AN: Hello, and thanks for reading. I'll be updating this fic daily until it's done, there should only be 9 chapters. As the summary said, I've crossposted this fic from my AO3 account where most if it is already posted. I was originally only posting to AO3 because it's a little more user friendly for readers navigating fics that are part of a series, but I figured I should put it on my FF account too.
Anyhow, M for incoming torture scenes, you have been warned.
Otherwise, please enjoy.
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Hissing flashes of light cut through the dim and sinister room, at times clashing and giving way to showers of sparks. Made little more than blurs by the blinding speed of their attacks, the red and blue blades of light came to a sudden halt. The two warriors wielding them came face to face, locked in a contest of strength as the blades ground against each other.
"Trilla," Cal leaned into the locked blades, exerting every ounce of his power just to keep from being thrown back, "I saw what you've been though. It's not too late to let it go."
A sinister glint crossed the Second Sister's features, made sharper by the red glare of her saber, "Let go? I'm stronger now because of the pain."
Proving her point, Trilla drew upon the Force to fuel a shove forward. Breaking from the blade lock, Cal took a few hurried steps back. Preparing for a reckless charge, he slid into a defensive stance, only to watch Trilla reach beneath her cloak.
"I knew you'd come back for this."
In one hand was her red dual-bladed lightsaber, waiting for a chance to draw blood. In the other was the green holocron, glowing with a soft light that was nearly lost in the orange haze of the room.
Trilla waited just long enough to see a look of recognition scurry across Cal's features. Taking a twisted amusement from how easy it was to get a rise from him, she tucked the cube back behind her, "No, 'thank you'?"
Forgoing a response, Cal stilled his features and shifted his stance, igniting the second blade of his own lightsaber as he did.
Seeing him shift from defensive to offensive, Trilla moved first.
Little more than a blur, she closed the distance between them in an instant. Bringing his own blade up to sweep Trilla's blow to the side, Cal staggered before countering with a swing of his own. Hissing in annoyance that she was thwarted, Trilla made a last-second leap upwards.
Recognizing the move, Cal dove to the side. As he did, Trilla came down with a piercing blow, driving her blade into the matte black floor.
Recovering from a quick roll across the ground, Cal sprung forward, momentum from his short charge fueling a heavy blow downward.
It had been a long fight. He and Trilla huffed and struggled for ragged breaths. Any other opponent would have folded beneath that final devastating hit, but Trilla responded with a parry of her own. Knocked off balance from the riposte, Cal had little more than a heartbeat to recover and prepare a defense of his own.
Assaulted on both sides from Trilla's dual blade, Cal twisted the long hilt of his saber. The blades came apart, leaving him with two glowing sabers to defend against the onslaught.
Redoubling her efforts and speed, Trilla fought as a blur of hatred and red plasma. Swinging and lunging and jumping and occasionally feinting to try and break Cal's defense, she called on every method and technique she had learned, but none of them broke his guard. Cal could do little more than dodge or parry, the few chances he did get to strike-out being denied by a hasty retreat and re-invigorated charge.
And on went the battle. Seconds and then minutes more ticked by, with neither of the Force driven warriors gaining ground.
Their blades locked once more; Cal's crossed in an X to keep Trilla's held at bay.
Taking his chance, Cal shoved his lower blade to the side. Lightsaber nearly wretched from her grasp in the process, Trill followed along with the forced movement. Moving full circle, she brought her lower blade up in an arch, only for it to be caught and stopped by Cal's second saber.
Finishing her flurry of movement, Trilla tried to knock Cal completely off balance with an invisible blow through the Force. Caught unaware, Cal tumbled back, only recovering into a roll after his back had hit the floor and drove the breath from his lungs.
Huffing, he struggled back to his feet. As he did, Trilla's cloak had just begun to settle back to its place.
Left with the terrible knowledge that they were evenly matched, Cal made a desperate move.
Forgoing another fruitless attack, he reached out through the Force. Felling the fabric of the galaxy twisting around her, Trilla hardened her stance and readied a defense for a powerful counterattack.
But it didn't come.
Instead, Trill felt the slightest tug at her hip as the holocron was pulled from its clasp on her belt.
Knowing that the loss of that cube would mean her head, Trilla acted in a snap reaction. Not daring to rush forward and risk striking the holocron, she imposed her own will on the Force.
Though it wasn't a technique meant for combat, Trilla wasn't above clawing at the edge of Cal's psyche through the Force. With a variation on a mind trick, Trilla reached out towards Cal.
A terrible suggestion clawed at the edge of his thoughts. Locking out whatever dark things Trilla was trying to show to him became a feat unto itself. A feat that Cal failed at as he kept his focus on the holocron.
Felling a sudden wave of agony crash over him and seep into every corner of his thoughts, Cal fought not to let his knees buckle. Locked in a struggle to keep his hold on the holocron, Cal only distantly realized that the cube had come to a halt mid-air. Gritting his teeth and fighting through the psychic echoes and screams rattling through his head, he strained to pull at the Force.
Trilla didn't dare move, knowing that a split-second laps in concentration would give Cal the chance he needed to tug at the holocron and flee with it in hand.
The cube wobbled between the two of them, pulled inch by inch towards Cal. As it made progress on its slow journey, Trilla brought a hand forward, the gesture pointing her will even more towards the struggling would-be Jedi.
A sharp memory of pain and terror and anger and so many dark things that lingered in the interrogation room cut into Cal. Biting down a howl of pain, he was left with a withered groan as he felt his hold on the holocron slip.
Though he knew doing so would give him the chance to flee, Cal didn't dare drop the holocron. Digging deep, he kept his hold on the cube. Then names, the lives, contained therein could not fall to the hands of the Empire. No matter what it cost him, Cal refused to let them have it.
Aided by the dark history of the room, goaded on by Cal's obvious agony, Trilla drove deeper into his mind. As her hold over him became more complete, she spared a fraction of her focus to take a step forward.
Cal didn't notice as one of his knees crashed down on the hard floor, all his attention being taken by the holocron and the terrors that filled his mind. He didn't see Trilla move. He didn't hear a distant voice shouting his name. He only barely remembered the lightsaber in his hand.
Trilla, however, did hear her old master's voice echoing down the same hall that Cal had used to enter the interrogation chamber. Distracted by the infuriating noise, her concentration slipped for a split second.
In that second, Cal was left with a chance.
Not a chance to flee, but a chance to make sure that Empire would never see the names on that holocron.
Unaware that help was on the way, Cal made a rigid twist of his wrist. In that fateful movement, his blue lightsaber blade met and crashed through the soft green holocron. Cut in two smoldering halves, the thing came apart at the seams and fell to the ground as a pile of glimmering shards.
"No!" Attention ripped away from her former master, Trilla looked back to Cal with a snarl and a fresh rage. Rushing towards him, Trilla curled a vicelike grip around his head.
Left without the tiniest bit of space between them, there was nothing left to protect Cal from Trilla's renewed psychic assault.
Once again flooded with waves of agony, this one felt worse. More real.
He had seen visions of torture and felt the echoes of Trilla's fall to the dark side with a mere touch of her saber. Directly touching Trilla left the same visions to wash over him, a hundred times more intense and infinitely more real.
Overloaded. Drowning in fear. Succumbing to rage. Wallowing in resentment and desperately hungry for revenge. A thousand volts of snapping electricity leaped from the panels of the torturers table, crossing over Trilla in an agony that was second to the turmoil that roiled within her.
Days passed in a blur, each little more than an instant while also made impossibly long by the torment they brought.
The memory made real through the Force tore a primal scream from Cal.
It hadn't faded by the time Cere came charging into the room.
"Cal!" Cere tried to shout over the screaming, only to be made quiet by the sight that greeted her.
Her former apprentice stood over her current one. Something sinister but pained filled Trilla's features; It drove her to make an attack through the Force at Cal, just to see Cere's barely controlled reaction.
Trilla's hand strained from her grip on Cal's head. Reeling from the vision and unsure of where he was Cal could do little more than let out a choked groan as he was trapped in Trilla's past. Overwhelmed by the visions, he slumped back to the floor, roiling in agony as he fell.
As he did, Cere was left to ignite the saber in her hands and ready a defensive stance, "Trilla, it doesn't have to end like this."
"Doesn't it though? You chose this path the moment you betrayed me."
Though Cere knew what she was trying to do, Trilla's words cut deeper than any saber ever could. Hurting in that particular way, they left Cere in silence for a moment. In that second, the only sounds were the hum of machines and a distant set of heavy footsteps.
Hearing them, and ready for a near rabid purge trooper to appear, Cere split her focus between Trilla and the platform at the far end of the room. Trilla, knowing exactly what kind of monster lurked in these halls, decided to instead focus on her seething hatred for her former master.
While she did, Cal groaned slightly and almost shook the visions away. Not one to be robbed of her chance at revenge, Trilla put a boot on his chest. Locked into his place on the floor, the situation slowly dawned on him.
He had no idea when Cere had arrived. He didn't have long to wonder before a ragged and mechanical breathing echoed from the other side of the room. Looking for the source of the sound as quickly as his barely conscious state would allow, Cal found a towering figure on a far platform.
Dark and unfocused through the volcanic haze that filled the room, Cal could only see that the new figure was massive. An evil thing that radiated with the Dark Side of the Force, this man -this creature- was not a purge trooper. It wasn't any of the strange things Cal had seen in his travels across the galaxy, it was beyond any of those beast.
The monster at the edge of the room did not speak, instead drawing in mechanical breaths that came out with a hiss, like escaping pressurized gas. It moved. Slowly dropping into the main room to land closely behind Trilla.
Desperate to escape the fearsome air of the creature, Cal sent a wild look around the room.
His lightsaber had fallen mere inches away from his hand. Desperate for the chance to escape, he reached towards it with the Force. The durasteel tube rattled for a second before zipping upwards and further away from his grasp. His gaze following the saber, Cal helplessly watched as it settled into Trilla's awaiting hand.
"You won't be needing this anymore." She hissed down at him.
As she did, the beast behind her took a few unhurried steps forward. Getting a clear look up at the thing, Cal found it to be impossibly tall. Clad head to toe in heavy durasteel armor, it wore a cloak that ghosted across the ground and carried the shadow of death. Made small in its giant hand was a lightsaber. Cal didn't have to touch an inch of that thing to know that it was seeped in blood and ruin.
The beast's blank helmet didn't drift to the broken holocron on the floor, and it didn't acknowledge Trilla or the defeated Jedi beneath her. Instead, it cast its flat gaze on Cere.
Wordless, the vile creature ignited its own saber. Single bladed and red as sin, the beast held it with a tired confidence that came from decades of battle and years of loss.
"Cere! Run!" Cal panted, breath crushed out of him by Trilla's boot, "Go!"
Cere stalled for a moment, a wild look flickering between the shouting Cal and the imposing figure before her. Left with a second to pick life or death, she couldn't leave Cal behind.
Not when she knew what fate awaited him.
Fearful and angry, but tucking it away behind well practiced control, Cere charged the dark lord in the center of the room. Running and then throwing herself up with the force, she made a long leap with her saber held high above her, ready for a heavy blow. As she arched downward over the massive target, it didn't even bother to raise its own saber in defense.
Instead, the dark creature flicked a tired hand to the side, commanding the Force and sending Cere tumbling to the side.
Mid-air with no way to correct herself, Cere was unceremoniously thrown over the edge of the platform and to the lava flows below.
"No!" Cal let out a ragged shout before struggling to push Trilla off of him, "Cere…"
Deeply aware of Vader's disdain for failure and lack of patience for insolence, Trilla crouched down towards Cal, "That's enough out of you."
Clipping her saber in its place, she brought her emptied hand over Cal's face once more. She had only just learned the basics of a Jedi mind trick, and her method was painful and unrefined. These failings only helped her in this moment, as Cal's body strained under her once more.
Flooded with memories and the too-real sensations they brought, Cal twisted and tried to escape Trilla's hold.
But the visions persisted.
And Cal was left to roil in agony before he finally drifted away into empty unconsciousness.