Note: This one will be incredibly short. I skipped a few scenes that were unimportant because I wanted to get to the meat and potatoes of the story. There is a difference between fleshing out a story and making it drag out with unnecessary scenes that act as little more than filler. I realized I had come up with a fair bit of filler, so I skipped it. It wasn't important anyway. Every scene in this chapter I have had in my head going on MONTHS! No, YEARS! I am so happy to get it out. A part of my is unhappy with having this chapter be short, but there are some chapters and scenes so important that adding more scenes to it will only take away from it. And this chapter is nothing but important scenes. I could have just put all of this at the end of the previous chapter, but I want there to be a very different tone from the previous chapter to this one. I also want a different tone from this one to the next. Its very complicated... I want this chapter and its scenes to stand on its own, even if it must be short. The quality of this chapter should be high, though the quantity is small.

I am still pissed The Last Jedi stole my epic finish to this battle. I came up with it first! I just haven't gotten the story to the point of displaying it till now!

Rant over.

Episode 4 Part 4 - Beachhead

The Sith had a ritual, or a practice rather, if you will, of killing the crippled. Weakness was unacceptable. Granted, some exceptions could be made if the cripple could prove himself to still be of use to the Empire, but failure tended to be final. Babies with diseases were often killed outright, as well as deformities, or any reason really. The mother could think it looks funny and stab it to her heart's content or throw it off the side of a cliff. The old were given supposedly more honor as they were killed off as well, but still the point was that they were useless and were a burden and needed to just die off. Abortion, mercy killings, assisted suicide, honor duels, and more filled their culture as they practiced the simple idea that the elite lived and everything else simply didn't. Understandably this left them with few, if any, population growth and they had to turn to cloning of the strong to keep their population sustained and growing.

And you sure as the Emperor did not breed with lesser species.

So as Scourge was met a second time by Ahsoka Tano, the mate of a supposed Sith, a thought struck him of how… odd their union was. And how special it was that he sensed something within her. It left him in a state of awe. He had not sensed something so… small… like this in his lifetime. But it was not his place to comment.

The Emperor, within his mind, found it highly interesting as well, but otherwise said nothing. The Emperor was content to watch from the back of Scourge's mind.

"I am curious as to where your husband stands on this. On you talking with me." Scourge inquired.

"He wouldn't mind. He knows I'm prone to do what I want." Ahsoka smiled, leaning back in her chair. "He knows, certainly. I told him. But he didn't expect me to ask for permission, so I did not ask."

Scourge raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. Such a thing is familiar, yet different. The Sith do not… permanently mate as you, but carry this sense of independence. I can respect that."

Ahsoka smiled and nodded, taking the compliment. She tilted her head to the side curiously, "You don't marry?"

Scourge shook his head. "No. Permanent ties is a weakness. If I were to tie myself to one woman, as closely as you have described, she would exploit it."

"I don't understand, then how do you form families?"

Scourge stared at her a moment. "Again, a foreign concept. I understand what you say from what Revan told me, but the closest thing you describe in my people is a tutor or master. As a man, I raise a boy. The woman raise the girls. My own boy, my heir, was a clone of mine. I have raised a few others, a mixture of clones and male offspring handed to me from brief unions with women. But it would be illegal to allow the boys to be raised by a woman, or for me to participate in the raising of a girl… Or, rather, to be more accurate, my servants do the raising. I am more of a Lord in that I oversee it when I am home."

"Sounds distant."

"And your version sounds clingy and suffocating." Scourge countered. "I understand, it is odd to hear. It is different. But it is how I was raised. It is how my master was raised. It is how we have been raised… for as long as the Emperor."

"It is odd." Ahsoka shrugged. "Perhaps, one day, as our cultures exchange the understanding of these systems, we can teach each other the benefits and problems associated with them, and both change for it."

"You think our way of life should change?" Scourge questioned.

"If we were to push everything I just said to right now, yes, I do think there are problems with what you just described in the family unit as you have it, but pushing it would only cause problems and strife, when what I mean is teaching, exchanging of ideas, of summaries of how systems have worked in the past. Not all species function the same way anyway."

Scourge scoffed. "I can accept an exchange of ideas, but you will find the Emperor not so… understanding."

"Then it is a good thing we aim to remove him."

"Good luck with that. You don't know what it is you fight."

"And you do?" Ahsoka asked. "If you want to tell us valuable information, I am sure they would love to hear it, but that isn't why I am here."

"Even if I did, it wouldn't work. I cannot resist his will."

Ahsoka nodded. "I see." She looked at him heavily. "Is that because of the Force Bond you hold with him?"

The Emperor, in the back of his mind, hissed slightly. Scourge stilled, shocked. It was a subtle thing, but she had caught it. "You know of it?"

Ahsoka smiled proudly. "My husband is a Miraluka. Taught me a thing or two. I can sense, at the very least, you have a Force Bond with someone, I'm guessing the Emperor, but the Bond is much stronger than even my own… and that says something, as what I have is supposedly one of the strongest. Just how deep does your Bond go with him?"

Scourge couldn't say a word. A part of him wanted to, but the Emperor insured even if he wanted to, he couldn't. His lips were sealed shut. Scourge simply turned his head.

"Ah, well. If you don't want to tell me, that's fine." Ahsoka leaned back again. "Varus will probably be able to do something about it when he gets back."

"He is departed?"

Ahsoka smiled knowingly. "Classified."

A beam pulled in cluster of escape pods and wreckage into the hanger of the Sith assault vessel. A brief scan showed no life forms. A number of Sith troopers stepped forward and started working at it, sorting through the clutter. One of them found the button to open the escape pod, and it opened… to reveal a wall of blackness.

"What the…" He muttered.

"You see something?" His comrades questioned.

The three of them gazed into the wall of black liquid, mezmerized.

"Okay, that's weird." One whispered.

"You ever seen liquid sit like a wall?"

"Nope."

The first one reached a hand forward, and poked it. Ripples cascaded along its surface. He pulled back, and a string of the liquid followed his finger. "Ew." He gagged. He shook his hand. "Get it off!"

The others laughed. "You had to go and poke it didn't you!"

"Well, it looked interesting! I mean-" His arm straightened as the string pulled at his hand. For a brief moment, they stood stunned, unsure what to make of it. The next moment he was pulled into the liquid up to his shoulder. "WHAT THE-!" And then he was sucked in entirely and disappeared.

The others lifted their guns and fired into the wall of black liquid. They stepped back, suddenly fearful as they fired. But nothing happened. The wall was unaffected by the blaster fire. They looked at each other, turned, and ran. However, it was too late. Tendrils exploded out of the escape pod, grabbed them, and pulled them screaming into it and swallowed them whole.

Alarms went off as the Sith saw what happened. An inner cannon released from the ceiling and aimed at the wreckage, but the tendrils reached out, grabbed it, and wrenched it out of the ceiling by its wires and metal. Explosives struck the escape pod, and in the midst of the wreckage was a giant ball of blackness.

The blackness disappeared to reveal two men. The first was hunched backwards, and lurched around like a puppet on a string. He took his own neck and snapped it, as if it was out of place.

"Oh, that's so much better." Nihilus sighed in relief. "New bodies always taste the freshest."

The second man, stood next to him, with lightning cascading off of his body in waves. A pair of lightsabers were in his hands. The two men stood back to back. Waves upon waves of Sith lined up against them, a few lesser tanks were getting manned, and more turrets came out of the walls. The alarm alerted the rest of the ship and doors opened to allow more Sith in, ranging from the True Sith wielding the Force and lightsabers, to Sith troopers with blasters primarily along with a few carrying snipers and explosive weaponry.

"Just like old times, eh, apprentice?" Nihilus smirked.

"Old times…" Varus agreed, with less pleasure. "I think your perspective of old times is more pleasant than mine."

"Be that as it may, shall we begin?"

Despite my misgivings, it does start to feel like old times. How many battles have I been in against overwhelming odds, moving endlessly trying to stay afloat against the tides pulling me down? How many have I killed? How many times have I felt the rush of my blood pumping in my veins, of my heartbeat in my ears, of the energy of electricity coursing across my skin, of feeling my fists and claws on impact, tearing, stabbing, blocking. The cries of death. Blaster fire all around me, the Force spinning around me like a tidal wave I ride on and churn to my own will conflicting with the energies of those around me, grabbing them and spinning their own waves into my gigantic one. The sense of the Void within me, around me, and behind me, sucking and draining at all things and just as dangerous as the enemy I dispact as I feed them to it. Not only within myself, but to Nihilus who ravishes those around the battlefield until his darkness is traded with my electricity. Our combined power incomparible to anything until our sheer presence together creates a tornado of darkness and plasma.

This is something I have felt many a time and I fall into its deadly song with ease.

I pull a ramp down, sending its occupants into a free fall to the floor. I jump over a tank, spin, and with an extended blade of lightning, cleave it in half before I land on my feet and dash into a Sith. The Sith also dashes at me, but he expects me to fight him head on. I evade to the side just before his blow comes, and I send him flying into jagged metal.

I sense Nihilus flow past me and collide into a group of Sith, consuming them, and then moving on to the next group while I make short work of a commando with a heavy machine gun.

"You can feel it, can't you?" Nihilus whispers. "The rush. The power. You remember the taste of their souls on your lips, don't you?"

I ignore him.

"As a void-smith, you grow stronger with each life you take. Can you taste it? The power? The flicker of life as you consume it?"

"What of it?" I ask. I grab the plasma of a Sith's blade, catching him by surprise, and weave it to my own will and stab him with the blade of his own lightsaber.

"It is something you should be intimately familiar with. Not like you have lost touch in the several years since the Jedi enslaved you."

Something in the back of my mind rings bells, but I can't say what, so I ignore the feeling and press forward. Just as Nihilus said, the feeling is familiar. I have always become stronger the more I kill. It is an innate part of being a void user. Like Nihilus, I can taste them. I do not like it, I never have, and so I learned to ignore it.

"Life tends to be so… fragile. Like a flickering flame they go out with barely a snuff. Men, women… newborns most of all."

"If you have something to say, just say it." I rebuttal. I look for another target, and oddly enough the hanger has mostly been cleared. The dead lay everywhere and fire fills the room. There are more coming, but they are still a way off.

"Surely, you are not so ignorant?" Nihilus asks. "Unless… you truly think you are past it. Galen, despite your efforts, you are mine. Your soul is etched with my writing. You are a void smith fashioned by my own hand. Have you not noticed that you become stronger around the strong? Have you not noticed the subtle pull you have on them? How you drain their life to feed yourself?'

I growl. I point my lightsaber at Nihilus' face. His every word annoys me now. I'm past putting up with him for today. "If you have nothing proper to say, then be quiet. And for your information, we know about that. Tree-Hugger… Ahsoka… they know I am a void-smith. They know that forming bonds with me saps at them, but we also made sure it is so small it isn't dangerous. At most, Ahsoka might lose a year of her total life span. We came to terms with that long ago, and decided we could live with that. And Tree-Hugger, no amount of draining will ever have an effect on him for some odd reason. So your point is without purpose, if you think you can taunt me…"

"Yes… they are strong." Nihilus looks down on me. "Too strong to truly be affected by your residual void aura… but then what of children? Are children strong in the Force?"

Silence. Silence so still and perfect, you could hear my breathing. The crackling of fire. The stomping of distant Sith troopers entrenching themselves against us. My own heartbeat… my heartbeat racing in my chest as his words catch up to me.

"Wha-what?" I ask, weakly. The alarms in my head go off loudly and I sense all kinds of red-flags.

Nihilus presses, "Have you never wondered why I never bothered breaking out of that prison until now? That answer is because there was no need. I am always with you, Galen. Your very soul is my heir, consuming and eating all things you touch. On a much smaller scale, sure, but I knew this bond between us would never be broken. In fact, the harder I knew you would try to break away from me, to create a life for yourself, a family, the stronger that bond would be. Because that one thing I insured you can never have is a family."

My eyes stare at him wide, sweat breaks out on my skin, and my lightsaber shakes madly in my hand. Information floods my consciousness faster than I can process, and all I can hear is his words echoing in my mind.

Nihilus smiles mercilessly, "Tell me, Galen Marek, Starkiller, heir to the Void-Smith, what is it like to taste the soul of a child freshly conceived? What is it like to taste the life of your very own heir? It is a taste I look very much to testing soon."

It is at this moment that a couple of Sith decide to take the initiative and rush at us. With barely a movement, I cut them down.

They were in my way… in the way between me… and Nihilus.

I look up at Nihilus, and he smiles. I know why he is smiling. The tears running down my face, the redness of my Sith eyes, the pure hatred etched into every muscle of my face. Nihilus won. I love Ahsoka. I love the children we tried to have. But Nihilus is right. The more I loved them, the stronger his influence would have on me. I was a fool. There was no escaping Nihilus, there was no avoiding him, there was no being content with him being in prison. There was only one thing to do…

"I'm going to stab the shit outta you." I declare.

"I'd be terribly disappointed if you didn't." Nihilus smiled, knowing he had won.

Anakin sighed. "I don't like this."

"I don't like it either, but have some faith." Ahsoka said, a happy bounce in her step. "Varus is strong."

"I don't doubt that. But- okay why are you so happy?"

"I've made progress with the Sith prisoner." Ahsoka smiled. Skywalker smiled as well, proud of her. "We've been sharing ideals, cultures, and knowledge. I hope he lives to return it to his people."

"I'm glad! Good job, 'hsoka!" He patted her on the shoulder. "You're doing better than I, it seems in getting in touch with them. It's a small step, but also a big one. The first one to have a good talk with this enemy. You should be proud, I sure am… now it seems I have some catching up to do."

Ahsoka smiled and turned her eyes towards the distant Sith fleet. "You're right, it's a big step. Hopefully it will produce some good. But for now… trust in Varus."

"Can you sense his thoughts?"

"No. We lessened our marriage bond to allow him to enter the fleet unnoticed with Nihilus. Just because we use the bond, doesn't mean we can't live without it. If that was all there was to our relationship, I wouldn't have bothered."

"Well said." Skywalker said. He looked to HK-47. "Are you ready?"

"Confirmation: I am ready." The droid replied.

The plan so far as Skywalker was told was simple. To wait for Nihilus to give a signal, to tell HK-47/Forge to play his part, and then take advantage of Nihilus' handiwork. Now if only he could know what the signal wa-

Ahsoka suddenly broke out in screams and fell to her knees, clutching her head. "'Hsoka!" Skywalker exclaimed, panicking. "Are you okay?!"

"No-! No! No! Varus!" Ahsoka yelled. She clutched her ears shut. "STOP SCREAMING! It's okay! Varus!"

"Oh dear, is she broken?" HK-47 inquired.

"I…" Anakin stared, feeling fear come over him. The same moment Ahsoka had fallen to her knees, screaming, he sensed a powerful Sith presence appear on the ship Nihilus and Varus had gone to. The worst part of it was, he recognized that presence. Varus was unleashing, without restraint, his full power in all of its darkness.

Moments later, there was an explosion on the ship Varus was on.

"Ahsoka! What is happening!" Anakin fell to his knees by her side and held her. She broke out in sobs.

"Varus… he's in so much pain. He's screaming. And I can't… I can't get through to him. It's worse… its far worse than when he was laying on that bed dying. This is worse than when he saw Bastilla Shen die and Revan's memories overcame him!"

"Ahsoka, Varus is strong."

"No! That's the problem! His own strength and love is feeding endless guilt! Stop screaming!"

'The very fact they are lovers guarantees me victory.' Skywalker remembered him saying.

"Oh no…" Skywalker whispered. He knew just how far guilt would motivate Varus, and how much he had come to learn to love. If all those things were being used… there was no telling how strong Varus' pain was. "It'll be fine. Once he calms down enough to talk, then you can help him through this, but right now we need to get to him… we both knew Nihilus would try something."

"Assumption: This is the signal?" HK-47 inquired. "Explosions and fire and screaming and pain are valid signals." Anakin shot the droid a death glare. The droid made no visible response, but seemed to accept it all the same.

As Anakin watched, the Forge coughed up a number of ships. Nihilus, when this whole fight began, had told the droid to produce a number of ships. HK produced a number of dreadnaught class vessels.

"What good are the ships to us… They are not manned by any armies and are almost entirely solid… We can't use them for anything."

HK did not respond at first. It seemed its focus was on manning the ships, for as Anakin watched, the ships Nihilus wanted constructed disappeared into Warp.

"What the?" Anakin asked. "Have you lost your mind?! What good are ships not involved in a battle! Aren't these ships going to reshape the war?"

A minute passed. HK gave no answer. Anakin returned his attention to Ahsoka and helped her to her feet. What she felt in the Force and in her bond was leaving her shaking, but the worst of it was over for the moment. Her attention was solidly on the distant Sith fleet, as if looking for Varus with her own eyes.

"Anything?" Anakin asked.

"Pain. Anger. Guilt. I can't get through to him with him like this…" Ahsoka sniffed. She rubbed tears of pain and empathy from her eyes. "I saw images of horror and death in his mind before he threw me out. I swear… I'm going to hit him for this."

"Let's get him to calm down, first." Anakin suggested. "Damnit… I knew I should have gone with them. We both knew Nihilus knows what buttons to press. It seems we overestimated Varus' growth."

"No." Ahsoka firmly counter. "Varus has grown. Do not doubt that. We underestimated Nihilus' influence."

"Sir!" An officer exclaimed, "The ships are turning around!" Anakin looked at him confused.

"What ships?"

"The ships that just went into Warp."

"Great, so you're bringing them back. Care to actually participate in the battle now, droid?" Anakin looked to HK-47.

The droid said, "I am participating. To answer your question, Jedi… allow my a question of my own. Have you ever been hit with a cannonball going… at the speed of Warp?"

"No… I-" Anakin stopped. His eyes widened in horror. A brief glance on the officer's panel showed the ships were not slowing down. "EVERYONE! GET COVER!"

The next moment, the solar system came to a still as three dreadnaught ships going at Warp speed did not slow down, but rammed through the entire Sith fleet in a millionth of a second. Anakin would later remember recalling the sight, the instant, and thinking of how clean the cut was as the Sith ships were torn apart by the hundreds. And then of seeing them pulverise and explode in shrapnel in every conceivable direction. And then seeing the planet beneath them burst into flame across its entire surface as the air was ignited.

HK-47 cackled gleefully.