A/N Okay, so here's the deal. This could probably use some more editing, and I'm still not sure if I stopped it at the right place or not (the tone will be pretty much the same at the start of next chapter, something I usually try to avoid), but I just need to get this out there, need to get over this whole mess of file corruption and move on. So here it is. Thanks for your patience, and I hope it was worth the wait.

PS: Yep, we're starting to get pretty dark now. That's kinda the theme for this chapter. Hence the title. So, rating to M yet? No?

Chapter 36: The Darkness Within

Everything seemed to hold still for a moment as Carth's signal came over the com. That, plus the instant's warning from the Force, gave Kyrena the time to grab Mission and shove her towards the exit before the Czerka guards opened fire.

Kyrena exploded out onto the great walkway, pushing Mission in front of her and blocking blaster bolts from behind. Her mind was moving a million miles a minute, weighing options. If all of Czerka was on alert it would be almost impossible to make it back to the landing pad, and that was assuming they could hold the ship long enough for them to get there. No, Carth's advice was right—they needed to go to ground, somewhere Czerka wouldn't go, and with the wookiees in Chuundar's pocket that left only one place.

"Quickly, we need to get to the lifts. Go!"

Thankfully Czerka didn't have any patrols wandering wookiee territory, and they made it with no further incident, and Kyrena extinguished her blade before they reached the lift. Kyrena practically threw the twi'lek into the big basket as the two wookiee guards raised their weapons, alarmed. "Hey, we're here for a job from Chuundar. We need to go down to the Shadowlands, but Czerka is trying to stop us, please, we need to hurry. We can't down Mighty Chuundar, can we?"

The guards hesitated for another moment, glancing at each other, then set aside their weapons to man the lift cranks and Kyrena jumped in after Mission. And, with agonizing slowness, they began to descend into darkness.

"Ugh," he groaned, his eyes slowly opening. Everything hurt. I'm . . . I'm in the Ebon Hawk . . . on Kashyyyk. He lay almost sideways in the pilot's seat, hanging by the safety restraints. His body felt . . . loose, somehow. He raised his head to see a cathar, Juh . . . Juhani? She was splayed across the command console, wedged against the viewport where the impact had thrown her. Her face was smashed into a giant purple bruise, and her left leg was clearly fractured.

He stared blankly at her face, his mind a blurry haze, as a small cut across her forehead slowly closed, ending the slow trickle of blood. He stared in fascination as the cut slowly sealed itself shut. The Jedi use the Force even while unconscious.

He looked beyond her, out the viewport, and saw a confusing mess of brown and green. A tree?And yet, for all that, there was still something . . . he was forgetting . . . Carth. Carth Onasi, that's my name.

Carth breathed out a sigh of relief. It wasn't the first time he'd had a concussion, but they were always scary. He craned his neck to the side and saw Bastila twitching for a moment before her eyes opened.

"Hey, are you alright?"

She winced, but nodded. "For the moment, at least."

Carth reached out with his boot and, careful not to tromp on Juhani, pushed off against the command console to get some slack in the harnesses. He unclipped them and flopped to the floor, going to a knee to avoid falling onto his face. Beside him Bastila dropped significantly more gracefully.

"Okay, I'll take the feet while you . . ." He took a startled step back as Juhani slowly floated into the air. He'd seen the Force used before, of course, and far more than pretty much any non-Jedi, but it had always been more . . . subtle. Moving faster, maybe redirecting an object in flight, inspiring followers, that kind of thing, but this . . . this was something completely different. He'd never imagined that that kind of control was even possible with the Force.

Bastila led the floating Juhani out ahead of her into the hallway and back towards the medical bay, her eyes shut in concentration, not bothering to look as she easily strode across the heavily angled deck.

Well, he was content to leave Jedi things to the Jedi. First things first. See if we're in danger, and if we can get the ship flying again. Carth stood and followed Bastila out into the hallway.

The ship was a complete mess. The only things still in place in the living quarters were the bolted down holo-table and surrounding couches. A mess of odds and ends, from cracked plates and bowls to spilled food, was all scattered against the bulkhead that was now 'downhill' from him. He walked awkwardly up the deck in the other direction, towards the loading ramp. Just as he got there, he heard an electronic whistle.

"T3?" He moved past the ramp and into the cargo bay, which was a disaster. The rear docking clamp on the swoop bike had snapped clean off. The front one had held, but swoop's forward landing skid hadn't been able to take the strain and had sheared off, twisting freely in the clamp like a giant pivot. The back end had smashed into the wall, blocking the far access corridor. Tools were splayed everywhere, and the downhill wall now sported a whole variety of dings and dents where flying tools had rammed into it.

On the far side of the mess T3 appeared, wheeling his way around the mess despite the sharp deck angle. Wow, he really is top of the line. The only way he could do that is if he has a built-in magnetic grip, the kind they only put on purpose-built emergency repair droids that work on the exterior of starships so they don't just float off into space. "Hey, how are the engines looking? Anything leaking?"

The droid warbled a negative, then said something incomprehensible in the beeps and boops of machine language. "Look, I don't know what you're saying, but it sounds like we won't blow up, so that's good. Just . . . do what you can, alright?"

T3 emitted a low "dwoooo" and scuttled off. Carth shook his head and turned back to the loading ramp. He punched in the lower command and frowned when he saw the broken cover of the still-depressed manual override. It took a second in his still addled state, then he swore. The assassin droid! It's the only thing it could have been!

No, no, don't worry about it. Not yet. Wherever that thing is, it's far away from here. First, check out our situation. Get us flying. Then worry about it.

The loading ramp groaned to a halt half-open, which left him to half-climb, half-crawl outside. The first thing he noticed was that it was dark down here—very dark. If it wasn't for the emergency flood lights on the Hawk's exterior he wouldn't have been able to see a thing. And even with them, the view wasn't great beyond ten or fifteen meters of the ship. It all merged into shadow. Still, he could see the immediate area well enough.

They were indeed on a tree branch, a huge one that was over a dozen meters wide. He leaned over and checked under the ship—the frame still seemed to be intact, though the paint was a ruined and smeared mess that showed the hard gray of its durasteel construction. That was good news, and he was impressed—whoever had built this ship had really done it right. The frame was reinforced, and so were the shields, not to mention that souped up drive. They were extremely lucky they'd landed more or less squarely on the branch.

His boots sunk a couple of centimeters into the thick moss on the tree branch as he moved over to the edge to look beyond the ship. It wasn't all that hard to reconstruct what had happened. They hadn't been exactly subtle in their approach. All he could do was shake his head. He'd been in more than his fair share of crashes, but he must have used up his lifetime supply of luck on this one.

There, just visible in the distance, was a tree that had a good chunk of its bark stripped. They must have just missed it, bringing it into range where the shields tried to deflect the tree. They'd fried a good couple of meters of bark off the tree, but in doing so they'd burned off a lot of their kinetic energy. It had slowed them without actually crashing them into a smoldering pile of debris. The force hadn't been applied squarely to the Hawk, though, so they'd started to spin. There, they must have bounced obliquely off that tree there. Another couple of meters to the left and they hit it square, and they were dead. Then they'd hit this branch at just the right angle, sliding along the branch until they were almost at the trunk itself, which was wide enough to support the ship. They'd ripped down a good thirty centimeters of wood doing it, too. Another couple of meters up and they went straight into the trunk, and they were dead. And if they'd done any of this without the upgraded frame and shields, they were dead again.

Still, he thought while looking down into the darkness, despite their insanely good luck they were a long way from out of this mess. They were maybe thirty meters up from the ground, which was a lot lower than he'd thought. Okay, add that one to the list—if they hadn't crashed when they had, they would have plowed straight into the ground, and they were dead again.

He climbed back inside the ship and clambered his way into the medical bay. It was small, with pretty much just room for a single bed and the surrounding cabinets of supplies, but it was also a lot better secured than the cargo bay had been—just about everything was still where it was supposed to be. And there was a lot of it to secure. Whoever had stocked this ship hadn't skimped here, either, and they were prepared to deal with anything short of surgery. Unfortunately, surgery seemed to be what they needed for their fallen companion.

Juhani was strapped down to the bed with seat-belts to keep her from sliding off to the floor. Bastila had stacked several boxes together and was sitting on them, eyes closed, as she concentrated on the cathar. Carth paused in the doorway, watching. Her leg seemed to be . . . moving. Carth wasn't particularly squeamish, but he felt nauseous as he watched the white of bone sticking out of Juhani's leg start to twitch. It trembled, wriggling back into her leg which stretched as it forced its way back inside. The leg bulged out until the bone snapped back into place, and the skin around the wound slowly closed itself.

Carth shivered. It just didn't seem . . . natural. No, scratch that, it wasn't natural. But he couldn't deny that it wasn't useful. "Okay, I'm impressed. That kind of break would take weeks, even with the best of modern medicine, to fix. You healed it in what, five minutes?"

Bastila opened her eyes, her face pale with exhaustion. "No, I didn't heal it, I merely . . . helped it along. To truly heal a wound you must understand the muscles to reattach them properly, understand the cells that have been ruptured to repair them, understand the veins and arteries and everything else." She shook her head. "Only a real master, with years of study, can truly heal an injury, Carth. And there is a real risk of putting it back together incorrectly, causing serious damage. What I did was simply put the bones back where they belong, seal them together, and close the wound. It was . . . it was Jedi first aid, of a sort. Primitive and temporary. There is still serious tissue damage, and she shouldn't be walking on it for another day or two, at least."

She paused, then looked up at him. "Carth, I sense . . . do you have a concussion? Would you like me to heal it for you?"

Carth instinctively took a half-step back. "No! No , I'm fine I . . ." He hesitated. Yes, it was scary, and yes he would say no under almost any other circumstances, but these weren't other circumstances. They were trapped on a hostile world, behind enemy lines, with a crashed ship surrounded by what promised to be unfriendly natives. He sighed. "Okay, fine. Do it. Just . . . just be careful, alright?"

Bastila didn't respond. She simply closed her eyes again.

Carth felt . . . something. There was no real way to describe it. It was like a feeling, like he wasn't alone in his own head for a second. Goosebumps jumped out all over his skin, and a cold whisper ran up his spine. Then it was over, and his mind felt tighter, sharper than before. He let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Thanks, Bastila, that does feel better. Oh, and I have some good news—the ship is in remarkably good shape, and we're not far from the ground."

"Good." Bastila dragged herself to her feet, her face set. "We need to go after Kyrena immediately."

"Woah, slow down there a second, what? Why?"

She arched an eyebrow at him. "You don't want to leave her here, do you?"

Carth put up his hands defensively. "No, that's not what I'm saying. Look, Kyrena is amazing, I get that. She's saved my life a dozen times over. But this mission is more important than any of us, she's made that point herself often enough, and you want to abandon Juhani here to go after her? Why her? Why her, specifically? What makes her so important that you'd abandon Juhani to go rescue her?"

Bastila had herself well under control. "I am not abandoning Juhani. I have done everything I can for her, and she can't be moved for a time. She should be safe here, sealed in on the ship, while Kyrena remains in danger."

Carth crossed his arms. "Alright, I get that, but why not fix the ship so we can do some good when we find her? If there's anyone I know that can fend for themselves, it's Kyrena." Well, most of the time, anyway. I'd bet on Scary Kyrena against anybody. Competent Kyrena is no slouch, either. Green Scout Kyrena, though, that's another story . . . Gah, I don't know if I've ever met a more confusing woman in my life. He wiped away the irrelevant thoughts. "I mean, how would we even find her?"

Bastila raised an arm and pointed at one of the bulkheads. "She's that way. I can feel her presence through the bond." She dropped her arms and leaned back against her chair of boxes, eyes closing in a brief grimace before meeting his gaze again. "Look, Carth. I'm a failure of a commander, and I've been a wretched leader, I know that. I won't tell you what to do, I can't." Her eyes hardened with renewed fire. "But I know what I must do. I am going to save Kyrena, with or without you. Now, are you coming or not?"

Carth didn't even have to think about it. Somewhere along the line, without his even realizing it, Kyrena had become more than just another soldier, even more than just a friend. She was a squadmate, a part of the team that was in some ways, for better or for worse, even closer than family. "I'm in."

Twenty minutes later Carth and Bastila stood outside the Ebon Hawk. They'd left a note for Juhani, explaining what had happened, and instructions for T3 to look after her and do what he could for the ship. The pair stood taking in their surroundings while adjusting the heavy packs they'd taken from the surviving supplies. They each carried emergency sleeping bags and a pop-tent, a blaster rifle for Carth with spare power packs for his pistol and rifle both, a survival knife, climbing rope, emergency rations, comlinks, and glowrods.

"Well, I think that's everything." Carth lit his glowrod and killed the exterior flood lights on the ship as the loading ramp groaned shut behind them. The sudden silence was heavy and left a ringing in Carth's ears as the darkness pressed in on him. He turned to comment to Bastila, but she was already digging in the first tie-off for the rope, and he hurried to catch up.

For the first fifteen minutes Kyrena was tense, focusing all her efforts on the slightest twinge in the Force, any warning that Czerka was cutting the cable. She's have to move quickly, grab Mission, and try to jump to the nearest branch. As another ten minutes passed with no problems she started to relax a little bit.

One of two things was happening up there. One, Chuundar had decided to stand up to Czerka, who he thought could defeat him so handily that he was selling his own people to keep them from just taking them. Yeah, right. Option two was worse though. Czerka had decided that whatever was below them was so bad that they weren't worth following. And, considering how they were willing to shoot up their own spaceport, attack Jedi, and even come after her right in front of Chuundar, they wanted them pretty badly. Whatever was down below must be even more than frightening than she'd thought.

Mission smiled weakly, her face pale, but gamely tried to make light of it. "Heh, here we are, going all the way down in the spooky Shadowlands, ooooooh, scary." Her shiver as she stared out into the darkness undercut her bravado, however.

And they kept going down, down, down.

Until, at last, they arrived.

Canderous collapsed against the ground, utterly spent. It had taken him hours to get here, and he'd had to stop to rest five different times. And he'd had to ditch most of his equipment to cut down on weight. Yet despite it all, there was no way he'd have made it if he'd been climbing up.

His chest heaved with each breath, but his mind kept working. That was lesson one of survival—the strong kept thinking, the weak closed down, retreating into themselves. He could feel the heat flowing off of him, like a wave of energy hovering just over his skin, yet despite that the air was cool on his skin, the dirt cold against his arm. It was very cold down here. He needed to get up, get moving, or he'd catch a cold, perhaps even hypothermia if he didn't find some sort of shelter.

He thought of what he knew about this place. Of course the mandalorians had heard of the place even wookiees feared to go, these Shadowlands of theirs. There were supposed to be dangerous creatures down here, strong enough to take down even a mandalorian. Yet the wookiees spoke of it like it had some sort of tribal, ritualistic significance, which meant they came here at least semi-regularly. And that was a climb, even for a wookiee, so they probably had a lift somewhere. He needed to find it, and get back up. And if that didn't work out, well, he'd find another way.

That was what mandalorians did.

Canderous heard a faint buzzing sound he hadn't heard in a very long time. Even exhausted he reacted instantly, throwing himself into a corner, a little fold in the massive root system he'd dropped off of, and held his heavy blaster rifle to the ready. "Show yourself!"

Nothing happened.

He didn't lower the rifle.

Then, finally, six forms shimmered into existence as their mandalorian stealth field generators deactivated. They wore heavy mandalorian neo-crusader armor, the armor he'd had taken from him just over a year ago. The leader stepped closer, offering a mocking slow clap. "Excellent! You not only survived the climb, but you recognized our presence as well! Excellent. You may be worthy of us after all."

Canderous didn't lower his rifle. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I am Skelthor. As to what we are doing, why, we do what we always do. We are hunting, challenging ourselves, growing stronger. We are mandalorians, after all."

Canderous sneered. "Ha. True mandalorians stayed with the clans. We fought to the finish. You still have your armor—you ran, abandoned your brothers. You're no mandalorian. You are scum."

Skelthor crossed his arms, his voice mocking. "The clans? They are weak, gone now. What is our motto? 'Victory is our justification,' is it not? The clans lost, and thus they were weak, unworthy of us. We saw this coming, and as true mandalorians abandoned weakness in pursuit of strength. We are strong, and the clans are dead. Who is the true mandalorian now?"

Canderous spat at his feet. "Cowards, the lot of you."

Skelthor sighed with exaggerated patience. "I see we're not going to agree on this. Fortunately, we have a way of permanentlyresolving disagreements among us mandalorians."

Canderous froze. "You can't mean . . . but I'm spent!"

"Just like your precious clans, correct? Come now, don't make excuses for them, or for yourself. It is not the mandalorian way! There is only one justification—victory! In respect to your history with the lost mandalorians, we will give you a five minute head start. I suggest you run quickly, brother mandalorian."

Canderous stared each of them in the eye of their blank face-plates for a long moment, swore, and forced his leaden limbs to run blindly into the darkness.

At long last the lift bumped to a halt on a truly gigantic root of the wroshyr tree. It was almost pitch black now, and the darkness was oppressive. The cold seemed to seep into her very bones with the promise of death and loss. The only light came from a distant campfire.

Three forms were there, the firelight illuminating their outlines. They wore black cloaks, and they stood smoothly as one and turned to approach. Dark Jedi.

They didn't run, didn't charge, just slowly walked forward. There was no retreat, no running. They were inevitable, unstoppable. She couldn't take three of them, even at her best. Here she knew nothing about the terrain at all, fighting on their chosen ground, in the darkness. She even had a helpless companion to slow her down. Useless.

There was no point in running, no point in fighting. Her legs felt shaky, tired. I'm going to die here. Right here. Right now.

No, no. Okay, maybe she was dead, but there was still a chance she could do something. Maybe. She stepped forward off the platform.

Mission clung to Kyrena's arm, half behind her, trembling. This place, it was so . . . wrong.

Kyrena turned to face her. "Mission."

She stared at the approaching Dark Jedi, coming to kill her, coming to kill them all.

"Mission!"

Something shook her shoulder and she looked up to see Kyrena staring at her.

"Mission, run."

"I . . . what?"

"You need to run, Mission. RUN!"

Kyrena shoved her hard, and she stumbled away. Lightsabers ignited behind her in a violent clash, and the muggy sludge of her thoughts transformed into raw fear. Her adrenaline spiked, and she sprinted off into the night, terrified.

She couldn't see anything, blinded from looking into the fire, but she charged ahead anyways, running, stumbling, running, falling, scrambling to her feet, running, running, running.

A big root smashed into her shin in the darkness, sending lances of pain through her whole body, and she crashed to the ground blindly, scraping her arms as she tried to catch herself on the rocks. And this time, finally, she couldn't get back up.

What's the point in going on? Kyrena abandoned you, just like Griff did.

The thought came from somewhere deep inside, from the little voice she'd ignored for so long she'd thought it was gone forever.

No, Griff is my family, he would never abandon me!

Oh? Then why didn't he ever call, or even write? He was a two-bit con artist, nothing more, and he abandoned you because you're useless. You know it's true.

No, that's not true! I'm useful! I have skills, even the Beks valued me!

Then why didn't they ever make you a Bek? Oh, right, to protect you. You were a kid to them, you always have been, their little blue mascot to joke about and tease.

That's . . . that's not right, I can . . .

That's why Zaalbar follows you, you know. Because you're pathetic and helpless. A lost little girl on her own, lonely and afraid. He doesn't need you. He never has.

No . . . please . . .

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sound in the darkness. There was something here, something big.

She froze, not even breathing, tears blurring her blind eyes, utterly terrified. It was getting closer now, closer with each passing second. Her pulse pounded in her ears. It was right next to her. She could feel its hot breath, thick with the smell of rotting meat, on her face. Then something wet touched her face and it was too much. She screamed, scrambling to her feet, running. Something heavy and huge smashed into her, dropping her to the ground. She was so scared she could barely feel the deep gouges in her legs.

Her fingers and heals clawed in the dirt as she scrambled away on her back, but it hit her again, flipping her onto her stomach, and it was on top of her, pinning her down.

Another sound emerged, another growl, a roar, and the weight was gone. She could hear them as she lay flat, stunned, as they snarled at each other, hear grunts of pain and tearing flesh, feel the pounding of heavy feet through the dirt as blood splattered her face.

But finally, at last, it was going away, going far away, fading as she melted away into emptiness.

The three Dark Jedi ignited their blades, tinting everything crimson against the black backdrop. Kyrena turned on her own blue lightsaber. They stared each other down for a long moment, then the three charged in and Kyrena ran. She couldn't fight them, couldn't win like that. She had to keep moving, keep them from getting behind her.

There was only one chance, one faint hope if she was to survive. Dark One, are you there?

There was no response. Kyrena batted away a red lightsaber and leaped backwards. She sidestepped an overhand swing and landed a snap kick to an armored torso, but another blade came in and caught her side. She grunted in pain and stepped back again.

Dark One! Where are you? Please, I need your help!

She shrieked as Sith lightning escaped past her blade, sending her stumbling as her muscles twitched uncontrollably for a moment.

This place . . . so tired . . . can't keep . . . No, I . . . I have to, I can't stop. Can never stop.

Kyrena backflipped onto a fallen tree, gaining herself a moment of breathing room as the Dark Jedi moved to surround her again. The only chance against multiple opponents like this was to get your back to something, find a way to limit their approaches, but even if she could do that they'd cut her to pieces in moments. She had to keep running. Somehow.

Dark One, is that you? Please, I could really, really use your help here.

What . . . who? Oh, it's you. No, I can't. I have my own battle to fight.

Kyrena leaped again, flipping over one of the Jedi and earning herself another burn across her arm in the process as she retreated once again.

Please! We'll die if you don't!

So? Why do you want to live? What's the point—the mission will go on without you. You have no family, only a handful of friends that will get over you, your memory will fade, and soon you will be completely forgotten. Why live? The voice didn't sound angry. It simply spoke with a bemused sort of curiosity, a passive, uninterested onlooker as she beat away another furious lightsaber assault.

It didn't come. She couldn't think of one. What was the point, really? No, there . . . there has to be one . . .

She blocked another overhand slash, but that left her open for the thrust of another Dark Jedi. She eased herself to the side, but a hair too slow. She gasped with the shock of it as it burned across her stomach, and another wrenching blow knocked the lightsaber from her hands. It flipped end over end before the dead man's switch extinguished the blue blade, leaving nothing but red and black everywhere, filling everything. She dropped to her knees, arms instinctively covering her wounded stomach.

Then it came.

Mission! We have to save Mission!

The dark one sighed. Fine. But my aid comes with a price. A trade. I will help you with your battle if you will help me with mine.

The Sith took his time, lining up a neat killing blow while she looked up into his eyes.

Done!

The Force exploded out of her, throwing the unsuspecting Sith backwards. Kyrena looked down at her hands, felt them clench, filled with her own raw power but shaped with the masterful control and experience that weren't hers.

It was different this time. Unlike on the swoop track, she wasn't a neutral observer, she was a participant, helping to shape the the will, the intent behind her actions. They were distinct wills, distinct focuses, but working in tandem, together. Yet that wasn't all she felt. There was more, far more.

She felt the Dark One itself, a strange blend of anger and loss, of deep bitterness and disappointment, of duty that dragged down with crushing weight, of sadness and regret. And there was still more.

It was as if the Dark One had been standing in a doorway, blocking everything beyond it, and had stepped aside. And there, outside, was the night. There was agony, an ocean of pain and regret. There was rage so all-consuming it could never be directed, never be focused. There was no target big enough to sate the hunger. And there was madness, the only escape for a soul that had given all it could give. And she recognized it. This was the beast, the animal that had consumed her fighting Bendak.

Kyrena shrank back from that all-encompassing night that swallowed the whole horizon, and it leaped on the opening. A bolt of undiluted rage jolted through her and she snarled, eager to rend, to destroy. Then the Dark One was there, filling the gap, interposing itself between her and the night, filling the doorway. Kyrena rallied, moving forward again, and together they held it back.

She stood, pain forgotten. What was it compared to the endless sea of agony she'd just tasted for the barest of moments? It was nothing. The lightsaber flashed into her hand once more, burning bright blue against the night.

Two of the Dark Jedi charged while the third readied more lightning in her hands. Kyrena blocked both blows with her blade, using the Force to strengthen her arm and grip. Her other hand reached out and caught the lightning which crackled around her closed fist before she threw it back. The Dark Jedi screamed and crumpled to the ground.

Kyrena forced both lightsabers aside to the left and launched herself off her left foot, twisting in midair to deliver a snapkick with her right further strengthened by the Force. It landed with enough force to flip the Dark Jedi completely over, landing on his back, winded and stunned. The other tried to push her away with the force, but she reached out again and twisted in a way she couldn't quite describe, untangling the strands of energy that approached her even as she latched out anchors of her own, tying her to the ground. The push blew harmlessly past her, its energy dissipated, and she pushed back with all her might.

The Dark Jedi tried to emulate her defense, but his movements were sluggish, awkward, and the blow landed with bone-crunching power. He sailed away and crashed into a tree, a dozen meters up. Kyrena launched herself after him, fueling her leap with the Force, and impaled him to the tree. They hung there for a moment as the Dark Jedi groaned, blood trickling from his mouth, until gravity overcame friction and slowly dragged her down, tearing a long gash in the tree. She disengaged, backflipping free to land lightly on her feet, and there were only two of them now.

The one that had launched lightning charged in with her blade now, while the other had recovered enough to take a defensive stance. Kyrena started walking slowly towards the stationary one and threw her lightsaber, guiding it into a vicious arc that decapitated the charging enemy. She snatched it out of the air effortlessly without breaking stride.

Her last foe backed away, all thought off attack abandoned. "Wait, wait! Please! I . . . I recognize you now, please, it was a mistake!" He dropped to his knees, pleading. "Forgive me, Lord R—"

NO! The Dark One screamed in her mind, and it was no longer the two of them against the night. The Dark One was out there in the dark, pushing the darkness in, and it was too much, she couldn't it back alone.

She dropped her lightsaber, hunching over in agony as lightning crackled in her hands; she was lost in the madness, and the only sound she could hear was the Dark Jedi's scream that echoed her own.