Katrina allowed herself to waste a few seconds gawking at the motionless black figure, taking in his flat palms wavering serenely at his sides
Too long. She let out a surprised cry as Abbas's blade nearly shaved against her ear. She heard the hissing and popping of stray hairs that had fallen out of her braid; now burnt and smoldering against her scalp.
"You should not have sought me out, Revan," Abbas said.
Katrina struck back with an unintelligible growl. The rising Sith master only smiled again.
"You won't survive to regret it."
She was thrown off balance, both arms flung back as if by a great wind.
And she did not have to cast an annoyed glare towards the top of the stairs to know that it had been the second apprentice interfering in their fight. Abbas reached back to swing towards her exposed midsection.
I have to get to him.
Katrina clenched the hilt of Abbas's lightsaber in her free hand, whirling around to smash an elbow across his face.
He stumbled clumsily backwards, swearing loudly. His hand came away from his nose covered in blood.
His gaze began to look familiar, like every other Sith, like Sakh, like Malak- empty and beyond reason.
She shivered. This was the time to fear the Sith- when they passed beyond anger, beyond passion; when they because blank variables capable of anything.
Sakh came out of nowhere at her, and she didn't know if it was the sight of his master's blood that had set him off or merely a desire to prove himself over the other apprentice still standing at the top of the stairs.
One of his arms bore down on her while the other swiped methodically at her lower torso. Juhani leapt behind him, forcing him to break his saber lock with Katrina and turn to fight the Cathar.
Juhani's yellow eyes followed every miniscule movement of Sakh's lightsabers, never becoming distracted by the possible motions of the Sith behind her.
I have to get to him.
She flipped over both Sakh and Juhani, sprinting towards the stairs. Abbas slipped seamlessly past his battling apprentice to meet her at the foot of the metal flight.
Katrina suddenly became aware of Dustil's heavy breathing right behind her.
"You can't defeat him," she hissed.
The younger Onasi scoffed, moving past her and engaging Abbas.
Insolent brat. Deceitful braggart child with no respect.
Both were occupied. She went tearing up the staircase.
The second apprentice was quick. With one hand he reached out to try and knock her back down.
She flung her lightsaber at him. He caught it easily, casting it away from him as though it were a set grenade. Katrina leapt to catch it before it went toppling over the edge.
This is a great risk you're taking.
She felt much angrier than she should have over a simple Force shove. She struggled to control it.
She heard the exertions of Juhani rising from soft exhales to small exclamations with each parry or thrust.
I have to get to him.
Katrina reached out her hand, sending Canderous's stolen blaster hurtling towards the second apprentice.
The Sith snatched it out of the air clumsily and seemed caught off guard for a moment. Then he pointed it straight at Katrina and began firing.
Brilliant, Katrina.
Inaccurate, awkward shots that showed this second apprentice had barely touched a weapon in his life. But it was the blaster of a Mandalorian, and any one of those shots would kill her.
She leapt down the staircase and back towards Sakh and Abbas.
Sweat poured down Juhani's face, and she almost mistook it for blood amid the red surroundings. Sakh seemed to have an infinite amount of energy and power, never stopping his assault for an instant. He bore down mercilessly with both lightsabers on the Jedi, two red blades colliding with the light blue as if trying to bend it like glass in a fire.
She quickly ducked around Sakh, blocking another one of his attacks on the Cathar.
Juhani sighed gratefully, narrowing her eyes and gritting her teeth as she came back towards Sakh.
Maybe we are rushing into a war that doesn't need to be fought.
Sakh spun around as if lost in some tribal dance and his lightsabers merely happened to be attached to him. Nonetheless, Katrina had to dodge them as they swung wide near her.
Too close again. The edge of Sakh's blade slid softly across her side. She shrieked uncharacteristically, slapping her smoldering clothing and wincing as she hit burned flesh.
Another scar. Carth and I might end up being even by the time I get back.
Thinking of Carth made her think of the accident made her think of who had caused it made her think of how long she had wanted both Sith dead.
She felt anger, whether her anger or Sakh's or Abbas's or Dustil's or even the second apprentice's...she felt it around her, threatening to devour her and dab it's oily lips with a napkin before leaving to effortlessly devour something else.
A low laugh behind them and the sick thud of flesh and bone into rock and metal told what had happened without having to turn around.
Dustil moaned, pushing himself up from the corner he had been flung into like a rag doll by the second apprentice. He fell again and finally got up on the third try, shaking his head vigorously and stalking towards Abbas.
Foolish boy. Inexperienced Padawan.
His anger was easy to recognize.
Sakh swung for her again. Juhani blocked it tiredly, and Katrina noticed the ugly blistering welt and the blackened clothing across her upper thigh.
Dustil growled exasperatedly. She could hear the rising Sith master's laughter again, echoing off the walls of the cavern.
"You're going back down there if I have to knock you unconscious and throw you in an escape pod myself." He smirked, and she hated him for it, hated how he had the upper hand and would always have the upper hand as long as she loved his father.
She heard Dustil's wretching and coughing sounds as the second apprentice's tell-tale clenched fist indicated an unresisted Force choke.
"You need me to like you, and the only way I'm going to do that is if you'll help me." He was trying to bait her with Carth and it only made her hate him more.
Juhani quickly turned and fled towards Abbas. Katrina turned to watch her go, nearly getting struck by Sakh. She turned back towards him, trying to will herself to pay attention.
She would not help him.
"You can't defeat him," she hissed. The younger Onasi scoffed, moving past her and engaging Abbas.
He had made the choice; he had left Carth on Telos. He was not her responsibility.
She reached up, blocking another of Sakh's strikes.
Let him pay the price for his mistakes.
The second apprentice attempted to take her lightsaber again. She struggled to hang on, forcing it towards Sakh in an effort to break the other Sith's Force grip.
Sakh's overwhelming anger, his drive to prove to his master that he was stronger than the other at the top of the stairs, was the only thing saving her. His attacks were rage-driven, inaccurate.
The other...the one posted on the catwalks above them like a hunting kath hound- he was the one she was battling.
How could he believe that she would fall, that she was not every inch as powerful as she appeared? How could he not believe in her?
She struggled. She could feel it clutching at her skin, slimy and overwhelming. She heard another yell from Dustil, another tired grunt from Juhani.
Katrina turned just in time to see Juhani's blue blade slide smoothly through Abbas's right side.
The Sith gasped, tilting almost a full ninety degrees towards the ground, staring at the Cathar with only annoyance, as if she had spoken out of turn at a Committee meeting.
Sakh seemed momentarily frozen. He stared blankly ahead, over her shoulder to where Abbas was half kneeling, breathing slowly and heavily.
The second apprentice did not waste as much time. His arms raised, ready to counter with something.
Sakh followed suite, and she turned her back on the wounded Abbas to quickly dodge his apprentice's next blow.
I have to get to him.
Then there was a sound unlike any other she had heard in the battle, a sound that did not belong to a lightsaber or a throat gasping for breath, or even a body being slammed against a wall. This sound was slick and cool, like primordial ooze coming to life. It seeped out, echoing dumbly around her.
The screaming was instantly everywhere, and for a moment she was confused. It seemed the sound had gained in volume, and was now growing into something with its own auditory components, something that could not be controlled.
She felt her skin tingling as though a sudden draft had come through the cavern. The screaming was not in her mind. And it was not unreal.
"I... I thank you for your support. My outburst was uncalled for, but you did not lash back at me. You are a much better Jedi than I, it would seem."
Juhani was suddenly on her knees, her head slightly to the side, as if studying some formation within the rocks. Her face was far more flushed than its usual white pallor.
Katrina finally saw the end of a red lightsaber sticking inauspiciously out of her chest.
The screaming that followed next, inarticulate and dissonant, was clearly coming out of her mouth.
With a show of great effort, Abbas pulled his blade back towards him out of the Cathar.
Juhani opened her mouth wide, inhaling deeply. Then she crumpled to the ground, the beads in her hair making tiny tinkling noises against the metal.
As if the sight wasn't enough, now the Force joined in, coursing the headline through her body: Juhani would die.
"The woman who saved me, who I...I have come to care for, could never go completely to the dark side."
Words had failed everyone. Abbas made low croaking laughter, falling in jerky movement back onto the railings of the platform. Sakh still stood in position where she had been battling him, panting heavily with an exhilarated smile on his dark face.
Dustil Onasi snarled. She watched his upper lip curl up towards his nostrils and creases that shouldn't have appeared in someone his age shoot out from around his contorted cheekbones.
Katrina watched in horror as he drew his lightsaber straight up in front of him. The blade did not flicker; his hands did not tremble.
There was the son of Carth with a lightsaber in his hands, a dying master in front of him, and a wounded Sith clinging to the railing.
Carth's son, Juhani's Padawan, Dustil Onasi, about to fall. And there would be no second chance.
There was what she was doing and what she was supposed to be doing.
"Dustil!" she screamed. He did not even turn.
Dustil...Dustil, I don't want to do this.
She ran as fast as she could. She felt her heart rushing to propel her legs as fast as her mind was willing her to go.
If I failed you son, then it's my failure.
His fists were blazing red from the pain of a thousand cracked knuckles. Blood coursed through his veins towards his forehead and neck. These and the color of his weapon all blended into one giant crimson force ready to spring forth and attack.
Please don't add to it by becoming part of something evil.
"Dustil, stop!"Katrina roared, tackling him.
I...I wish I could help you, son. I truly do.
She had underestimated the force of his anger, the force of his memories, the force of him.
Dustil growled like a feral animal, freeing himself from her in an instant.
She drew his lightsaber away from him, flinging it far over to the other side of the platform.
Within a second of losing the grip on his own, Juhani's weapon had flown into Dustil's hands and now glowed in front of him as he got closer and closer to its fallen owner and the Sith who had slain her.
As for whether or not he'll be my son again...I don't know. He's so full of anger and hate...I wasn't expecting him to be like this.
She struggled to her feet, propelling herself towards Dustil.
He had reached Abbas. The Sith looked cruelly up at him, his yellowish skin appearing even more sickly with his wounds.
"Haven't you the strength, Padawan?" he said invitingly, holding his arms out.
"Calm down Dustil. Your father is only trying to protect you."
She felt strange even as she said it, as if she was trying to claim a role she hadn't yet won the rights to. His son narrowed his eyes, staring at her as though he could see every romantic notion she had for his father plainly on her face.
Dustil reached far back with his weapon, preparing to slam it through Abbas, to slice him completely down the middle.
When she thought of children, she thought of Dustil, who wasn't her child but would soon be as close as she would get. She was afraid of him. She was afraid of Dustil Onasi, the son of the man she loved and barely a man yet himself.
Katrina reached him just in time to catch all the force behind his intended killing blow with her lightsaber.
She held him off. He stumbled backwards somewhat, his blade still touching hers but the strength startled away.
He stared at her, his features strained and his Adam's apple trembling.
The hatred and anger and fear were still in her and she did not like how that was the only bond she could claim with him.
"So it's to be you, Revan?" Abbas chuckled in a raspy, dying voice. "No, I will not even give you that pleasure."
Abbas slowly pulled himself up by the railings. He carefully hauled himself over them, to the other side, the side that went straight down into the never-ending blackness of the abandoned mine.
"There are always two, Revan," he murmured with a cruel smile. "Always two."
The rising Sith master and prominent Committee Member Abbas then let go of the railing. Katrina watched until he was no more than a dark shadow growing into a small shadow, and then eclipsed by the infinite shade of the chasm.
His death went through her like a thump on the shoulders. A quick blast of pain, and he was gone as if he had never existed.
Juhani though; she was still a throbbing ache somewhere on the back of Katrina's neck. She rushed to the Jedi's side.
"Juhani..." The Cathar wheezed in response. Katrina grasped her hand tightly.
Dustil knelt clumsily on the other side, his eyes wide and glazed over.
But thanks to you I have been redeemed. I may yet live to see that dream of mine come true.
"I am...glad it is you..." Juhani's fingers grasped Katrina's so desperately it almost hurt.
The Cathar's eyes did not reopen. Katrina felt the dull ache explode into her temples and fade away as softly as Juhani's body did, leaving nothing but her clothing and lightsaber now lying harmlessly before Dustil's hands.
The sound of Sakh's sharp inhale brought her out of her reverie.
She looked up and saw the second apprentice still standing calmly at the top of the stairs. She thought of his arm, outstretched and ready to attack.
His arm out, and she had turned to fight Sakh. His arm back, and she had turned to watch Juhani die.
His frozen proud posture and Dustil had begun his steps towards the abyss. She had narrowly stopped Dustil, and still he stood there frozen.
I have to get to him.
She rose, extending her lightsaber once again.
Sakh turned and fled up the stairs, joining the other Sith on the landing. Katrina exploded into a dead pursuit, tearing up the staircase after both Sith, who fled through the doorway into the next room.
It hadn't led to another cavern as they had thought. A large landing platform stood before her. A small ship sat on the edge of it, big enough for a pilot, a navigator, and a passenger.
They were extremely high up in the mountains. Abbas's estate lay on the far off plains before her like a tiny model. Wind whipped around her, threatening to push her to the edge and toss her off. It threw her sweaty and wild hair in front of her eyes.
She didn't care. Her sight was not what was driving her to grip her lightsaber in both hands, guiding her purposeful steps towards the two Sith.
Sakh and the other apprentice ran wildly towards their ship. The loss of their master seemed to have unnerved them- they looked unorganized and unsure.
Two Sith without confidence. She tossed her lightsaber towards them.
Sakh ducked under his ship, climbing into it and beginning to start it up. He was a few meters or so ahead of his companion, who was not so fast or so lucky.
The second apprentice stumbled against the wind on the landing and his attempted evasion of her attack. He tripped and fell to the ground.
Katrina came closer to him, standing over his long, lean figure, now sprawled on the landing platform.
The Sith wore the same outfit as Abbas and Sakh- dark and formless like a black sack. A mask covered his lower and upper face except for a small slat that exposed only the bridge of his nose and his eyes.
His eyes were hazel.
Katrina held her lightsaber to his neck, loving the way it reflected perfectly off his trembling jugular.
She tensed her fingers, ready to press it further.
His eyes were hazel.
She felt her lower lip quivering against her teeth. She gazed back at him, seeing no fear in those hazel eyes.
She struggled to realize why those eyes were so familiar, why she felt that she had spent a lifetime seeing them, missing them, trusting them, protecting them.
His body was not sickly thin, nor was it the stocky and muscular build of Abbas or Sakh. He looked as though a strong wind might blow him over.
Katrinamoved closer, peering into the black fabric of the Sith's mask. She reached out, gripping him by the throat. The Sith grasped her hand, trying desperately to pry it off. Seeing that her hand was obviously immovable, he gripped her arm.
He gripped her arm, and she felt instantly how right a feeling of camaraderie was with him.
In one smooth motion she grasped the mask over his head. He made no attempt to stop her.
How this man being her brother seemed to be part of the natural order of the universe.
Her brother, Committee Member Phineas, stared back at her.
"Some of these individuals are members of the Committee, my long time friends and colleagues." And he was ratting them out for her. He was suddenly her brother again. She let her hand grasp his shoulder and he looked from it to her before continuing.
It was unthinkable; as unthinkable as a son refusing to stay with his father and running off to join the Jedi, as unthinkable as the death of one of her closest friends by the hands of a Sith she had only run into twice.
"You'll regret it if you don't, if you leave without saying goodbye." She looked up at him. She hadn't told him of the Jedi, of her plans to leave. The hurt and anger from the fact was plain in his eyes, and through the Force.
"Were you even going to tell me, Revan? Or were you and Malak just going to disappear?" His voice was hard, trembling.
As unthinkable as having a brother she had never known in first place.
This is my brother Phineas. This is the third Sith, the second apprentice.
This is my brother Phineas.
She was frozen in place. Her lightsaber hummed idly above his chest, and he didn't dare to move.
"Phineas." She knew she had tried to mouth his name, that she had attempted to force it through her vocal cords. He showed no reaction, and thus she was unsure if she had actually succeeded in saying it.
"If I had listened to you then, we might not be having this conversation." Phineas gave her a sardonic smile.
"If you had listened to me, the reason we wouldn't be having this conversation would be that we were killed or captured by the Mandalorians." She smiled back at him. Everything seemed less severe when around this brother of hers: She didn't feel so much like a genocidal Sith Lord, with another prospective Sith Lord on the make trying to murder her.
For a moment she thought she heard her name, (Hers, not hers), and she stared harder at him, trying to figure out if he had returned her blank identification.
She hesitated too long. Phineas scrambled out from underneath her blade and hurried to Sakh's waiting ship. She watched it take off and retreat into the fast fading Anellian sunset.
She felt empty; no Force, no screaming, no battle, no plan, no rationale. She was again a blank slate waiting to be manipulated; another story waiting to be fashioned.
"There is no death, Phineas," she said with a knowing smile, "There is only the Force."
She was again, merely a woman with a lightsaber standing alone.