Chapter 18

Time check: ?

The pain is how you know you're alive.

Pain is fundamental in our genetic makeup, woven inextricably into our blood and fused with our primal need to survive. It is a core tenant in the Jedi Code, one echoed from the moment we take up a blade until the day we die. That pain kept me focused during the Mandalorian siege of Solace. The litany was on my lips as I suffered horror after horror at Corvaine. So I recite it even now under my breath, between mouthfuls of air filled with ash and death.

Reality comes back in blotched circles. Dimly, I am aware that my companions are with me, gagging on all fours. That we are alive is miraculous for none of us should have survived Amarinthe's world ending pain.

My head swims. It is hard to focus but I can sense an absolute and unearthly spiritual hatred in the air. The Force is strong here...too strong. It is raw and condensed into dreadful purity, flooding across my senses, crashing against me like the gales of a maelstrom. Mysteel gives voice to the pain.

"Oooh, my head," she mumbles. "Why is everything sore? Did I just get laid?"

"I-it feels as if my soul was ripped from my body," I mutter and rise gingerly. With some relief, I note all my appendages still function. There is also a curious lack of stab wounds. Where did those wretched daggers fall?

"What in the hells did Amarinthe do?" Mysteel wonders aloud. "Did she betray us?"

A good question. She is not here to answer it, none of her hexed kind are. A quick glance tells me this is not the same chamber where we fell. It is too oppressively dark. The floor is not embossed with their stunning hexagram and feels uncomfortably damp. My bleary eyes can make out black stonework around us but it vandalized. Scattered in chunks like age old detritus.

"She did exactly what I requested," comes Revan's voice. He appears in front of us, his dark eyes darting between our surroundings. "We are in the Keeper's realm now, sister."

"Stop calling me that," Mysteel complains.

"But where?" I ask exasperated. "Are we still on the Throneworld?"

For once, my brother looks uncertain. He takes his blade out and ignites it. The walls become suffused with a mournful light, glistening with mildew and long settled fungi. We are in a vast cavernous spaced, one suited for feasting or dancing perhaps. Massive pillars surround us, taller and thicker than a Rancor's thigh. Their architecture speaks of faded extravagance, every surface painfully etched with dusty symbols and swirling murals. Only spine-bending labour or the ministrations of Force weavers could achieve such wondrous effects.

Much of those wonders have been defiled, stained with long dried blood. Gallons by the looks of things, spattered and streaked across the floor as if something mopped it with corpses. I can taste stale vitae in the air too, a copper tang that lingers even after the bodies have long decomposed. There are mounds of broken bones and headless skeletons crushed amidst the debris. All echoes of violence that hint at long forgotten atrocities.

There is nothing to explain how we came here however. No ship, no footprints, not even the residual energy displacement from mass teleportation. It seems we simply arrived into this ruin, funnelled from the Keeper's chamber by powers beyond comprehension.

There is weak light leaking from cavernous holes in the ceiling. I walk towards a large one and crane my head up. A sickly green sky glares down at me. It reminds me of a weeping sore, a smog choked cloudscape bleeding fell illumination between the cracks. Lightning splits the skies frequently, always followed by grating thunder. The accompanying wind is riven by the bellowing of inhuman sounds, almost like screams.

"I do not see the sun," Mysteel murmurs behind me. Her voice is uneasy.

"Nor the moon," I add.

"None of these landmarks look familiar," Revan agrees. "Wherever we are, it is not Coruscant."

He points. My gaze falls upon the horizon, where the pinnacles of jagged mountains can be seen, thrusting skywards like ebony spears. Even greater edifices are hinted beyond, shrouded by blackened dust.

Past all this is a stranger phenomenon, one that towers above all others yet witnessed. At the farthest edges of sight, I can make out a glowing pillar. It looks ephemeral and stretches from the mountaintops to the wounded heavens, twisting and swirling like a tornado. The smog choked clouds recoil from its might, leaving a giant bleeding vortex in the sky. Unbidden, Amarinthe's warning echoes in my ears.

Follow the light.

"That must be the Citadel," I remark.

Revan frowns, unconvinced. "Assumptions are not helpful, brother." He turns his attention back to our immediate surroundings. "And it is not our primary concern right now. We need to find a more defensible location. Assess our situation and develop practicals."

"Maybe we should-" Mysteel freezes suddenly, lekku twitching. She switches to battle sign.

Movement. To our left.

Wordlessly, we ignite our blades. The three of us fall into a defensive triangle, stance low, tracking the shadows for signs of movement. Every piece of rubble and bone pile is a potential ambush point and I can see motes of smoke falling from the statues. The slightest displacement of floor dust. Danger.

Revan unclips a flare from his belt and tosses it into the murk. It erupts to life underneath a slanting wall. Something flinches. Something large and humanoid. It tries to scuttle away but Mysteel snaps out a hand and holds it in place. It resists, but I lend my will to hers and we reel it in like a fish. A giant pile of rags flies face down at our feet. Revan grabs the squirming thing by the scruff of its neck and brings his lightsaber close for inspection.

I see a face. A frightened face, puckered and gangrenous like decomposed food. It is a male I think, but the deformities make it impossible to identify his species. Hands, neck and cheeks are infested with a riot of cysts and tumours. His clothes are scarcely better, ripped and threadbare robes soaked in blood. A malformed mouth open and closes, trying to form words through bleeding gums.

"P-please, don't k-kill me."

My brother considers the wretch and looks back into the murk, unblinking.

"Reveal yourselves," he commands.

For a second, there is no response. Then one by one, shadows peel away from the detritus, hobbling into view. Hunched and twisted things like the first, afflicted with weeping sores and dangling skin that droop and slough like melting candles. They approach from all corners, constricting us like a noose.

"Who are you? Speak quickly!" one demands. The command is delivered in a slurring lisp. Their deformities make speech barely understandable.

I eye our adversaries warily. Some carry lightsabers, each erupting to life as they skulk into the open. Others hold strange torches and spears. They are tipped with purple shards that glow an eerie purple. No, not glow. An unlight, swallowing the meek gloom we already have. The vagabonds outnumber us at least ten to one but many carry obvious wounds. One or two look like they can barely stand. I glance at Revan, waiting for a signal to strike.

He is not staring at the speaker but to a figure lurking behind the mob. This one is hooded and stands straighter than the rest, its height a match for my own.

"I will tell you nothing," my brother says calmly.

The speaker takes a step forward. Both their blades are inches apart. "And why is that?" growls the thing.

"Because I don't trust you."

A pause. The aggressor glances behind its back. Then to my surprise, its lightsaber is lowered and deactivated. The shadowed figure detaches itself from the gloom, gliding towards us.

"A good answer," says its parched voice. "Paranoia will keep you alive here."

The circle parts, letting the newcomer stop in front of Revan. It removes its cowl, revealing a bald creature with flaking yellow skin. I cannot tell a gender. The upper lip is missing. Parts of the face look like it has been doused in flames and one eye is scorched black.

"My companions call me Halden." The stranger blinks and tilts its head. "And you... judging by your clothing, the three of you are from the Throneworld."

Revan says nothing but there is little point in denying it.

"They could be Primordial Predators, wearing their victim's skin," someone warns from my right. This speaker carries one of their strange torches and waves it at my face. As the shard passes I feel a dread sensation. A deadening of the senses, almost like wearing a Force Collar. I do my best not to recoil.

Halden gives a phlegm filled chuckle. "Would those tormentors worry about finding shelter? No, we can trust what we see I think. Stand down."

There is some muttering but Halden's subordinates slowly lower their weapons and breaks their encirclement. Mysteel and I relax fractionally.

"See? A gesture of good faith," Halden slurs and stares at us expectant. Revan maintains his gaze on it but lowers his blade tip to the ground. He pushes his whimpering prisoner back to Halden. The pathetic thing scampers behind his leader for protection.

"Good, this is progress," says Halden nodding. "So tell me, why have you come unbidden to this sacred place?"

The three of us share uncertain looks. "We were invited," I offer eventually. Some of the mob scoff, a harsh rasping noise squeezed from ruined lungs. Halden's lower lip twitches in a ghoulish smile.

"Nobody is invited here," it chides. "You were either recruited or you come as thieves. Judging by your ignorance, I would assume the latter."

"And who are you?" Revan asks.

Halden glances at its companions and shrugs. "Failures. The Lost and the Damned. This motley crew took the Keeper's trials and were found wanting."

One of Halden's followers hisses. Despite all the deformities, I can tell the speaker is Cerulean from the conical head. The voice is still recognizably female.

"Halden, you should not tell outsiders these things," she scolds. "Never divulge your secrets, not even in extremis."

"And what use are keeping secrets, Kove," Halden murmurs. "When we are all dead warriors walking?"

The ghoulish leader smiles at us.

"You see, failed initiates have a choice. Undergo lobotomization or become fuel for the Soul Engines. We chose neither so they cast us out. Now we wander the Wastes, waiting."

I grimace. The term Soul Engine is unfamiliar but I can glean enough from the context. But lobotomization? The Keepers have always cultivated a wary respect from other Circles for their esoteric might is one of the few things everyone knows. Yet to hear of this...the sheer barbarity of their induction rituals repulses me.

"That's horrible," Mysteel gasps. "Couldn't the Keepers return you to...err to wherever you came from?"

Kove shakes her bulbous head bitterly. "We know too much. Once you are inducted into the Keeper's ways, there only three ways out. Pass the trials, become a miserable flesh automaton."

"Or die," Halden finishes. "We could not even accomplish that."

"You said you were waiting," Revan says slowly. "For what, exactly?"

Kobe whips her sullen glare at him. "What else? A painful death," she snaps. "And it will be painful. Nothing dies peacefully in this realm. You think we were so few and wretched at the start? No, the Wastes claimed us in handfuls and each death was worse than the last." She wipes away bloody sweat with a trembling hand. "The things I've seen out there...Force, I wish the Keepers never took an interest in me."

The decrepit thing hugging Halden's legs peeks out from cover. It is shivering despite the sweltering heat, eyes wide and unfocused. "You can feel it, can you?" it whispers. "It gnaws at you, gnaws at your very being like paint off a wall. Breaks you down like chaff, until nothing is left but your wretched souls." He bites his filthy nails, glancing around nervously.

"And then the changes begin. Oh I see it. Novjar sees the shape of nightmares to come. They are terrible."

I look at the pathetic creature, my frown deepening. "Where are we? What place has the power to warp reality?"

The initiates stare at me. I cannot tell if they are amused by the question or scornful. "We are in the realm where mortality and eternity meet," says Halden calmly.

I am in no mood for poetry. "Speak plainly," I growl.

Halden laughs. "You might as well wish for the universe to gutter out or the answers to all things. Speak plainly? Very well, you stand on soil where the greatest of species once trod upon. The race that many after considered divine for they did nothing less than mould the cosmos themselves."

It sighs and a mournful look flickers over its ravaged features. "Before their fall at least. Before they grew complacent and allowed slave races like the Rakata and Killiks to overthrow them."

"None of that matters now," Kove mutters. "All you need to know is this is one of their Fallen Kingdoms. And everything is fodder for this hell, fertilizer to birth new and horrible things."

"B-but there must be a w-way out," Novjar stutters. He straightens suddenly, eyes wide. "You see? They got in. In here with Novjar! Clever, clever. Yes, tricky ones know things we don't!"

He shuffles and clutches the hem of my robe, grovelling on all fours. "Please, brother. Sweet kind brother," he sobs. "Tell Novjar what you know. What do we have to do? How does Novjar get out?"

The mania in his voice is disconcerting. It is clear his mind has long since broken from repeated psychological trauma. I can only imagine what horrors could unman a Jedi so.

One of the survivors spits on him. "To think you were once the enclave's champion."

Kove is equally caustic. "If only you had died sooner," she grumbles. "More of us would be standing here."

"Be kind, Kove," Halden says gently. Alone among these wretches, this one seems unperturbed by their predicament. "Novjar is merely further down the path. Sooner or later, you will all be like him. Bereft of courage, pride. Sanity."

His words chill my soul. Will our bodies and minds degenerate to their sorry state, given enough time? No, I could stomach the thought.

"We need to get to the Impossible Citadel," Revan declares. "Do you know the way?"

Halden doesn't reply. Its withered head is cocked one way and its one good eye is unfocused. It is at this point I feel the heat. The chamber is become warmer, painfully so. The walls are moist. Liquid begins leaking into the room. It looks like...Force protect me. It looks like blood.

"At last," Halden breathes. The survivors notice the change as well. They become agitated, alert. Kove ignites her blade, whipping her head around frantically. Novjar screams and begins rocking back and forth.

"They've found us!" one shouts. "The terrors come!"

"How?" another snarls.

"They smell fear, so much of it," Halden husks. "The denizens of this realm covet fear. Feed on it. They are drawn to it like moths to the flame."

"But the wards-!"

"Were broken by their arrival." The leader of the troupe inhales deeply, as if savouring the growing mania. "It will be a bountiful feast, I think. But it is no less than you deserve for you intrude on sacred ground."

Kove whirls on her leader. "Force, what has gotten into you, Halden?" she spits. "Why are you saying these things?"

Halden turns. The blackened eyeball slops out of the socket. Its smile becomes inhumanly long, like stretched canvas.

"You keep calling me Halden. But Halden has been dead for a very long time."

Novjar screams. He tries to scurry away but gaunt hands pin him to the floor. Halden's face elongates even more. The jaw unhinges and clamps Novjar's face like a vice. His howls intensify.

"Shit!" one of the outcasts shouts. Two pile onto Halden and try to pull it away from Novjar. They are flung away with a shrug of bony shoulders. It rumbles. There is a wet crack as fangs finally bore through Novjar's skull. The screaming stops. Then the thing that was Halden begins slurping Noviar's brain out, sucking it like meat through a crab leg.

I roar my revulsion and impale Halden through the spine. It doesn't flinch, not even when I saw through sideways. Half its torso is missing but the Halden creature continues feasting on Novjar's insides like some obscene parasite.

Its head explodes. Kove's torch erupts through Halden's temple with a thunderous discharge. Pieces of the head fly everywhere spattering us with black viscera and rotten teeth. The body flops over Novjar's bloody remains.

"Fuck!" Kove snarls and stamps the remains of Halden's head into a viscous paste. "I should have known! Halden never volunteered to hold a torch. He never held a fucking torch!"

She snaps her rotten glare at us. "You three brought this calamity upon us. You better help us kill them!"

The Cerulean shoves her torch into Revan's hand. "Take this. Blades have limited effect unless they're weakened."

She shoulders past before I can ask what that means, bellowing orders to the remaining troupe. The initiates fall into ragged formations. They mutter amongst themselves, barely listening to instructions or bothering to maintain cohesion. Halden was right. They are fearful and it has bled away what little discipline they possess.

"Damn it all, it sounds like a whole army. Should we use the grenades?"

"That will cripple us. Use them only as a last resort."

Someone shouts a warning. "They come! Prepare yourselves!"

Across the walls, I see oily cysts squeezing through the cracks. Every point of lurid moisture begins to intensify, scores of them, hundreds, until the ruined surroundings resemble a sea of its own, a bloody mirror to the one that cycles above the cloud barrier.

They howl as they are born. I watch in horror as they begin ripping into instantiation pressing against shriven embryos. Then the first nightmare infants burst out, bathed in birth-fluid, their bodies extending upwards and outwards, with backs spawning malformed spikes or wings. Bodies sprout black-on-black eyes, multiple tongues erupt from distended jaws and they croak while flexing talons that erupt from firming scab-flesh.

These newborn swarm us, growing rapidly with each agonized step, grunting, howling, laughing. They attack without thought to cohesion or tactics, choosing the closest target or simply on a whim.

I am at a loss to describe their appearance. There is no logical anatomy to these abominations, no hint of practical evolution. They are simply horrors, dredged from the deepest chasms of our psyche, given insane form by stolen flesh. Their bodies seem to be woven from the purest spectrums within the Force. Of fear, spite and hate but driven by an agonized will long driven mad.

The only rationalization is my eyes simply cannot process the true forms of our attackers. My mind is reduced to perceiving malformed terrors that could not possibly exist in our material realm.

A...thing charges me. Its form is vaguely humanoid, but its lissom white face is incomprehensible. Mouths, multiple mouths sprout where nose and eyes should be, gibbering nonsense. In its warped hand is a jagged piece of metal, scored and pocked with rust and strung to a petrified wood handle. The implement is so crude, it does not deserve be called a sword. By all rights, my lightsaber should have shorn through it like butter. Somehow, somehow the rusted scrap bats aside my strikes, remaining intact even as the impact showers us in sparks. And like its appearance, the attacks are haphazard and chaotic. It is all I can do to deflect their sheer ferocity and unpredictability.

I duck an wild overhead and counter thrust into its rippling torso. Globules of black liquid spurts from the wound. The thing hunches over. I withdraw my weapon, thinking it the end. To my horror, its skin re knits immediately, without even a hint of a scar. It lunges again.

Revan shoves the gloom torch into its face. The monstrosity shrieks and I can hear genuine fear in that sound. The attacks flounder and Mysteel slips in between us to skewer it with a well placed thrust. The predator does not heal. It explodes, the substance of its being dissipating into bloody viscera.

A gibbering twisted creature capers in. The body has the texture of melted red wax but the limbs end in sharp points. It tries to impale Mysteel as she lands but I grab the talon moments before it can impale her. The thing gurgles outrage at me, pushing against my weight. My brother ends its struggle with a brutal bisection.

From there, we slip into instinctual rhythms, helping each other fend off the encroaching monsters. I am the anvil, interposing myself between the mass of claws and teeth, using my sheer bulk to knock crush attacks aside. Mysteel darts in between moments, delivering ripostes and slashes that sends the nightmares screeching as they reel back. My brother performs the role of executioner, bathing the wounded horrors in fell light before one of us extinguishing them with precise blows to deformed skull and chest.

Our movements are efficient, economical. Their is no need to shout warnings or commands for countless hours of joint practice and campaigns have seen us synchronize like a well oiled machine. We cover each other's blind spots on instinct, deflect while the other thrusts.

I catch snatches of battle from the initiates. For all their outward decrepitude, they fight like warriors possessed. They unleash their powers in calamitous shockwaves, in eye watering torrents of lightning that render predators into atoms. I bear witness as air splitting harmonics obliterate chaotic hordes, leaving only the largest in semi corporeal agony. The Force overspill is palpable as some wade into the enemy, blades whirling. Every physical blow is matched by a corresponding thrust of their gloom spears. Esoteric torches flare, inspiring unbridled dread.

But they are uncoordinated. Kove tries to muster them, to maximize their devastation but initiates pay little heed, choosing to blast away at random targets. They are our complete opposite, single islands of defiance without thought to their allies. We are winning though. Between our discipline and their fury, we are pushing these nightmares back and I dare to hope we can overcome this onslaught.

The ground starts to shake. Something is pummelling through the diminished ranks, something large. Then I see it, a giant oval shaped monstrosity. It has no eyes, no appendages save for a hundreds of grotesque insect legs that should not support its bulky frame. The lower purple grey mass opens and reveals a screaming maw. A maw filled with rows upon rows of rotted fangs. It is obscenely huge, wide enough to swallow a battle tank.

The initiates pour licks of lightning at it and swathes of filthy matter burn away. Several of its legs fry and crack apart, making it wobble. It keeps coming, its huge mass barrelling through the barrage like a prow through water.

"Bring it down!" Kove shouts. "Someone bring that thing down!"

More legs burst. It loses support and the head crashes sideways but momentum keeps it hurtling forward into the initiates. They try and scramble out of the way.

Too late.

The giant smoking mouth crashes into their ranks. It rips through flesh like a thresher maw and sends broken bodies spinning. The thing finally tumbles in a sea of congealed blood, squirming amidst a pile of screaming bodies. The right flank has fallen. Monstrosities follow in its wake.

"Support them!" Revan growls. The three of us finish off the closest horrors and begin a desperate advance towards the centre. Claws and barbed tails slash at us. Deformed beasts spit bioluminescent plasma. Revan slices apart a drooling toad creature and sends lesser monstrosities reeling with a flick of his hand. I knock back a lupine beast trying to rip off my head and Mysteel finishes it with a precise thrust through its mouth. Dodge, parry and cleave. We can only fend off the worst attacks while bleeding for every precious meter of ground.

We close ranks with the survivors but the damage is done. An initiate struggles to stand as a feathered horror lumbers toward him. Talons the size of my arm carve into his chest cavity and lifts him off his feet. He is pirouetting like a dancer, spurting blood contrails before falling to the ground in two halves. Another initiate is picked up by a flapping abomination with two worms for heads. It flings its victim into a horde of giant beetles and he barely has time to scream as legs and arms are hacked away by giant antennae.

The thing dives in again to snatch more prey. Revan times his thrust as it passes, pinning it to the ground with his torch. I cleave the writhing monstrosity in half. Then we wade into morass of unclean flesh, fending them off and buying precious seconds for the initiates to reorient themselves. Those survivors struggle to summon their Force reserves. They fire desultory forks of lightning but their arm is wild, and only a few lesser beasts are incinerated.

A strange droning sound assaults my ears. I whip my head around to see a spongy morass of flesh floating towards us. A...a brain? Since when does a brain have eyes? Tentacles protrude from its base and ends in gibbering mouths. The mouths vomits. It is pure energy, concentrated salvos of the Force itself. I shove Mysteel out of the line of fire, letting the attacks engulf initiates in a cloud of scintillating colours. One explodes. Others begin bubbling and melting as if struck by lightning. A few mutate rapidly, sprouting their own obscene morass of tumours while thrashing uncontrollably.

Only one avoids the torrent. He roars, thrusting lightsaber and spear into the giant brain matter. The thing recoils. The sticky matter of its being loses cohesion and the tentacles bray as if wounded. The initiate pulls back to strike again but two tentacles whip around its legs. The pulsing mass of flesh yanks him off its feet and thumps onto his chest with a wet squelch.

"No! Get if off! Get if off!"

Giant tentacles gouge out the initiate's eyes. Other tendrils enter through his mouth, the ears. I hear the snap of a spinal chord being severed. The initiate is dead but the tentacles burrow deeper, deeper, engorging the meat husk like fingers in a flesh puppet.

There is no more time to watch his grisly demise. A tortured roar echoes through the hall. I turn just in time to see a naked horned monstrosity barrelling into our formation. The monster is skinless, with pale muscle fibers glistening with fresh kills. Revan takes the brunt of its charge. He is launched into the air and skids several meters. Mysteel moves to help but something sharp snaps at her face. She recoils, just in time to see a green blur try and disembowel her. A female I think, with giant grab claws for hands. Its malformed head shrieks as it attacks and the two become locked in a furious dance.

The avian horror I saw before piles into me, clacking its beak. One hit would slice me in two but its attacks are haphazard and slow. I parry a rending talon and spin to chop off the follow up attack. One of its scorched limbs drops to the floor. The horror ignores the disarmament and embeds its remaining talon into the meat of my shoulder. I roar, falling on my back. The monster screeches and my free hand struggles to pry away the snapping beak.

Our gazes meet. Eyes with insane malevolence stare down at me. The thing is a bottomless pit of hunger and my essence is the only thing that will satiate it. It hates me. It hates everything. My opponent is that most primal of emotions made manifest. And with each moment it grows larger, engorged on the kills and screams that sustains its existence.

It covets fear. Feeds on it.

The thing tries to burrow the talons deeper. I let it, grabbing the head as it surges in and twist it like a corkscrew. There is the satisfying snap of bone. I pick it up as I regain balance and look to where Revan fell. The giant has one hand around his neck while landing consecutive haymakers in a one sided brawl. His weapon lays discarded and it is all my brother can do to stay alive.

With a grunt, I hurl my kill into the skinless monster. The corpse smashes into its back and the meaty grip falters. Revan breaks its hold, simultaneously extending a hand to his fallen weapon. He swings down as the giant tries to rise. The tumor ridden face sloughs off, revealing a mess of brain matter and sinew, like a poorly drawn anatomical diagram.

Revan sees Mysteel wrestling with her misshapen opponent. One claw is perilously close to her neck and our sister struggles with both hands to keep it from snipping off her head. My brother aims and hurls his blade like a javelin. It thunks between the monster's shoulder blades. The monster arches in pain and her claws fall away. Mysteel activates her wrist mounted gauntlet. A vicious swipe of the miniature energy blade severs her opponent's neck. She tosses his weapon back with a nod.

More of the Primordial Predators come, screaming obscene cant that makes my ears bleed. There seem to be no end to them and only a few initiates remain. Those that survive are isolated. They scream as naked banshees flay them alive with pincers. Others are being hacked apart or subsumed into screaming flesh, violating them in ways that defy description. Our brothers and sisters die brutally and they die howling. None of their deaths are quick. These abominations seem to delight in prolonging their prey's agony, sampling the pain like Amarinthe would sample a fine wine. Not that they have any kinship with each other. Smaller fiends are ripped apart by behemoths in a gluttonous quest to consume Jedi flesh.

The three of us have serious wounds. We will need electrolytes and medical attention if we are to maintain combat efficiency but there is no respite from this storm. We barely manage to reform ranks just as a tiny misshapen horde waddle in. These are squat bloated things with leering faces and sharp needle like claws. We hack off limbs that reach for our necks, sever bodies with gouts of Force and rip away stabbing tails. They keep piling into us, cackling as they die. These things are fodder and they know it, sacrificing themselves with gleeful abandon until we are too weary to fend off the greater threats.

Block, slash, parry, grunt and die. Combat becomes an indistinguishable blur. Our blows becomes less coordinated. There is no longer the calculated expenditure of Force. Only the instinctual rage of warriors that refuse to die.

Something resembling a mollusk lashes multiple tentacles at Revan, too many for him to block. I see my brother reel as he is struck, his defences momentarily breached. I interpose myself between him and his attacker, slicing its head from its shoulders before spinning back to face the next one. The delay costs me, leaves me a fraction of a second shy of where my blade needs to be, and a heavy blow cracks into my shoulder, knocking me down. I flip over to see a drooling worm towering over, its fanged maw opening impossibly wide to swallow me.

There is a green slash. The worm's upper half tumbles away and the rest crashes to ground. A panting face hovers above me. Kove. She is bleeding from head to toe but she is alive.

"Get up!" she snarls. I take her proffered hand, grimacing with every grind of bone.

I barely manage to stand before a talons erupts through Kove's abdomen. She screams, her blood splattering against my face. Her body is lifted high and I see what impaled her. It is huge. A horror with pulsating flesh and a riot of thrashing tentacles.

It is the brain. The parasitic monstrosity that killed the initiate has subsumed completely into its host. Patches of robes are still visible around its obscene mass and I can see the horrified scream stretched taught over stolen skin. The thing continually mutates before our eyes. Bony extrusions have unfurled from the back and forehead. Legs crack and fuse, reorienting into spindly shapes.

It paddles towards us on giant fleshy limbs. Force harmonics burst from obscene orifices. Monsters and dead initiates are crushed underfoot. Some try to crawl away and are swiftly snatched up by hungering tentacles, blubbery appendages infested with gibbering mouths. They gnaw and gnash wildly, crushing its victims bones and rending flesh into bloody gobbets. Its eats messily, spilling chunks of Jedi all over the battlefield. Those without prey lash out at us. Revan slashes a snapping appendage off. Mysteel narrowly dodges another. I duck a wild swing, the lash pulverizing pillar after pillar.

Everyone is dead. Their bodies are strewn in several parts, ripped and desecrated. The monsters that have nothing to violate turn on each other, clawing and screaming for more. Some of them converge on the three of us, their mouths slavering, eyes bulging with insane malice.

"So this is how we die," I pant. "It is a good death at least. In battle." I look to my comrades. Mysteel is grey faced and exhausted. I can sense her despair. Revan remains inscrutable as ever, even in the face of certain demise.

"It has been an honour," I add. The words feel inadequate but I do not think there are any to convey the emotions I feel, at the end of all things.

Revan is not paying attention to me. He is looking up at the behemoth. I follow his gaze and a muffled sound catches my attention. Kove is not dead. She ought to be. Too much of her is missing and gnawed away for her to ever mend. She can't speak. She can't even express her overwhelming agony, except to paddle her fingerless hands and churn what's left of her jaw. The Cerulean isn't the source of the noise. Something on her belt is chiming, accidentally activated by the flesh strangling her body. It sounds like something being primed. It sounds like...

"Grenade!" Revan shouts. "Everyone get down!"

The explosion sweeps us from our feet. At this proximity, I expected my flesh to be stripped from the bone but there is no heat. It is much worse, that familiar wave of nausea. The horrible sensation of being cut from the Well of Infinity. My momentum hurtles me into a wall and I fall to my knees, vomiting. Slowly, I look up with bloodshot eyes. The explosion has drained me, but it is nothing compared to the devastation it inflicted.

All the Predators are dying. Many are melting or simply turning to dust, the substance of their being dissolving into the ethereal winds. The giant parasite is writhing on the floor. A bulbous chunk of the its head is missing and many of its tentacles have charred and withered. What just happened? What-.

"Grab the anathemas! Hurry!" Revan picks up a torch from a nearby body and stalks up to the giant mess of brain and tissue. He presses it into the unclean flesh and it begins to crisp and burn. The parasite screams in a hundred agonized voices.

Mysteel and I catch onto my brother's example. We scrabble for the nearest gloom weapon and begin hacking at unclean flesh. Monstrosities shrieks as their flesh come in contact with the shards. I can sense genuine fear in that sound. From my limited knowledge, I can see why. These nightmares are made from the very essence of the Force. The unlight from these shards have demonstrated the ability to nullify it. And so they are not merely dying, they are being wiped away from existence.

The last beast in my vicinity is a convulsing anthropoid. Like the rest, it is losing cohesion and seems to be shrinking in upon itself. Spider limbs sprout and disappear erratically. A choir of horrified faces press taut under its skin, straining to escape. Only the explosive wound remains constant, a gaping hole filled with steaming worms and weeping eyes.

"Back into the hell that spawned you," I spit and raise my blade to finish the deed.

The thing cowers, covering its loathsome face. Then it lowers its arms and I freeze.

It is the girl. The girl that haunts my dreams. Her chestnut hair is just as I remember and her dimpled cheeks are still flushed with fear. Her pleading eyes lock onto mine.

"Father is that you?" she whimpers. "I'm scared! Please, please help me!"

A part of me knows it is a trick. It has to be. But I hesitate and that split second is all it needs. The girl smiles. She reaches out and pain erupts in my abdomen. I stare down in disbelief. Her hand has gouged through my skin. She squeezes something and I collapse, choking in agony. Convulsions overtake me as fanged fingers rummage through my insides. My words are lost amidst gurgling blood and the girl's droning taunts.

"Save me, father! Save me!" she laughs.

A gloom shard hits her between the eyes. She screams. Her head begins swelling like an overinflated balloon. Eyes bulge out, becoming larger than her lolling mouth.

"Save me!"

It explodes, soaking me with the viscera of her unmaking. When I manage to wipe the blood away, Mysteel is kneeling next to me. She stares at me, concern writ large.

"Shiny, are you hurt? Why did you hesitate?" she asks. Behind her, Revan stares down at me, a faint frown on his lips.

"Do you see it? Did you see her?" I ask him feverishly.

"Who?"

"The girl!" I rasp and struggle to my feet. "The girl that was consumed at the enclave!"

My brother shakes his head. "I saw nothing of the sort."

I stare at him, one hand clutching my shredded stomach. "What does this mean? Am I going mad?"

"No, you simply saw what you dread."

"What?"

Revan shifts his gaze to the weeping sky. "You asked me where we are. I've surmised this place is a spatial interdiction. An overlap between states of existence."

Mysteel looks at him blankly. "Are you even speaking Standard? Use smaller words!"

Revan frowns, searching for a simpler explanation. "We are in a space where the physical and the raw essence of the Force meet," he explains slowly. "A...transitional plane between our galaxy and the Netherworld."

"The Netherworld?" I echo, incredulous. "You're serious? We are in the Realm of Infinity itself?"

Revan nods. "Partially. Those things that attacked us seem to be some kind of Force manifestation. Residual spirits gone mad perhaps. Fear is their chosen weapon. And they take the forms that we associate with base emotions."

He turns away suddenly. "Search the dead. Take as many of the anathema weapons as you can find.

"You mean these shards?" Mysteel picks up the spear she threw then drops it. "They make me feel sick."

"They will keep you alive." Revan crouches and pulls a relatively intact initiate from the rubble. "Make sure to collect all the grenades. Those seem especially potent against the fiends. Hurry."

"We need a breather, Rev." My sister gives my wound a worried look. "And Shiny needs-"

"More of those apparitions will come," Revan stresses while rummaging through the corpse. "This is not defensible ground. We must remain mobile and prevent encirclement."

He pauses and turns back to us. "This is a challenge. The Keepers threw us in the deep end to see if we will float." A fierce light enters my brother's eyes. The same spark that tells me he is truly angry.

"They will learn the folly of questioning our capabilities."

Authors Notes:

Phew, that was doozy to write. Hope everyone enjoyed the slaughter fest. Sorry about the wait. Holidays and such.

I have a big announcement! After years of neglect, I have finally updated my deviantart page! If you want to see Mysteel in 3D or cool characters, head on over to deviantart rogermein1. Look out for more announcements there!

Once again, thanks to all my readers. Hope you enjoyed the opening chapter in this arc. Any feedback would be great. And please spread the word if you like the story so far. Thanks!

Responses to reviews:

Just a Crazy-Man chapter 17. Nov 20, 2018

Thanks! Glad you liked it!

LeonCaboose chapter 17. Nov 20, 2018

Thank you so much! Hope you keep reading!

R4t0rian chapter 17. Nov 24, 2018

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you liked the character development! And don't worry, the Triumph will definitely be a sight to remember =).

RevJohn1171 chapter 17. Dec 2, 2018

Thanks! Yep, Exon isn't as straight and clean cut as he lets on. And his jealousy of Revan will definitely lead up to new developments. Hope you liked this latest chapter!