Slowly, making his way back to
consciousness, Zekk could already feel the nauseating after effects of the stun
beams' blast setting in. Forcing his
emerald eyes open, his vision was hazy at first, but gradually his surroundings
came into focus. He was lying sideways
on a cold metal surface, most likely a floor. The room itself appeared to have no other objects in it besides an
oblong desk in front of a large oval window. Carefully, so he would not add to his already pounding headache, Zekk
moved his eyes and reached out with his senses to try and figure out where he
was. He soon discovered he was not
alone in the room.
"Welcome back, Zekk," said a voice
that was anything but welcoming. "For someone who calls himself a Jedi Knight,
you sure took long enough to come around," the voice mocked.
A stabbing pain in Zekk's side made
him cry out in pain as a booted foot came into contact with his ribs. Rolling over onto his back, Zekk squeezed
his eyes shut, willing the pain to go away.
"I hope that didn't hurt too much,
because you and I have a lot of catching up to do, old friend,"
The voice was closer now, as if it
were standing over him. Zekk opened his
eyes once more, blinking away the bright light coming from above him. A dark shadow loomed over him, and as his
vision cleared the shadow displayed the features of two eyes, a nose, and a
mouth that was curved upwards into a vicious sneer. The face penetrated its way into Zekk's memory, all the way to
the back of his brain where he had shoved all his most agonizing memories in an
effort to forget they existed. As much
as he wanted to he could no longer deny the ghost from his past that was
glaring down at him.
"Karsay," he breathed.
"In the flesh," Karsay acknowledged,
"you look a little surprised to see me up and around,"
Zekk stared up at him in
disbelief. It was indeed him. His hair had changed from dark brown to
spiky bleach blonde, but besides that everything else about him had remained the
same. He had the same evil gleam in his
granite gray eyes, the same muscular build and cocky air surrounding him. Two lightsabers were dangling from their
clipped position at his waist. One was
the unimaginative design that had been mass-produced by the Shadow Academy at
one time, while the other was intricately crafted to represent a unique
extension of its owner.
Everything was happening too fast for
Zekk. Memories flooding through his
mind that he did not want to remember. He went to get up but immediately stumbled back to the ground. Looking over himself, he found stun cuff
binders attached to his wrists and ankles, which were bounded together with
long, heavy metal chains that were fastened to the floor.
Getting a good look at Karsay, he said
in an even voice, "you're dead,"
Karsay let out a throaty laugh. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? So you can go on believing that you managed
to stab me in the back and lived to talk about it."
Zekk still would not give up. "Brakiss wanted you dead, and he was
grateful to me for accomplishing that,"
Karsay gave him a pitying look. "Did it ever occur to you, in that feeble
mind of yours, that your beloved master lied to you? No, I suppose it didn't,"
Karsay went on to explain that when he
was brought back to the Shadow Academy with his injuries, the physicians had
told Brakiss that he would probably never wake up. Knowing this, Brakiss decided to keep him alive because he never
knew if a time would come when he would be short of Dark Jed. One insubordinate Dark Jedi was better then
none at all.
"He sent me to a secret Imperial
medical installation, where he kept tabs on my progress," explained Karsay,
"Some brain activity was all the doctors ever reported back to him. Nothing to get too excited about.
"When I finally woke up, the Second
Imperium was gone, and Brakiss with it. The few medical personnel that remained helped me with my recovery until
I was strong enough to leave. I came
home to Dundas to begin plotting my revenge against you, Zekk. Ever since I regained consciousness, I've
eat, sleeped and breathed your name, waiting for the day when I could finally
repay you for what you did to me.
"The doctors even gave me a prosthetic
replacement for the foot I lost. It
looks, and feels," he lashed out with his foot against Zekk's side to prove his
point, "just like the real thing,"
Coughing and sputtering for air, Zekk
sank to the floor holding onto his side, but refusing to cry out this
time. He was certain he had heard
something crack with that last crushing blow to his ribs.
Karsay rolled him onto his back,
eliciting a small groan from Zekk, and forced Zekk to look at him. "I head all about your betrayal to the
Second Imperium. Running back to your
cowardly Jedi friends, begging them to take you back like the pathetic little
street punk you are," he taunted.
"Go to hell," Zekk spat at him.
"I will, one day," he gave Zekk a
menacing smile, "but so will you for your crimes,"
"I've made up for the things I did,"
"But you can never erase them. Do you think your friends will ever forget
that you betrayed them? And what's to
stop them from thinking that you'll do it again?" He grabbed Zekk by the collar of his shirt and shook him. "I know the type of cold killer you
are. The dark side is still as much a
part of you as it was when you were Brakiss' prized pupil,"
Zekk shook his head. "No, you're wrong,"
"Am I? You can't change what you are, you only stall the inevitable."
Zekk looked away from Karsay then, not
wanting to hear anymore of what he had to say. His eyes locked on his lightsaber hanging at Karsay's side.
Karsay's eyes gleamed when he noticed
where Zekk was looking. "You continue
to deny the truth, but I can feel how badly you want your lightsaber so you can
finish the job you started years ago. It's written all over your face,"
Zekk dropped his gaze to the
floor. He had to have better control
then that or risk his anger taking over, which was exactly what Karsay wanted
to happen. He forced a Jedi calming
technique through his body in an effort to calm himself down, though he was
only partially successful.
Seeing that he was at last beginning
to chip away at Zekk's calm exterior, Karsay continued his attempts to provoke
him. "Come on, Zekk, where's that fiery
temper of yours?"
Clenching his teeth, Zekk said
nothing. He didn't think he could speak
without letting the rage he was feeling inside of him creep into his voice.
Disappointed that he was not getting
the rise out of Zekk he had hoped for; Karsay dropped his hands from Zekk's
shirt and got to his feet. He was not
swayed by Zekk's refusal to cooperate, it would just require a little more
persuasion on his part. After all,
there was more than one way to skin a vornskr.
"You're just as stubborn as always,
Zekk," said Karsay as he got to his desk, "so I'm afraid you leave me with no
choice but to do this the hard way."
Zekk was not looking forward to
finding out what Karsay meant by that, as the former dark student of Brakiss
pressed a flashing green button on his desk making the only door to the room
that Zekk could see slide open.
Jaina.
Zekk could barely contain his joy at
seeing her alive, and apparently unharmed. However, with a sinking feeling settling in his gut, he began to
understand what Karsay meant about 'doing this the hard way.'
"Get your hands off me!" Jaina growled at the guards bringing her in,
trying to maneuver out of their grasp.
Zekk recognized one of the guards as
the blonde man who had been at the Raging Rancor, while the other one he had never
seen before. Without too much effort,
he read them both to be force sensitive.
"Brakiss was right about one thing,"
Karsay said, when he noticed the way Zekk was probing the guards, "not only the
pampered individuals of society possess the talent to use the force,"
By the look of the guards and the
rough bunch he and Jaina had encountered earlier, Zekk surmised that Karsay had
gone searching through the different gangs on Dundas, looking for adepts in the
force that Brakiss had missed on his first run through there. It seemed he was even offering positions to
those who had no force abilities at all.
Karsay motioned for the two thugs to
leave once they had finally managed to drag Jaina into the room. They immediately heeded his request, leaving
Jaina alone with Karsay and Zekk.
She glanced over at Zekk to make sure
he was all right. He looked a little
worse for wear, sitting there chained to the floor, but either then that seemed
relatively healthy. That was good
because they were going to need all their strength if they wanted to escape
there alive. They could not just sit
around, hoping their friends were on the way to rescue them.
Jaina
could not spare more than a glimpse at Zekk though, because the man he had
described to her as Xander Karsay was walking towards her.
"I'm Karsay," he greeted her coolly.
She glared at him. "I know who you are,"
Karsay chuckled. "I like you already. Too bad Zekk's forcing me to make an example
out of you."
Before Jaina could think up a retort,
Karsay used his mind to lift her off the ground. Oh no, not again. But she did not get hurled through the air like before, instead she
found herself gasping for air as her airways refused to open and get needed the
oxygen into her body.
"This all could have been avoided,
Zekk," Karsay was saying. "You forced me to do this, so her death will be on
your hands."
"Karsay, let her go. This is between you and me," Zekk said,
making an attempt to reason with him.
"You know there's only one way to save
her, yet you continue to refuse it."
Zekk fought hard to resist the Dark
Jedi's words. He was just goading him
into releasing his anger, and Zekk knew it. He also knew if he didn't do something soon, Jaina would die and it
would be all his fault. Could he
justify giving in to his aggressive feelings if it meant saving someone's
life? If he did do that he would revert
back to what he had worked so hard to distance himself from. He raked his hands through his dark hair,
not knowing what the right thing was to do, but also knowing he could not just
sit there watching Jaina being punished for his past mistakes.
It
seemed like no matter how hard he tried his dark past kept coming back to haunt
him – and now the one person he cared for more than anything else in the universe. The dark side was like a terrible rash that
just kept coming back. No matter how
hard you tried, you could never truly be free of it.
He forced himself to watch Jaina
suffering. Her legs thrashed wildly in
the air as she continued to struggle against the invisible hold on her
throat. He wished she would look over
at him so she could see how sorry he was for getting her into this mess.
Black
spots danced in front of Jaina's eyes, as she felt Karsay tightening his grip
on her throat. It seemed to be taking
forever for all the air to rush out of her body. She had never thought suffocation would be so agonizing. It felt like someone was literally sucking
every ounce of breath out of you, until they were sure you would just keel over
and die. And that was what was going to
happen if she didn't get some air into her lungs soon.
Despite her own struggles to stay
alive, she could still feel Zekk fighting his own inner battle. She knew what he wanted to do, but she
didn't want him to do that, not even for her. But he was fighting a losing battle, and Jaina couldn't find any
strength to lend him that wasn't already being used to keep herself alive. She could feel how close he was to slipping,
to taking that final plunge into forbidden territory.
"Zekk, fight it!" She tried to cry out to him but it came out
as more of a hoarse croak.
His own anger and frustration was
pounding in her head, and he was shouting something at Karsay, but Jaina was
beyond comprehending anything now. Anything except the sinister laughter erupting from Karsay's mouth. She knew it would all be over shortly, but
she was going to fight until the last ounce of air was sucked out of her.
A bloodthirsty bellow sent her ears
ringing, and would have made her breath catch in her throat if she had any
left. She was powerless to stop what
she knew was happening all over again.
For a second time in his life, Zekk
let his hatred and fear dictate his actions. He gave into them hesitantly at first, afraid to let them in again after
so long. He tried to control them, but
once they started coursing through his body he was powerless to resist all the
rewards they had to offer him. Shredding the last of his common sense, he took the final plunge into
darkness.