Author's Notes: I think this is the real 'test of faith'…

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A Test of Faith

Chapter 18 - The Darkness Within

Jinn wasn't sure who'd screamed first, but as he, Allyaah, Dooku and the Simaran squad picked up pace and charged toward the Sohta army, they all roared out some kind of war cry at the top of their lungs. Lightsabres blazing, or claws flashing, they were all soon buried within the midst of the Sohta legion, and were fighting for their freedom, and their lives.

Allyaah was the agile pacifist, as usual, and preferred to let the Colicoids fall victim to their own faults rather than to her blade. Dooku was having no such nonsense, however - tired and pale as he still looked, he called upon the Force to give him some renewed vigour and slaughtered any Sohta Colicoid who came within an inch of him. Jinn was somewhat in-between with his fighting style - his lightsabre moves were elegant and lengthy, and carried more patience than his Form-II-employing mentor. They still weren't as patient and fastidious as Allyaah's, though.

Female was proving to be a skilled warrior, and inspired her numbers to really give it their all, despite the fact they were outnumbered. Simaran Colicoids were still dropping like flies, however; in their approach to combat, the Sohta fighters were as uncouth as the thieves who occupied the dark alleys of lower Coruscant, being both brutal and merciless, and ganged up on their enemies with ease before hacking them to death. The sound of crushed shell and fractured limb filled the air, reverberating about the large, cavernous walls.

The Queen herself didn't seem to be too eager to engage in combat, but it didn't take Serenn long to figure out that she was watching him. He also soon realised that he was being steadily separated from the rest of his allies, pushed toward the Queen by careful Sohta fighters.

Serenn felt his legs begin to give way as he was guided toward the giant Queen - she looked cumbersome enough, but those scythe-like foreclaws would give anyone second thoughts about calling her a worthless fighter. He swung his 'sabre at a Colicoid to his left, decapitating it, then at another on his right, taking its arms off. Both managed to crawl away afterwards - like many other insectoids, it seemed that they could live for at least a while once their limbs had been taken off. Even without their heads.

Serenn blinked - his sight was blurring now. Sounds were beginning to muffle. White dots were flashing before his eyes. 'Stay awake, stay awake!' he urged himself, falling to his knees for a moment before, after taking a deep breath, he got back up again.

"Serenn!"

Someone shouted… it came to him as if from a long distance.

"You have made a fool of me, human," the Queen was hissing at him now - he hadn't realised it, but he had wound up directly in front of her, and a crowd of her soldiers were gathered around him. He gave her a glare, but he could barely focus on her - her giant bulky body seemed to break into two, then merge back into one whole again, over and over.

"If I cannot usche you to help my children," she went on, giant claws pounding the ground to either side of him, "Then I schall make schure you can help no one other, ever again."

Serenn heard her but it didn't register. He felt as though he was going to retch, and he dropped to his knees once more, seeming, in a sense, to bow down to the Queen. His head was suddenly too heavy to hold, feeling like a leaden weight, and his lightsabre slipped from his sweaty palms, falling with a gentle 'clink' by his side…

'Must stay awake' his mind continued to chant, but he just couldn't obey it.

"Master! Get up!"

Someone else was calling him now… the voice sounded familiar.

"Serenn! SERENN!"

More shouts. He could discern the outline of a scythe-like claw rising up before him, the point  set to pierce his skull when it came back down.

"Get up, Serenn! Please get up!"

"MASTER GET UP, PLEASE!"

The cries were tearful. But he couldn't recognise them anymore. He could barely understand what they were saying. His vision darkened… and the claw began to come down.

"Serenn, NO!"

The squeals of excitement and joy that the Sohta Colicoids had been emitting suddenly ceased as, leaping through their ranks, came a solitary figure - it was Allyaah. She swung her lightsabre at the Queen's oversized claw as it came down and, with a 'slash', the appendage dropped to the ground. The beastly monarch screeched and drew backward in pain, but before she could even think of striking again, Allyaah had swung once more and taken her other scythe off, too!

["Kill her!"] the agonised Queen yelled, lamenting over her wounds, ["Destroy her!"]

Serenn placed his hands on the ground as he nearly collapsed forward onto it, losing all sense of balance. Still, little was registering in his mind. He felt Allyaah's hands on his shoulders, could hear her voice in his ears, "Get up, Serenn, just this once… you can do it!"

But he couldn't. He didn't understand her - until it was too late.

Allyaah made a sudden gasp. There was a crushing noise, the sound of bone snapping, and of flesh tearing. Finally, Serenn's eyes seemed to focus. He blinked and looked to the left, where a sudden movement had caught his attention. Captain was stood there, their old Colicoid friend, and one of his poisonous foreclaws was pierced straight through Allyaah's arm.

Dooku snapped back into himself as though he'd been splashed with icy water, and watched in horror as Captain withdrew his claw from Jiao's flesh, snickering to himself whilst the Jedi Knight, clutching her arm, fell to the floor. Globules of her blood spattered across the ground as Captain rose his arm in triumph and hissed some obscenity to his allies in his own tongue. His comrades shrieked with glee.

/Allow not your emotions to rule you - clear your minds must be/

Serenn breathed in deeply - Allyaah's face was a picture of agony and the pain seemed to be spreading through her fast.

'It's your fault' his mind scolded him sharply as he suddenly remembered where he was and what he was doing, the stinging words of Syfo-Dias also echoing through his thoughts - 'You know, my friend, that your subordinates will suffer for your idiocy if you make a critical error this time'.Someone had suffered and it was because of him…

Dooku's eyes filled with a vicious maelstrom and storm clouds seemed to gather about his person; his former tiredness faded, his fatigue was momentarily forgotten and, rising to his feet, lightsabre drawn back to his hand, he charged the Colicoids with rage, calling upon the Force's darker sides…

The Sohta Colicoids were momentarily startled - the Jedi's rage had empowered him to an astonishing level and many of them were too shocked to think about reacting. With a swish of Serenn's blade, seven Colicoids fell dead at once, their bodies halved in one blow from the Jedi Master.

Dooku turned, eyes blazing, onto the next group facing him; with a nod of his head, he lifted one Colicoid into the air and tossed it into three of its friends, before he rose his hand to the ceiling and drew a stalactite down onto them. Their screams were silenced the moment it fell upon them with a devastating thud, and their thick, green blood oozed from beneath it.

Captain rolled forward next, filled with all the brashness of a true leader. He rose to his full height, his bright head crest and painted shell somewhat adding to his aura of bravado, and awaited the Jedi's onslaught; "Give up, human," he hissed, "You are no match!"

Dooku didn't have time for this - he opened his hand toward him and clenched his fingers into a tight fist. There was just a 'crack' as Captain's head was crushed and his body dropped, anticlimactically, to the floor.

Qui-Gon had, meanwhile, rushed over to Allyaah's side; he didn't know what to do, but he was scared, amongst other things - he'd never seen his Master like this before. His essence had gone cold, and felt full of darkness, fury, and even fear, but most of all, it was filled with hatred. Qui-Gon rested Allyaah's head in his lap and tried to comfort her, but he was at a loss as to how. A tear just ran down his cheek as he watched his mentor kill Colicoid after Colicoid after Colicoid…

The Sohta Colicoids weren't stupid. After seeing the ease with which this one Jedi had devastated their ranks, some began to back away, whilst others just gave up altogether, and coiled up into their shells before rolling off. Soon, Serenn was all but alone with the Queen. She glared at him with her tiny, black eyes, but was herself in obvious pain. Her incapacitated arms were of little use to her now, and she had no other weapons with which to fight the reckless human warrior .

"My children will revenge," she hissed.

Serenn threw her a darkly cocky grin, "I'm sure…"

"They won't allow you to get away with thisch, you schcum!"

"Why don't you -" he hissed, swinging his lightsabre up toward her and knocking her head from her body; it fell with a thud before him; "- shut up?" he finished.

And then there was silence.

Jinn swallowed as he stared at his Master's form. He was just stood still before the dead Queen, chest rising and falling deeply and head hung low. From out of the shadows, meanwhile, crept the only other two remaining Simaran Colicoids - Triangle and an unknown other. They looked at the devastation around them and cautiously trotted toward Dooku.

"You have deschtroyed the Schohta Nest," Triangle said, "You have quelled part of the evil that hasch scho long threatened to engulf our planet." They dropped to their small, knobbly knees behind him, "We thank you…" the two said in unison.

But Serenn said nothing. His eyes were glassy with agony, both physical and mental, and he ignored both Triangle and the other Simaran Colicoid as he trudged resignedly across to where Allyaah lay on the floor by Jinn's side.

He dropped to his knees as he reached them and gathered her up in his arms, holding her in a sitting position; "Allyaah," he whispered, leaning her head against his collarbone. He didn't know what to say now. Jinn just swallowed and looked between the two before he lowered his sight to the floor.

"Serenn…" she cried in return, her eyes tightly shut as her body wracked with pain. It felt as though molten lead were trying to seep through her veins and her arteries, as though her body was burning from within, and she could barely keep herself conscious against such agony.

"Hold on!" Dooku said, his voice breaking as he stroked her hair back out of her eyes, "Please…"

"It burns…" she hissed, tears streaming from her eyes, knowing all too well that Captain had injected his deadly poison into her body, "Serenn…you must… you must…"

He swallowed again, "What? What must I do?" he asked softly.

She gathered enough strength to push herself away from him so that she could look straight into his eyes, "Cut it off… cut off my arm…"

"What?" Serenn gasped and Jinn, head snapping back up, seemed to be of the same opinion - was she mad?

"Do it or it'll only spread faster!"

No one could bring themselves to speak directly of the poison, the one Jinn had researched all that time ago and found to be lethal.

"Serenn, please," she continued, clutching at his shoulder with her uninjured hand and endeavouring to get him to see sense.

He nodded aversely and took his 'sabre up again in his hand.

Qui-Gon made an audible sob, and got up and turned away, whilst Dooku rose his green blade above Allyaah's arm, and swung.

TBC…