No one deigned to question Darth Plagueis the Immortal when he called for seventy-five percent of the Hapes Consortium's military and fifty percent of the Imperial Remnant's forces to gather in the Hapes system. The process took about four days in total, leaving a good portion of the rest of the Transitory Mists and Remnant space mostly bare. But again, to question Plagueis over his decisions was to court death, as all under his rule knew.
By the seventh day of the immortal Sith Lord's rule - by the end of the week - a fleet of New Rebellion, Mandalorian, Confederation, and Chiss Ascendancy warships dropped out of hyperspace from the direction of the Outer Rim.
Thus, the Battle of Hapes, the conflict that would finally end the Third Galactic Civil War, begun as soon as both sides began trading projectiles from their capital ships and spewing out starfighters in the process. The space throughout the entirety of the Hapes system quickly became littered with deadly bolts, proton torpedoes, concussion missiles, brief explosions, and debris of all kinds in a matter of seconds before settling down to a more steady but still violent pace.
Amidst the clawcraft launched from the hangar bays of the Chiss's Star Destroyers, a lone Imperial shuttle that would've looked more in place with the enemy dropped out and zoomed from the planet up ahead. The pilot expertly dodged through friendly and enemy fire alike, as well as debris from both sides, in his bid to reach Hapes and see to it that he and his team would accomplish their mission. Very few times did the shuttle have to launch any projectiles to defend itself, and it lost pursuit wherever it found any.
"Are you sure Onimi will be able to distract Plagueis from sensing us, Solo?" Jaden called from the shuttle's lounge area, crammed with the rest of the Jedi there.
"He'll do his job but good, Master Korr!" Jacen nearly shouted back without turning away from the viewport or otherwise deferring concentration from piloting his ship for Hapes. "Plagueis won't be our problem 'til we enter the Palace! Now quit distracting me!" At that, he swerved the shuttle away from an incoming proton torpedo before launching a few laser bolts for the Miy'til fighter that had spewed the torp.
"Hey, Jacen!" Vergere called.
"What is it?!" Jacen called, still not turning his attention from his piloting.
"Why can't you just use your powers to teleport us over to the Fountain Palace quickly and safely?" she asked.
"The energy release from committing such an act will pierce through the screen Onimi would or has established for us!" Jacen called back. "Plagueis will sense us and we'll lose the element of surprise!" He swiveled away from an incoming TIE fighter.
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Allana remained hidden and on the move even as she felt activity and presences in the system gradually increase, knowing all along that Plagueis was up to something big. Now, after feeling the sudden spike through the Force of innumerable presences enter the system of her homeworld, she looked up and instantly saw Hapes's skies come alight with fiery projectiles by the silhouetted ships there. Aiding the beautiful yet grizzly scene above were the horrible sensations of beings dying, all coming through Allana's Force-senses, because of Plagueis's dastardly machinations.
It's time, she heard the voice of her father say to her.
Without saying another word, she leaped up from her sitting position against the side of the airspeeder door that led into the pilot seat, and jumped straight into it. She quickly revved up the engines and sped off back for the Fountain Palace, letting the Force guide her actions to make up for her general lack of experience in driving.
First thing once she got back: retrieve her lightsaber from Plagueis's quarters.
.
Plagueis never had the opportunity to enjoy the view of the battle over Hapes from his throne room once it started, for he felt the presences of beings he once killed.
Standing up from his austere chair, he looked around the room, carefully reaching for the lightsaber hooked on his belt. "Where are you?" he called, a sense of fear accompanying his voice, even though nothing could harm him, much less kill him.
Instead of receiving a real answer, as he didn't really expect anyway, the Sith Lord was quickly greeted by the sight of Jedi Grand Master Kenth Hamner suddenly manifesting across the room. The elderly human male offered up an arrogant smile that, at the back of his mind, Plagueis knew must've irritated all those who hated him when he gave it to them.
Before the immortal Muun could say anything to what he came to figure was a spirit, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped when he saw the forms of other Jedi begin to form around him. At either side of Hamner manifested Master Cilghal and Knight Raynar Thul, who were then accompanied by even more figures - Masters Zekk, Barratk'l, and the other Jedi Council members; then came the Knights who began to form a tight layered ring throughout the room so that Plagueis was now surrounded by them.
In less than a minute, Plagueis was completely surrounded by every Jedi he had ever killed back on Coruscant all those months ago. Growling, the Sith Lord looked back over all the newly-arrived spirits to level his gaze back down upon Hamner, who maintained that arrogant smirk.
But then Plagueis quickly came to his senses and reaffirmed his own grin. "Oh, come now, departed Jedi," he said to all of them, sweeping his arms across the grand room. "You can't do anything to me. And I can just as well vanquish you all, just as I did to Tenel Ka Djo's soul.
"How could any of you not know that I am unbeatable anyway?! Everyone in this galaxy knows that!"
"We may not be able to beat you," Hamner said, "but then, we don't have to."
Plagueis's gaze became confused.
But before either Hamner or any of the other dead Jedi could elaborate, they swarmed him, their spirits completely encompassing his body so that he now swam in the trap they made of their ghostly forms.
And while he may not be harmed, he was still entrapped, he knew, and he had to break out. But for the life of him, he didn't know why the same power he used to banish Tenel Ka Djo's spirit into the realm he created wasn't working on all these other spirits; it must be the overwhelming force going against him, he thought.
So now, with his powers all but hindered at this point, how could an immortal, one who can never die, defeat the departed, who have already been gathered into death's cold embrace?
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Jacen fought to keep the shuttle from burning up in Hapes's atmosphere as he tried to maintain a relatively stable descent amidst the projectiles and debris that threatened to buckle the ship's shields and destroy it and everyone inside.
"Keep those TIEs and Miy'tils off our tail, Nommy!" Jacen urged, still not taking his attention away from the descent.
"I'm doing my best!" Nom Anor argued from the copilot seat, also not taking his focus away as he chugged the shuttle's laser cannons to hit the starfighters trying to take them out first.
"Well, do your bester!" Jacen half-quipped.
Nommy simply ignored the bad grammar and maintained only his best on the task he was given under the circumstances.
Eventually, after a couple of minutes, the half-dozen enemy ships - half of them made of Imperial TIE fighters, the other three consisting of Miy'tils - were blown out of the sky just as the shuttle entered the stratosphere.
"Don't relax now, Nommy," Jacen said, noting the Yuuzhan Vong's lax posture in his seat from his periphery. "I see a few defense Miy'tils coming up from the rear now." By then, Jacen leveled the shuttle out so that it was coming in for a more steady arrival for the Fountain Palace now a few miles away.
Nom Anor groaned and rolled his eyes simultaneously in annoyance before sitting back up and lining his targeting reticle for the incoming ships.
A few minutes later, the ten Miy'tils were blown out of the sky before any of them could take down their target's renewed shields, and just in time for its soft landing for the front of the Fountain Palace; that was, after Nom Anor managed to blow out the automated sentry guns mounted on the Palace's roof.
Jacen then unfastened his safety harness and vacated seat, leaving it for Nom Anor to quickly take. The both of them knew that if the shuttle was attacked while Jacen and the Jedi were gone, the Yuuzhan Vong would pilot the ship to whatever safety he could find.
Seconds after Jacen left his seat, he headed back and ushered Jaden and the Jedi further back to make it for the landing ramp that Nom Anor, from the cockpit, managed to open up with the push of a button on the shuttle's console. Soon, every Force-sensitive aboard was out of the ship and heading for the Palace's front door up ahead.
Leading the charge next to Jaden, Jacen unleashed a powerful Force-blast that blew the large door leading into the Palace inward. Then, in unison, he and the rest of the Jedi unhooked and ignited their lightsabers from their belts, entering the grand building to ricochet the lethal bolts fired by the guards inside elsewhere in the entry foyer. It wasn't long before the group of Jedi had destroyed each weapon leveled at them and knocked out each of their owners without killing a single one of them.
"Let's move," Jacen said, leading the direction to one of the branching hallways that he knew, from his visits to the Palace back in his home reality, would lead to the hallway filled with turbolifts.
In a short matter of time, all of the Jedi had entered that hallway single-file to distribute themselves to each of the turbolifts, subsequently taking themselves up to the level that Jacen told them would lead them to the throne room.
And once again, as they did before on destroyed Coruscant, the entirety of the Jedi Order was about to face Darth Plagueis the Immortal.
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Against the overwhelming forces of the Jedi spirits pressing in around him to the point that he felt like he was swimming through honey, Plagueis was actually beginning to lose hope in breaking away from his deceased captors. He started to wonder if he would actually be imprisoned for the rest of time, ruining any chance he had in taking over all of reality.
But then something happened amidst the crowd of spirits enveloping the Sith Lord's body. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it through the Force. Plagueis quickly reached out for it, just as the sensation - it felt like a crack in the army of spirits - seemed like it was trying to mend itself. He picked at it before it could heal up, and he used the Force to pry it open further.
And just like that, the whole facade crumbled so that all of the "spirits" disappeared, one-by-one, at a rapid pace until the spirit of Kenth Hamner, at the back of the disappeared crowd, manifested into that of a form that Plagueis was vaguely familiar with.
It was the deformed Yuuzhan Vong who was with the alternate reality version of Jacen Solo he encountered while inhabiting Ben Skywalker's body. And now he was a shimmering ghost staring back at Plagueis with a nervous smile.
"You!" the Sith Lord called.
"Me!" the dead Vong replied with the same wary expression.
Without saying anymore, Plagueis raised his arms and in a second, a ball of white light the size of three human heads combined appeared between his hands. He then threw it out toward the deformed alien ghost, which stopped halfway between them before expanding out to a white sheet that quickly encomapssed the room as a thick, blinding sheet separating both of the room's sides. That sheet then folded in on the spirit's direction, and Plagueis could feel the sheet encompassing his enemy before it disappeared, taking the ghost to the realm he sent Tenel Ka to.
The Sith Lord's triumphant smile quickly faded as soon as he felt the true presences now approaching the throne room from the outside.
The presences of the beginning of Jaden Korr and his new Jedi Order.
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The Jedi party came to a stop meters away from either side of the throne room's closed entrance when Jacen abruptly halted in his tracks, bending down and groaning as he clutched both hands to his chest.
"Solo, what's wrong?" Jaden, standing next to him, asked.
"Onimi!" Jacen answered, taking his hands away from his torso and looking at the Grand Master with sadness. "Plagueis banished his spirit."
"What do you mean banished his spirit?" Jaden inquired.
"I'm not quite sure, but I can feel it," Jacen said. His face then went from grief-stricken to objective in an instant. "All I know is that, at this point, we're alone against Plagueis."
Jaden nodded with a resolute face. "Which means he can now sense us."
"Yes," Jacen answered soberly.
"Well, there goes our element of surprise," Peb Liko said from behind them. "So what do we do, just knock and let him invite us into the throne room?"
You do not have to knock, Jedi, Plagueis's voice echoed through the Force. Come on right in.
"Well, I guess that answers that," Peb commented dryly.
The Jedi renewed their travel for the throne room, and at Jacen and Jaden's leads, the door before them parted to allow them inside, letting the Jedi behind them join them.
And sitting on the Hapan throne on the other end of the room, with a determined expression replacing his usual arrogant smirk, was Darth Plagueis the Immortal.
"Welcome, Jedi," the Sith Lord said in a formal and polite tone. "I hope that this time, I will exterminate the last of you for good." He then stood up, brandished his lightsaber, and leaped to the center of the room, landing in a crouch before standing back up to his full height meters from Jacen and Jaden.
"Your move," Plagueis said.
Without any words, the Jedi behind them moved out and spread themselves around the throne room to form a loose circle around Plagueis. But before they could do anymore, the Sith Lord lunged and struck at both Jacen and Jaden with his crimson blade.
The two Jedi blocked his attack and blocked the next several strikes before Plagueis whirled away to strike at the Jedi who moved in against him. Thus, the duel began.
And it went on for five minutes, with Plagueis striking and blocking against what seemed like the innumerable Jedi blades he was confronted with. Granted, it didn't really matter all that much whether or not he was struck, for all the strikes that reached past his defenses did was knock him off course a little bit without doing even an iota of physical damage. That, in and of itself, was strange enough, as, typically, the blades would simply bounce off his form without even unbalancing him in the least.
Plagueis's own strikes, however, managed to sneak past several of the apprentices' defenses and graze them at their arms, legs, and their torsos; but never, at any point, did he manage to kill either of them like he so easily accomplished back on Coruscant.
"Keep it up, everyone!" Jacen called to the apprentices as he managed to trade a few strikes with Plagueis. "We're building power!"
It was true, Plagueis felt. Even with the injuries he was administering to his opponents, they were still gathering strength and power through the Force for what the Sith knew would be the activation of their plan against him. But how could this be, considering those aforementioned strikes he was delivering against each of them?
"I can see you're wondering, Plagueis!" Jaden called out as the Muun dueled several of the apprentices at once. "The Force is with us now! You can't wipe us out like you did on Coruscant! It ends here, with our victory this time!"
At that point, the five minutes were up, and each of the Jedi who were dueling Plagueis at the time flipped back from him to join their comrades in that circle they originally formed before the duel. They promptly deactivated their lightsabers, hooked them back to their belts, and joined hands to concentrate the build-up they accumulated to their Sith target.
Plagueis was about to unleash a wave that would have disintegrated them all, but found that he couldn't muster one. He tried it again, but still nothing came about.
Truly, the Force was on the Jedi's side, he realized.
Five seconds passed, and then the invisible wave unified by all the Jedi came at Plagueis, striking him every which way to the point that he actually felt it physically.
It was then that he understood that he lost his immortality.
At the same time, however, each of the Jedi collapsed to the floor thanks to the injuries that Plagueis administered to them during the fight. Their pained groans and squirming were a delight to see even to a Sith who lost his ability to never die.
The now-relatively vulnerable Muun stepped over to where Jacen and Jaden fell, and leered down at them, his expression an odd mix of happiness and anger.
"You may have taken away my immortality, Jedi," he growled, "but in doing so, you left yourselves to death yourselves. And so, I will see that even in this minor victory of yours-" it was clear he didn't think it was minor "-I will end the Jedi Order and claim ultimate victory for the Order of the Sith Lords!" He raised his lightsaber and prepared to deliver a decapitating strike that would've killed Jacen and Jaden near-simultaneously.
And now, they couldn't even rely on Nom Anor to help them, as Jacen could sense through his Vongsense that he was too preoccupied with flying the shuttle away from more defensive Miy'tils. Jacen couldn't even teleport out of here to get to the shuttle because his injuries prevented that from happening. Nor was he strong enough to send a minor flick against Plagueis's head to annoy him through the Force. So it was obvious that he couldn't even fall back on one of the backup plans of reaching out to activate the nanospiders he and the rest of his team got from Cilghal on the brief time they transported out of this reality, in between allying with the Chiss and allying with the New Rebellion, to get versions of nanospiders that released smaller explosions just for this purpose.
"I didn't let you get away with that before," the voice of a familiar little girl said at the throne room's exit, "and I won't now."
Plagueis looked from his would-be victims and bared his teeth angrily at Allana Djo Solo.
"You don't have the invincibility against my powers anymore, you little brat," Plagueis intoned.
"And you don't have your immortality anymore," Allana pointed out snidely. "Guess that means we're on even ground now."
"So it would seem," Plagueis said.
He then unleashed a battle cry as he leaped across the room to engage Allana. The Queen Mother leaped up at the same time to meet his strikes on her own terms, swiftly unhooking and activating her lightsaber with her remaining hand.
They traded blows on their blades as they fell the few meters back down to the room's floor, and without even dropping into crouches, they kept up the momentum that they just established to continue their duel to the very end.
Neither combatant - whether little girl or experienced Sith Lord - gave ground against each other as they went back and forth in attacks and defenses. Plagueis, though, worked extra hard to make sure that his young enemy wouldn't deliver any nonlethal wounds that would still put him out of commission and leave him all too vulnerable to a killing strike. Allana, however, was also at a slight disadvantage, considering that she wasn't fighting with her good hand; even so, it was impressive that she was still holding up against Plagueis as she was now.
As the duel progressed, the Jedi laying on the floor couldn't help but momentarily forget about their wounds to watch the duel with confounded looks, their expressions all wondering how a little girl could hold off a Sith Lord like this. Even Jaden was still surprised, even after all those months when he witnessed Allana defeat Plagueis after the rest of the Order died under the once-immortal Sith Lord.
However, the duel shifted once Plagueis's aggressive assault against Allana forced her to take a step back, finally taking advantage of the fact that she was slightly weaker in fighting with her left hand. She held her new spot for another few seconds before she had to step back again. And then again. And again. And again.
It wasn't long before Plagueis led the way out of the throne room. And as soon as Allana's form passed back through the threshold, Plagueis sneaked his blade past her defenses and struck at her lightsaber's pommel, slicing it in two and letting the Jedi blade disappear entirely.
Stand firm now! the voice of Allana's father rang through her head.
Time seemed to slow down from Allana's perception as Plagueis's red blade headed to decapitate her. In response, moving at what the Queen Mother figured to be superhuman speed, she brought up her remaining hand to grab Plagueis's weapon wrist, stopping him from completing his strike, and then leaped upon him.
As time quickly reverted to its normal flow, Allana managed to extend her leap to tackle Plagueis back across the throne room to the point where he crashed back against the throne itself. Upon landing on it in a sitting position, his lightsaber clattered out of his hand and off to the side. Allana then took advantage of his mortal daze to clasp her hand and her stump across his head and bared her teeth in concentration for what was to come.
When she then allowed her mind to enter Plagueis's, Allana could already feel him fighting for his body's dominion. But she wasn't interested his control; no, she only wanted to target the one thing that the Sith Lord had left as his legacy to the Force.
The realm he created to banish Allana's mother, and now that deformed Yuuzhan Vong who helped that alternate version of her father save her from the Killiks.
Plagueis, seeing what his opponent was now after, scrambled in the realm of his mind to stop Allana from reaching the place where he trapped Tenel Ka. But he couldn't stop her; she already reached it, and she used all of her power to shatter it.
From there, the unleashed power brought upon by the destruction of what Plagueis created had come rushing back against its maker, working to destroy that which it had been corrupted to accomplish.
As quickly as it began, it was over. The both of them returned to reality with Plagueis screaming, "NOOOOOOO!" Simultaneously, bright white light shone from every major orifice on his body, which then crept across his form to completely encompass him.
His desperate scream continued even after he exploded from the light.
Allana flew back across the room to land dead center of the circle that the Jedi formed to rob Plagueis of his immortality. And as she landed, so, too, did the glowing pieces of his body, which soon faded to existence, along with his desperate scream.
No longer was Darth Plagueis the Immortal an immortal; he was now simply no more.
The Jedi who collapsed, their injuries now healed for the most part thanks to the Force, pushed themselves to their feet and surrounded the one who finally defeated Plagueis for good.
The little girl looked to the alternate version of her father with a sad smile. "I could hear him, hear the version of you," she whispered, "telling me... to stand firm." She closed her eyes.
And then, without warning, her body disappeared into the Force.