I wanted to write a story where Trilla survives and joins Cal and Cere, so here we go. This won't be a long story, max 4 chapters. Just a little warning, Trilla is going to suffer a lot in this chapter before she gets rescued but eventually she will get over it.
Trilla was traversing the halls of the ancient temple on Bogano. She was going to venture deep inside, wait for the foolish Jedi to come and show her the way to the vault and then she would just kill him and take the Holocron. Then, she would have the Emperor's favor and even more personal power. She had left her forces behind because she didn't need them venturing so deep along with her and they would deter her from her mission anyway.
At one point she found a giant, transparent crystal. Normally, she would have passed by it, but there was something inside it that caught her eye. A green cube with complex, black lines crossing it. The Holocron.
Trilla smirked and approached the crystal. She had found her prize without the need of waiting for that foolish Jedi. Then, she would still wait for him and end his miserable life.
Trilla ignited her lightsaber and struck at the crystal. There was a flash of light which blinded her, and she had to close her eyes. With panic, Trilla could feel how something was distorting her body and pulling her in direction of the crystal. Trilla tried desperately to resist as her panic rose, but all her attempts to save herself were in vain.
The force continued to pull her inside the crystal. Trilla tried to fight with all her strength but to no avail. She clenched her teeth. Her entire body was sweating.
Then it suddenly stopped.
Trilla looked around surprised but saw nothing really interesting.
She tried to make a movement but to her horror she couldn`t. Her left cheek and her entire torso were pressed against an invisible wall.
"That is strange!" Trilla thought.
The young Inquisitor tried to move backwards but there was another barrier, pressed against her back. Her entire body was practically compressed between several walls and there was no space for movements.
This really angered Trilla. She tried to move her arms and legs but she could only wiggle them slightly. In fact the young mage realized that she couldn`t move any of her body parts because they were stuck between the walls. She couldn`t move her head, her neck, her torso, her arms and her legs. The young sorceress could only wiggle.
Trilla tried to use the Force to break free, but to her horror her connection had been severed.
"What is happening?" Trilla shouted. The young female prepared herself, gathered her remaining strength and concentrated... she screamed in agony. It felt as if someone was trying to rip off her limbs and set her skin ablaze. Trilla started squirming but she still could not move her body and the pain was only getting worse and worse.
Then she realized what had happened and the realization filled her with despair and horror. She was trapped inside the crystal! And now she had activated some other mechanism inside the crystal that was torturing her.
Trilla Suduri screamed loudly from her prison. Her screams were only getting louder and louder and echoed throughout the temple.
…Two days later…
"I need help!" Trilla cried. "Can anybody hear me? Help me! I am trapped inside a big crystal, and I can`t get out! Guys! Can you hear me? Guys! Guys!"
She shouted like that for a very long time but to no avail. Trilla stopped only when her voice stifled. Then she started crying. Her tears were flowing down her cheeks but she couldn't even wipe them out. For the second time in her life after her torture the young Inquisitor felt completely helpless especially considering that her weapon had remained outside the crystal. Why was this happening to her?
Trilla could feel a strong itch on her back. She tried to scratch it but both her hands were trapped. In fact, her entire body was stuck in a very uncomfortable position between the wall of the crystal.
Her left cheek was pressed so hard that it was touching the front wall. She couldn't move her head backward because there was another wall, pressed against the back of her head. Her nose was flattened, and her neck was twisted uncomfortably and painfully. The young Inquisitor had a strong neckache and had tried to move her head to fix the problem but she could only wiggle it slightly. This only increased the pain in her neck.
Her right hand was trapped between her ass and the back wall of the crystal. Her left hand was trapped between her torso and the front wall and was pressed so hard against her belly, that it inflicted even more pain on the young woman. Trilla had tried to move her arms but all her efforts were in vain.
Her entire torso was literally compressed between the walls of the crystal which caused excruciating pain to Trilla and left absolutely no space for even the slightest movement. Both her legs were touching each other in a way that was very uncomfortable position and were stuck so badly that her toes were pointed downwards but couldn't reach the ground. Trilla had tried to move her legs and to force them apart, but she only managed to wiggle them slightly without much effect.
On top of that, she had barely slept due to her uncomfortable position and she hadn't eaten or drunk anything during the past two days which made her feel awful now.
Worse still was the fact that from time to time, the crystal would torture her brutally with some sort of power. Trilla would feel like someone was burning her alive and she would scream and cry for someone to save her even harder. Every time this happened, Trilla received flashbacks of her own torture at the hands of the Empire until they finally broke her and made her and joined their ranks.
She was hoping that the Stormtroopers would hear her cries and would come and rescue her, but two days had passed, and nobody had come for her.
Now, she remembered the lessons they taught them about this kind of traps at the Jedi Temple. This crystal had tricked her with a hologram of the Holocron. It was actually a trap specifically designed to keep her alive for the rest of eternity despite the lack of food or water and to periodically torture her.
…Some time later…
Cal was traversing the halls of the temple, hoping to find the vault with the Holocron. He had a bad feeling that he would have to fight the Second Sister here, but now he was ready for her, and he would defeat her and avenge Prauf who had given his life for him.
During his venture, he stumbled upon a giant, transparent crystal but what truly amazed him was what was inside of it. The Second Sister in full battle armor minus her helmet was trapped inside the crystal, her face pressed against its wall and distorted in pain. Her whole body was in a clearly uncomfortable position which she couldn't fix due to the limited amount of space, and she couldn't move any of her body parts. She looked awful due to lack of sleep, food or water, but she was still alive.
When she saw him, Trilla's eyes were filled with hope which was unexpected.
"Cal, please, you have to help me!" Trilla pleaded with a slightly distorted voice because of being pressed against the crystal walls, still struggling to move.
"Do I have to?" Cal asked with a serious tone. Flashbacks of the Second Sister killing Prauf immediately flooded his head.
"Cal, I know that you hate me for what I did to your friend, but, please, help me! Now, I remember the lessons they taught us about this kind of traps at the Jedi Temple. This crystal is designed to keep me alive for the rest of eternity and is periodically torturing me." The fear in her voice was evident which showed to Cal that she wasn't lying. "This is a fate worse than death. You would agree that even I don't deserve something like that.
Cal was shocked at her words. He had forgotten about those teachings at the Jedi Temple. Maybe she really didn't deserve this despite her crimes…
He shook his head, turned around prepared to continue with his search for the Holocron.
"CAAAL! Please! AAAGH" He heard Trilla's distorted screams behind his back and she was clearly crying judging by her shaking voice. This prompted Cal to turn around and look at her.
Trilla's face was covered in tears flowing down, and her entire body was shaking while she was screaming in agony. Cal realized that right now the crystal was torturing her and that's why she was in so much pain.
This was the final straw for Cal. Absolutely no one deserved this kind of suffering, and he was ashamed of himself that he even considered leaving Trilla like that.
Cal remembered how to open a crystal like that and get Trilla out unharmed, but before he did that, he was first going to pick up her weapon because he still didn't want her to be armed as soon as she was free.
He picked up her double lightsaber from the ground and his head immediately felt dizzy. He realized that he was being overwhelmed by Force Echo vision of Trilla's life.
In it, Trilla was in a cave with a group of younglings and Cere. She was holding a child by his shoulders, calming him down. Cal realized that this vision was from the aftermath of Order 66.
Trilla grabbed Cere by the hand.
"Don't go. We need to stick together." Cal could feel her desperation as his own.
"No, I am going to lure them away and then I'm going to circle back. Stay with the Younglings, Trilla. May the Force be with you." Cere turned and ran out of the cave.
"Master, don't leave us!" Trilla said with a cracking voice and extended her hand towards Cere as if she wanted to stop her, but hr fingers didn't even come close to reaching her.
"Trilla, what's going to happen?" One of the younglings asked with evident fear.
"It's okay. It's okay." Trilla comforted the child by pressing her palms against his shoulders and then against his cheeks. She was lying of course, but she did her best to hide her own fear for the sake of the children.
In the next flashback Cal received, Trilla was strapped in an upright position on a torture device while she was desperately struggling to get free. Two Stormtroopers stood in front of her, completely unmoved by her plight. Cal could feel her fear and desperation as two panels charged with electricity slowly approached her body which caused Trilla to cry even louder. As the electricity coursed through Trilla's body, her screams became unbearable and high-pitched. Cal felt her pain as his own, felt her longing for Cere to come and rescue her while knowing that her Master had sold her out to the Empire. All Cal wanted at that moment was to make it stop and to save Trilla from this horrible fate. But he couldn't do any of those things and he was forced to watch through her eyes as she was getting mercilessly electrocuted.
Then, a third flashback appeared. In it, the Stormtroopers had finally managed to break Trilla's will and forced her to become an Inquisitor. Trilla was now standing in front of Cere who was strapped to a torture device. Trilla took an Inquisitor helmet and covered her head with it. Cal could feel all of Trilla's thoughts, her sadness, how broken she was over her torture, but also hope that the Empire would recognize her worth unlike her her former Master who had sold her out.
"No, no, no!" Cere shouted but couldn't do anything about it. She broke free by tapping into the Dark Side, breaking the machine and knocking everyone off. Trilla was too weak from the fall to stand up and she was forced to watch as Cere left without her, abandoning her to the Empire. Cal felt Trilla's fury and bitterness at the world, at the Empire and at her Master as she lay on the ground, tearing up. Why didn't her Master take her with her? Why was she abandoning her? Cal felt all those thoughts as Trilla slowly fainted.
Cal slowly came back to the real world and realized that all this time while he had been experiencing her memories, Trilla had been shouting from outside her prison due to the amount of pain that was inflicted on her.
The visions Cal saw made him even more determined to help Trilla. Sure, she might have committed many evil crimes, but she was more a victim of the cruel Galactic Empire than an actual perpetrator. She was an even bigger victim than him. He lost his Master to the Clone Troopers and was forced to hind and work as a scrapper for years, but Trilla was mercilessly tortured and forced to join her own tormentors in hunting down and killing her former friends. This was much worse than anything Cal had gone through and now Trilla was suffering even more inside that crystal. Cal wouldn't allow this.
He moved quickly and situated himself behind the crystal with Trilla's back facing him and her body writhing in agony.
"PLEASE!" She screamed once more. "MAKE IT STOP!"
Cal looked more thoroughly at the back side of the crystal and found what he was looking for. A network of interconnected lanes that were all connected to one another. He touched them with his palm and moved it slowly over them.
The crystal immediately opened and Trilla staggered forward, but it was clear that she was barely able to stand still both from her body being compressed for days in a tight space and due to the horrible torture, the crystal had subjected her to.
She was just about to fall and possibly hit her head on the solid ground, but Cal quickly came to her aid, grabbed her by the waist to held her still. Her breathing was racked, her mouth wide-open and there were tears in her eyes both because of the horrible things she experienced during the last few days and because of the joy she felt to finally be able to move her around with her body parts and not be cramped in a tight space and subjected to terrible torture sessions.
Trilla turned towards her savior. Her vision was blurred, her legs as heavy as lead and her body numb and weakened, but she would recognize that ginger hair, that young and handsome face and that determined gaze. Her assignment from the Empire was to kill him, but even if she wanted to, she couldn't do it right now when she was so weak that Cal had to hold her to prevent her from falling and her eyes were barely open from exhaustion.
Besides, she didn't want to harm her savior. Even though she had killed his best friend in front of him, he still helped her out in the end and that was something Trilla would never forget. Nobody else had helped her out ever since she had been captured and tortured by the Empire as a teenager. She was going to make it up to him as best as she could, but for now she felt way too tired to do anything other than to press her head against Cal's chest, mutter a brief "Thank you!" and close her eyes as her conscience faded…
Cal was still holding Trilla to prevent her from falling and she had pressed her head against his chest and closed her eyes. He didn't know if he had heard correctly, but he thought she had muttered a brief "Thank you" before faiting.
Cal was very confused by everything that had happened. Up until this moment, he had perceived Trilla as a monstrously evil, scary villain who had to be put down, but now when she was so weak and helpless that she had to rely on him, she didn't look scary or evil, at all. She just looked like a scared, young girl and after Cal had watched the her memories, he started to realize that beneath her intimidating exterior, Trilla was really just a scared girl who was trying to act callous because she had lost faith in the capacity for good in people and to impress her new masters from the Galactic Empire.
As he was looking at her sleeping peacefully in his arms, he couldn't in good faith call her evil or beyond redemption. Her life was a sad story, but perhaps Cal could help her and bring her back to the Light Side.
He put her slowly down on the ground but made sure to let her head rest in a comfortable position. Trilla needed some sleep after what she had been through, and Cal hoped that she was having nice dreams.
