, glaring at the man, "No, you're not."

Centering herself, she stretched out towards the Sith lord's energy and was greeted by a burning sensation. Force, she thought, he's better at hiding his pain than I thought. Her own cold Force energy mixed with his, tinted by the dark side, and that aggravated his energy further. He's been keeping himself alive with the pain...while using it to strengthen his own healing...She frowned. But it's not working...or rather his organs aren't healing! They're working but they're still gravely injured.

Still, she didn't have time to think of possibilities; now, it was about her opening up to a long disused method, but never forgotten.

Force...I've forgotten how beautiful the light side is…

It enveloped like a mother's embrace, warm and full of life...she directed that into her hands and then into Serpentus' wound...felt the life force within each of his cells and she called it to action...lulled them into piecing themselves together, stitching the wound while doing away with the burnt and old parts…

It was then that Serpentus' eyes opened, almost wild-like in the look and shining a feverish yellow.

"Stop." He growled out.

Barriss could feel his anguish through her current connection with him, an anguish mixed with disappointment and fury.

She countered his glare with her own icy stare. "No."

"This…not...Sith's way."

"What does it matter!" She snapped, half focused on the healing process. "You're injured!"

"You...are my...apprentice. Much...to learn."

At that, she was cut off so suddenly from him that it left her bewildered. "Master! What are you doing?!"

Ahsoka was by her side by that point. "What? What's wrong?"

"He's not letting me heal him!"

"What?!" Ahsoka turned to look down at the Sith lord, his face twisted in agony. "Master Kenobi why?"

A hand touched her shoulder; Skywalker, his other hand on Barriss' shoulder, nodded off to the side. "Look." He said.

Padawan and Acolyte gazes met, before looking in the direction of the forest beyond. And both immediately felt sick in their stomach.

The flora that towered above them, trees of grand heights and foliage of magnificent green turned ashen and shriveled-like; the proud brown barks looked grey now, and leaves began falling faster than when a nonexistent autumn came. Life around them began dying. Everyone, clone and wildlife alike, watched in horror as the natural world around them turned bleak without life. A silent scream rang out througout the rainforest; it cried, and cried, a sadness that called out to the Force users.

"Oh Sith's hell…" Ahsoka breathed.

"You said it." Skywalker said.

Barriss looked down at her Master; eyes closed, breathing even, his face a picture of serenity. How sad, that it would take a healing trance like his to save himself by taking the life force around him. Barriss was furious and felt the light side slip away sadly; why won't he just let her save him?

"Because my very young apprentice." Serpentus sat up then, forcing the group to stop and set the stretcher down. "You chose this path...and you will follow it."

She grimaced. "And...you would teach me how to do...that?" Taking a life, she could swallow; taking a life and making it her own?

Serpentus gave the Mirialan a smirk. "We're Sith dear. I don't do the teaching; you do the learning."

At that, she grimaced. Wonderful...she had to have the one Sith Lord in the world who liked playing with his food.

She punched him on the shoulder, mindful of his injury of course. "Next time you plan to die, maybe you just should. Master."

A round of laughter erupted from him, "Next time you want to punch me then, do it with all you have, apprentice."

And that was it, and all was okay.