TO REKINDLE THE DYING STARS
"Savior, conqueror, hero, villain. You are all things, Revan... and yet you are nothing. In the end, you belong to neither the light nor the darkness. You will forever stand alone."
―Darth Malak
WARNING: This Chapter is rather a violent one. Truth be told, the Scenario I have designed makes it unwittingly rather difficult for me to provide the clean, bloodless Star Wars action we know and love.
Chapter 2: But the Fires of Hope burn Everlasting
The position of a helpless observer is not one any would settle with- most definitely not Darth Vader, who utterly despised it.
It was quite clear what was to ensue, as the harrowing gaze of the two foes never met each other's true eyes, but he felt the force probing, great tendrils of the darkness emerging beyond the light to look beneath the Archknight's mask, where they were repelled and dissipated.
He was sure he had seen this figure somewhere, somewhere in the lost archives of the Sith… or perhaps the Jedi. 'Sidious' was the word that resonated in his mind as a constant every time he drank in the red and black robes and undeniably ancient mask on the figure that was this beacon in the Force…
Before his mind could turn to thoughts of holocrons and the Jedi Temple on Coruscant… or rather, the Sith Temple beneath it, the various apparatus of war upon the Archknight's armour had turned his field of vision into a blazing inferno.
The back of the ship was blasted apart as Lord Malus advanced, limbs not even raised, guns and innumerable projectile weapons upon his chest, knees and shoulders throwing copious plasma upon the force-wielder as the presence in the force receded.
Blast it, this Archknight was clearly the type of fool who would attempt to erase all entertainment from a situation. Force sight it was, then, as Vader shut his eyes and allowed his own force tendrils to pierce the ray shields and feel the battle in front of him.
Malus the Archknight had not even stepped down the walkway of this comparatively colossal vessel, and he checked for the certain injuries that would plague the force-wielder after such a display- and found none.
It was terribly odd, seeing as how he had not felt any force shield being raised- and if it had, surely there would be more destruction around it. Fire most certainly leapt about the entrance, but it was not completely blown apart as it should be.
For Darth Revan stood unharmed, alone in a tempest of flame which raged around him and touched nothing else. A simple flick of the wrist and the Archknight's own barrage was sent back at him, missiles, plasma and laser fire all. Malus' response was to rapidly raise his fists and swing them up, and then came an odd distortion, a whirlwind out of nowhere, and the various projectiles were thrown in different directions, blasting into the wall of the ship as well- but the ancient lord still stood where he was, nonchalant in his wait.
Electromagnetic waves, then. The Technocracy's finest weapons, concentrated gamma-irradiators that would ruin all life they touched, twisting it beyond measure, unstoppable as they propagated quanta through space-time, proven deadly by the experiments of quantum electrodynamics in countless laboratories over two millennia.
One might have observed a raised eyebrow if one were capable of looking beyond Darth Revan's mask, as his foresight into the force warned him of the invisible energy that would be fired from the apparatus on the Archknight's shoulders, and his hand was raised- the waves passed into nothing.
The Lord Archmaster warned me of this, recalled Malus with a snarl, as Vader sensed another distortion, but this more seamless and constant. It seemed as if a patch of space was not really there, but then again it was- if one were to walk through it, it would be either perfectly normal, or one would find himself in another reality where rules worked differently. Two things at the same time, and if one were to test it, one would find only one outcome.
Such tremendous manipulations of the Force, done so very easily- what had this Galaxy come to? Who was this- a Celestial? Impossible!
The Archknight had finally raised his limbs, and from the right hand came a steady stream of Plasma, to which Revan did not even move, for it was held at bay by his will in the Force. Swiftly and precisely, Malus raised his left, aiming some unknown ionising radiation at his very face, but then yet another distortion opened to terminate the force between the field lines.
As if it were a game of Sabacc, Revan finally took the initiative, and Vader felt a few things- three in particular- raised out of his belt with the force.
He opened his eyes then, and saw three unmistakable glowing lights- three crimson lightsabers, no doubt- raised behind his back. A hilt was in his hand, he felt, unable to see beyond the Archknight's towering mass.
A lord among blightwielders, this one. Malus gritted his teeth in anticipation, each and every known characteristic of their elusive order having been imprinted harshly into the Archknight's mind, and he knew that to finish this, he must engage him proper.
With the barest hints of enjoyment on his almost emotionless face, the Archknight willed a mechanism to life, one that pulled his dreadful weapon from where it was placed on his back and put it directly into his waiting hands.
The golden sheath thrown aside, he brandished the death-blade he had won as a rightful member of his order, forged of cortosis. He switched on the generator in its hilt, and an electromagnetic field of some kind was generated around it.
The air around the massive yet impossibly thin blade seemed somehow cut and roiled in an imperceptible vortex, while the Monolith's own armour, also of cortosis, was not affected.
If the Sith Lord was surprised, he did not show it, and stood in stance- a stance completely unfamiliar to Vader, who had mastered all seven forms. The hilt pointed in front of his legs, and he leaned on one, facing sideways and perpendicular to the Archknight.
And then it began, the queerest duel he had ever seen. He was one of the few who knew what it was to take a calculated offensive, and he saw the Archknight attempting such, but in a way he had never before witnessed.
He did not rush with all his terrible strength, looking to strangle his foe, instead cautiously using his feet, which were oddly light and deft on their impact to step within measure of the Force-wielder's lightsaber.
With a sudden movement, the Archknight swept the death-blade at Revan's feet, and the latter responded with a dodge- what was known as a leg-void- with even greater precision and economy of movement.
Bringing his lightsaber- for Vader saw now that it was an amethyst blade he ignited- up with a flick of the wrist, he attempted to strike the Archknight's helmet, but the latter brought his sword up to a crown and deflected it to the side.
Revan, however, did not need to renew his assault, for with some unknown mastery, he had pulled the lightsaber with a precise snap of his wrists to the other side, and it hit the Archknight's wrist.
Cortosis was mostly immune to lightsabers, and it shocked Vader, therefore, when he saw a depression in the armour- not a scar, a little groove- small but compromising the integrity of the armour.
He had sent the Force out from where he was imprisoned, and the utter silence he felt when assessing the Archknight's armour was that it was of cortosis, or of some other, unknown metal which resisted the force- and from what he had gathered of the Death-blade, it seemed that contact with it would turn a lightsaber off entirely.
He felt a little further, and realised that this mysterious Dark Lord was channeling the Force into whatever kyber crystal he used- the light side, in particular- how it burned and rankled to behold- to sustain the fiery plasma of his blade.
The Archknight used his wrists as well, dropping his thrust and raising it with a twitch to attempt a hit at Revan's face, but the latter had backed off in a movement swifter than the wind, as if he anticipated that very thrust.
It was not rage or hatred, then, that brought Malus to unleash an inferno upon the Sith Lord- it was a necessary tactic, for the latter was obviously more skilled in fighting than he. He could gauge that much from their cursory exchange. The Archknight was not arrogant- indeed, he would not be as he was if he were- and he knew he would have to outlast his foe.
The same distortion in the Force, but Malus charged as the last of his many missiles dropped harmlessly to the ground or was sent spiralling away, and Revan was amused.
Darth Vader, Dark Lord in his own right, on the other hand, was utterly befuddled.
BRAOUM!
Come to think of it, he had never known Force lightning could be used in that way. Revan had somehow generated a large amount of it and sent it in every direction, blasting the Archknight back and throwing him to his feet.
All this in the decisive fury of one second, and then there were suddenly three lightsabers out of nowhere, all red, flying about as if of their own accord, but the hilts reeked of the Force.
Muttering a silent thanks to Lord Traya for this technique, Revan idly conjured yet another of the voids that devoured the Archknight's many explosives and then let fly.
All was light, rage and burning hatred, as the towering Monolith that was Malus had risen to his feet by the quick application of some thrusters but was beset by the most terrible storm of force lightning that Vader had seen in a good, long while.
'Curse it! End it! I hate it!'
Vader shook his head of those thoughts and forced himself to analyse the technique- it was impressive to the extreme, nearly almost as intense as some of Sidious' storms. Granted, it did not generate nearly as much as the Emperor had in his rages, but it was far more controlled, and stray bolts did not crackle and strike everywhere- indeed, they all seemed aimed directly at the Archknight and nowhere else.
Such was the display that he did not even notice the three red lightsabers which had begun cutting and slicing away at various mechanisms within the Archknight's sanctum. Had he been perhaps more aware (which was impossible, given the startling feat), he would have recognised that the intensity of the shields that surrounded him had lowered somewhat.
It had been possible to block the lightning of Darth Sidious with a lightsaber, but Revan's lightning seemed to have an odd weaving quality to it, arcing around and striking random bolts and mechanisms here and there, and the Cortosis armour, so powerful against the force, glowed and odd blue and seemed, somehow, as if it were dying- losing its strength.
A rare grunt of pain from the Archknight, and Revan ceased his display, lightsaber brought up to parry the Archknight's blade- and it was certainly the best one-handed parry Vader had ever seen, for it was intentionally weak, glancing the death-blade away and bringing itself around with the former's force to strike the side of the Archknight's head.
Revan attempted another thrust, but the Archknight opted to take it, and it pushed against his armour, creating an indent, before Malus swept his own blade in a decisive snap of his own, forcing a retreat from Revan.
The Archknight charged, and Revan casually spread the fingertips of his left hand- he had been shooting that lightning from one hand all the time?- and spewed forth another storm, but it had no effect apart from drawing another wordless cry from the Archknight.
The hew to his face was no less precise nor less intense, and Revan lifted his amethyst blade two- handed, leaving it hanging in the air, blocking the Archknight's impossible strength by pulling on the Force and leaving the latter's blade to slide off his own, as he dropped it decisively and struck the helmet yet again.
Vader now saw that Revan's three red lightsabers had begun attacking the Archknight's back- and he could do nothing but press the assault as his white-gold armour grew steadily more beaten and battered.
The Sith Lord was also fighting in ways never before seen, lightning-quick and decisive, individual exchanges finishing in only a stroke or two. Whenever the Archknight attempt to cut, Revan had at the ready a counter cut- a strike that would attack and defend at the same time- and it would invariably result in a new bruise in Malus' armour.
With a neural command, then, the Archknight bade his craft lift off, and Revan for once seemed alarmed- as the engines flared, the Archknight charged. Then the battered doorway fell away, as an auxiliary replacement flared to life from nowhere and shut inches from where Vader was. He did not see what happened next, only that the ship attempted to fly away and came once again to a grinding halt.
There was a cry from the Archknight- he knew it must have been visceral, given how he was farther away and still could hear it- and a stab of pain in the force from Revan.
Evidently, the Archknight had been more successful in his latest manoeuvre, if at a cost to himself. The ship began moving onward slowly, and Vader cursed in the Balc Tongue that Sidious had so often said was the very foremost for cursing.
He felt a great strain in the Force; one that he would be ashamed to admit hurt him as well as the user, and the auxiliary door was wrenched open, circular jaws held tight, as the three lightsabers flew once again within it and began cutting away frantically at seemingly random points.
He felt the Force raging below, no doubt yet another of those voids to stymie the Archknight's electromagnetic weaponry, and then it was suddenly over- the shields that surrounded him had dropped.
He mustered all the rage and hatred he felt at the situation and at his own helplessness, ready to strike the Archknight with all his fury as he stood, somehow, when he found himself flying. Of course.
Revan was not the best-pleased with his situation. As it happened, he was flying off a cliff while the looming Archknight kept firing at him from its edge. He had done the only thing he had thought of- with a frantic force pull at the last moment, he had catapulted his quarry, Anakin, off the ship.
'And they think I'll find a way out of this' he mused. Curse them, he probably would. Thinking about his situation and not about certain raging Sith Lords, of course, would be a good start.
With the Light side, he found an anchor to the Cliffside- with the Dark, he pulled. He urged the cliff to come towards him. Massive as it was, the effect would be to throw himself to the cliff.
Missing the last of the Archknight's ammunition- Just how much do those Forcedamned fiends carry- he struck the side and frantically scrambled for a hold, ignoring the pain. Luckily, he found one.
He reached out through the Force for Anakin, and felt the singularity near- so the Archknight would catch him. Exactly as planned.
The Archknights could not touch the force; indeed, they were surrounded by an aura of sheer anti-force, if it could be called that, and no attack could strike them unless extremely powerful. Revan had been indeed pummelling this one with lightning of the required power for quite a long while; yet he fought on. Their presence as anomalies in the Force, however, meant that they could distort it- twist, bend and torture it, silence its voice from the ears of its wielders.
They could also, apparently, sweep their fists up in ridiculous apelike gestures (or so Revan thought) to create odd (but very painful) ripples, one of which had swept him off.
Quite honestly, when he found whoever was behind how the Force worked, Revan was going to brutally strangle that person. And if it were not a person and a metaphysical entity- he had certain rather sinister plans he enjoyed lulling himself to sleep over every other night.
This 'use' of the Force, however, as he had come to understand, was as anathematic to their order as their very presence was to the Force. This Archknight would only then resort to the manoeuvre if reinforcements were near.
There were two ways about this, then- the subtle way, which entailed him cracking the Earth of the cliff and halting the Archknight's feet as he jumped… or the dramatic way.
Lord Traya would no doubt attempt that famous gesture of hers where her palm struck her head with rather more force than was necessary. But for him, there was never any choice.
Calm gone and hatred roused, Lord Malus still miraculously retained the presence of mind to make a calculated decision.
On one hand, leaving the side of the cliff would mean putting his back to the blightlord- on the other, he would lose the Lord Archmaster's quarry to a rather inexcusable demise.
With a mental command, the thrusters under his titanic, armoured feet ignited and he flew, straight for Anakin Skywalker's falling form, even as he fired a number of heat-seeking missiles to harry the blightlord, wherever he was.
A great, armoured fist was thrown out and caught Anakin by the throat- but the Archknight had forgotten that it was not Anakin's throat he had dared to touch- it was Darth Vader's.
Blue eyes swiftly flickering to yellow in a fervour of wrath, Vader placed both his now biological arms onto the Archknight's Cortosis-clad wrist.
Singularity in the force, he could care less.
If the Black Hole analogy was indeed to be used, then he had done the equivalent of sending an electromagnetic wave into its ergosphere. It swiftly gained strength as it bounced from boundary to boundary, gaining momentum from the relentless spinning of the hole itself- the difference was that it was not a Black Hole he had struck. It was a mere metal-clad palm of flesh, no matter how formidable the metal or how perfectly bioengineered the flesh.
The Cortosis bent, and a sickening crack could be heard beneath it. The Archknight gave a wail of pain- not a roar which he bent to fury- a great howl of agony, rather, at what Vader had just done.
He chose the only course he could have pursued, that of throwing Lord Vader's currently fragile form to the ground with as much Force as he could muster (non-lethally), and hope that he would remain incapacitated while he dealt with the blightlord-
CRACK!
He fell to his knees, struck by the bolt of lightning- real lightning. It was a forked bolt that had struck from above him, at the speed of light, of course, and he could not have prevented it. Curse the blightlord!
Though he could not touch the blight, he knew its workings, required as he was to hunt those who wielded it. To conjure a malevolent spurt of energy akin to lightning out of one's rage and hatred was one thing. To have the focus and the mastery to actually charge the electrons of the atmosphere en masse was another.
His sensors detected the air rising in heat again- and he made to dodge, but could not, as another devastating bolt struck precisely his helmet and sent him reeling, various mechanical functions temporarily disabled.
He was, however, prepared for the third, and pushed himself into the same premeditated movement (facilitated by his thrusters) he had made to dodge the second, the bolt now striking the ground where he was.
With a pained grunt escaping his perpetually stoic lips, Archknight Malus clicked a dial that activated the emergency auxiliary functions of his armour- as life returned to it, fluids containing nanobots poured into his damaged wrist from the various unseen implants along his arms.
Their matter coursed through his veins, the nanobots clotting internal bleeding and the salubrious elixirs giving him new energy and numbing his bruises. There were contingencies for every case, as losing in a battle of attrition simply wouldn't do.
His helmet, however, would not be restored entirely until he returned to a proper machinist of his Technocracy- leaving him to see with his true eyes the majestic rise of Darth Revan, who had somehow gotten up while he was suffering lightning bolts to the head, and now stood regally in challenge, lightsaber held in guard.
Unbeknownst to him, a certain other Sith Lord had done the equivalent of summarily vowing to never again be knocked out by an Archknight.
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate to suffering. Pah.
What Yoda had forgotten to mention was that Suffering led to passion, passion to strength and strength to power- and when one had power, it ended in Victory.
None could strike down Darth Vader- for the more you pained him, the more you wounded him, the stronger he became.
Years under Sidious, however, had made him shrewd and taught him caution. He acted, then, as if he truly were unconscious, closing his mind to all else and calling on the Force.
He could feel tides of wrath and ruin washing over him from nearby- but all with a subtle, silent calm, a calm of cold fury that came from two masters duelling to the death.
The Force was shifting- one called upon it for power and healing, while the other twisted and mutilated it, attempting to prevent its influence. He felt the darkness that poured forth in answer- and the light as well.
Long years had blinded him to the Light Side in most part, until Luke had rekindled his connection. He felt it now- there it was, subtle, silent, strong- and so very annoying.
As it happened, the Light Side burned as a bright flame on the edge of his consciousness, nagging and prodding at his spirit, wishing him to listen.
Irritably, he did, but subtly so- and he found that it was an expression of a thought.
'Power'.
'Power', it said, and he traced its origin- for it came from the curiously ancient-seeming Sith Lord who seemed somehow familiar- and it was not a statement, nor a demand. It was a request- a plea.
He contemplated simply relaying 'why'- forgone in favour of a surge of thought that returned 'And what from you, vile captor? Why aid?'
"Not your captor." came the return. 'Your rescuer, stubborn interloper."
What he felt as a faint hint of annoyance at his own self, as well as a subtle hint of urgency, he chose to coldly and purposely misinterpret, and answered with steel.
"No proof. No trust. You- darksider- we both know more powerful than necessary. Will not trust."
"Wish death? One chance, take it or fall. Die friendless. Useless. Meaningless."
He winced faintly at the fiery response, and knew then that what his correspondent felt was indeed felt acutely and genuinely. It was not some deception, or the Force would have screamed its warning; he did not know, otherwise, how his 'rescuer' had managed to push imaginary feelings through thought and make him truly feel them. He chose to wait warily.
"No time. Reinforcements soon. Hurry!"
That was it. The thought carried with a fact, a genuine alarm. He was no less irritated at being asked for power in this manner, with the insinuation that it was he who would stand to benefit from it, however. He would make this lord suffer, in one manner or another.
"If it is power you want, by the Force, you shall have it!"
Unlike how Galactic poets and historians of all species and eras waxed eloquent about the affair, a duel to the death between to true masters was never a dance.
The Archknight had resumed guard with his death-blade in his left hand- for they were engineered to be ambidextrous in order to prepare for any contingency- and had advanced yet again in a triangle-step, as if the tremendous amount of punishment Revan had inflicted on him had never happened.
Personally, Revan considered it one of these buffoons' most endearing qualities- not on this occasion, however, as he had no wish to be swarmed.
His three red lightsabers flew behind the Archknight and continuously cut away at the lightsaber-resistant Cortosis of his armour, manipulated to specifically attack joints and gaps here near the helmet and the legs.
Revan himself aimed for the wrist, augmenting his strength with the Force to gouge dents and marks, enfeebling even the unyielding metal.
The Archknight would lash out a times with yet more ammunition- tactics that served to surprise rather than damage, as Force superposition dealt with them rather nicely- and cut, thrust and parried with his death-blade with such a zeal that made it appear as if the fight had barely begun. The myriad of liquids that coursed through his adversary's veins and the visible activations of the plethora of healing functions of his armour were the only things that indicated otherwise.
He could not, however, match the ancient Dark Lord, for his movements were nigh-wraithlike, ever economical, stepping back subtly. Really, he ought to have realised that moving his lightsaber less and his feet more about seven thousand years ago when he first walked the Galaxy would have won him more fights and less temporary blindness.
He knew, however, that unless he finished soon, there would be about ten more of the Archblockheads surrounding him, and that line of thought did not particularly appeal to him.
With a little sigh, he resorted, therefore, to asking for a little help. It sickened him to attempt a Force connection with the Light Side so very… politely and non-invasively as this, reminding of how impossibly timid Bastila had become after realising she couldn't throw him off quite as easily as she initially thought she could.
The Archknights clearly had not learned every last intricacy of counter-cuts and master-hews as that damnable monster Lord Hord had forced him to ingrain into his techniques, and as the Archknight attempted to thrust at him, he placed his other hand on his hilt and snapped his sword down akin to the shutting jaws of a Vornskr, deflecting his blade to the ground and generating enough torque for him to swiftly turn it and deliver a decisive stab to the helmet.
A decisive crack emerged and he retreated from the vicious swing that followed, raising the lightsaber in a hanging guard and then bringing it down diagonally- and as the Archkmight raised to a crown to deflect, he turned his lightsaber off with the Force, only to bring it from the other side and ignite it so that it hit the very crack he had inflicted upon the white-gold helmet.
"No proof. No trust. You- darksider- we both know more powerful than necessary. Will not trust."
He paused his thought of blatant self-admiration and enjoyment for the sake of a scowl- definitely of the narrow-minded type. He pressed a particular amount of venom into his reply. There, that should work.
Then it hit him.
Power.
A great darkness had risen, sent his way by the Force, and it filled him thoroughly and threatened to explode from his palms, from his mouth, everywhere. He needed to act quickly.
With a few final thoughts of how well he had been served by using the Light Side alongside the Dark, he channelled the former to send a wave of purity, of calm and sustenance through the Force- that was to add a layer of stability to the singularity that surrounded the Archknight. The next move was rather more decisive.
'Aargh!' he roared, in sudden pain- and the wail came from two voices. In front of him stood the Archknight, gaping dumbly at his massive stump of an arm. The hand, still covered in armour, had fallen to the ground, and a great gout of blood had spouted forth.
He had expected considerable power, if what Lord Plagueis had told him was to hold- but this… unbelievable. What surprised him was how he had been pained as well when he attempted to use Vader's overwhelming might- but there was now no more time for thought.
Tempered by a lifetime of witnessing blood, Revan pulled the left hand of Archknight Malus, still holding the Death-blade towards him. The Owner of the Hand was charging at him in a blind fury, various armaments spewing an inferno.
With one hand, Revan threw up a hasty force shield, for he could not afford the focus required to use superposition on the particles of flame with other particles somewhere in a baby universe- and with the other, he sent the death-blade arcing around.
As the flames cleared, he saw that the Archknight's weakened mask had been pried off by his own sword as was intended, and a cold, hairless, white face was revealed to the night.
Various marks and implants studded it, and what wires from the helmet that stuck to it yet would at first glance seem grotesque to behold, but the face itself, at a better glance, sat proud and otherwise scarless, the dauntless expression now drawn in a leer at Revan.
"As long as we hold faith… you will never win… Blightlord."
"I do hope you fellows keep telling yourselves that. It does make these little encounters interesting. Now Good Night, my good knight."
Without a further thought, Revan's three red lightsabers cast themselves into the Archknight's bare face, and the Sith Lord turned in victory to his… quarry? Aide? He could not tell.
He was met with a baleful glare from the yellow eyes of Darth Vader.
"Anakin Skywalker. We meet at last."
A/N: If one is careful, one will indeed notice that I have taken the liberty of applying some actual historical longsword and messer techniques to lightsaber combat (modified, simplified and very thoroughly distorted for the sake of ostentation, of course).
The Seven forms of Lightsaber Combat do not apply in this age, as with greater study and greater dangers, they have become obsolete. The lightsaber, however, has survived the ages, albeit becoming slightly modified and improved upon.
Nanobots are, of course, microscopic robots that have the necessary functions to heal internal wounds.
Why Revan is powerful beyond imagination and why the Sith Lords are working together and how they have returned will be explained in due time- for they face a truly terrible enemy.
This story shall also feature an extremely sarcastic Revan in all his glory, and Anakin as Vader has always been known for his quips.
I shall also attempt to reply to every review, but if you review as a Guest, I shall have to answer in brevity.
Guest: Thank you for your kind words. This is certainly a rather ambitious tale, and I hope it meets expectations. Tulak Hord will indeed be showing up- he is too fascinating to be left out of a story about the Sith.
Darth Stabbystab: I wholly respect your opinion, and it does sadden me a little that I must write of the Galaxy in this state. I shall say that a large part of it is indeed under a Technocratic system. I thought of many things and this was what I assumed would happen with the character of this story. I aslo needed a non-Sith villain. Thank you for your praise on the matter of Darth Revan.