Part 36: First Tide Rising
In Shimrra's throne room, sarcastic insults flew as lightsabers clashed against amphistaffs, sending pieces of flesh and Vonglife flying from time to time. In one end of the oversized and usually capacious chamber, a Hapan princess and a Twi'lek did their best to stand their ground against a horde of unpredictable wildlife-turned attackers.
As the princess swung her silver saber to and fro, trying vainly to stop the advances of a hybrid of a monduul and a crystal snake. As the noisy creature crept closer and closer, fear began to slow the princess' movements considerably. The monster was on the verge of striking when the Twi'lek brought his weapon down in a lethal beheading for his current opponent and stabbed Sil's attackers with the grace of a professional dancer.
The Twi'lek's smooth lekku whipped Sil's face as she watched his move, impressed by the occasional, spectacular male. First the memorable lines and then the… Sil shook her head as she caught a glint in his green eyes. He was her partner by force and that was what partners and allies were supposed to do.
"Down, you ugly freak!" Grinned the Twi'lek as he kicked the creature to make certain that it fell. When its massive pieces hit the ground, he spun around and gave Sil a high-five before returning to his previous position behind her back. As his hand left the princess', she felt a lingering sensation. He was definitely the best partner she's ever had, if she's ever had a good partner in any event. Sil shook her head as her heart began to beat faster. A partner was just that, nothing but a temporary ally until a common goal was achieved. Then they would be ordinary apprentices again.
-scene change-
On the other side of the battlefield, the warrior-priests pressed closer and closer to Luke Skywalker despite his skilled moves. To both his sides and behind him, Jedi were cramped and squished as they avoided death by amphistaffs. One warrior thought to bisect the person behind Luke, but the other Jedi moved aside, allowing for the sharp edge of the weapon to descend down the narrow space between the two Jedi's backs.
Luke, who caught onto the news, temporarily diverted his lightsaber from his current opponent and stuck it into the armpit of the amphistaff's wielder while she was still stunned from her failure. Then, as quickly as he downed the woman, he turned his attention back to his previous opponent, a lanky warrior who barely managed to fit into his strained armor.
Elite as the Yuuzhan Vong was, he was still not only young but also clumsy due to his ill-fit attire and he easily fell to the Jedi Master before him. Suddenly, with the warrior-priest reduced to a heap on the floor, Luke had a clear path to Shimrra's throne. Taking his rare opportunity, the Jedi Master dived for the throne, but just as his feet left the coral flooring, the center of gravity shifted from the direction of the planet's core to the membrane and Luke abruptly found himself on the verge of exiting the room.
From his elevated viewpoint in midair, Luke's sight confirmed the ripples he had felt through the Force as he attempted to readjust the gravity and at the same time take out the heavy warriors who slid past him. Just a few meters and half a dozen enemies away, sweat glimmered on Jacen's face and in his beard as the Hapan Prince Consort, with the help of Jaina through their twin bond, was concentrating on the dovin basal with his Vongsense and, at the same time, dueling a warrior. The younger Jedi's presence then flared up in the Force like a spark.
Let's end this. Take him! As Luke's eyes met his nephew's, he heard Jacen plead through the Force as the younger Jedi Master had never done so before. Then, there was nothing but an absence where Jacen's presence once was.
"The meld… We're falling apart." Came Jaina's muffled from beneath a pile of warriors near a wall after Luke felt several ripples in the Force, all of which originated from the other Jedi. It was as if every mind and presence were wavering.
A look of ghastly horror lit up the Supreme Overlord's face, but before anyone could decipher the omen, every object in the room was suspended in midair like objects in computer simulations. Then, as if drawn in by a centripetal force, everyone, Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong alike, found himself or herself sailing towards Shimrra.
The dovin basal at the base of Shimrra's throne began to ripple, and then shake and quiver as it ate whatever it could find, namely the foot of an unfortunate warrior. The warrior raised an amphistaff to impale the creature, but before he could, the dovin basal imploded on itself, leaving the foot and lower leg irreversibly shrunken.
The warrior glanced up and saw Luke flying toward him, so he raised his serpentine weapon in anticipation of the glory that would accompany killing a renowned Jedi. However, Luke, who was ready, not only met the attack, but also twisted it upwards with a deflecting parry and went on to attack the weak point of the armor at the armpit.
Two more of Shimrra's elite guards dragged themselves into Luke's trajectory in an attempt to defend their Supreme Overlord, but to no avail, for the aging Jedi merely kicked them both aside and into the waiting weapons of two of the surviving Jedi. Then, using a combination of momentum and the Force, Luke launched himself at the large Supreme Overlord and prepared to slash the overlord's throat.
As was expected, the gargantuan Shimrra rose from his throne as he met Luke's attack with his thick, genetically altered amphistaff. His mocking voice boomed throughout the throne room. "Pathetic Jeedai god. Stone you were and stone you shall always be! I will do this galaxy, the holy land that you gave me, one last favor by sending the giver where he belongs!"
Luke wanted to reply, but suddenly received a blurry impression of pain through the Force. Although the touch disappeared as quickly as it came, he knew that to be Ben's presence. Somehow, the kid was hurt and doing and good job of hiding it, only that he was hiding from the wrong people.
-scene change-
A feeling of disgust rose in Sil as the Twi'lek before her fell after taking a blow meant for the princess. To say the least, it was embarrassing for a Hapan woman to have an outsider save her life. The body hit the ground and the princess was all of a sudden uncertain as to what or how she felt or how she was supposed to react. Deadly emotions were rising up at her throat and rational thoughts rained down to quell the fires of emotion. She took a glance at the incoming enemies and then at the fallen friend. One side of her Hapan core wanted to leave the cooling body in return for the embarrassment and the other wanted to give him the funeral rites of a fallen hero.
Sil's gray eyes darted to the enemies again. Was she to carry on the fight and be spat upon for leaving the fallen behind or would she be weak and admit that a male had saved her by performing funeral rites? In both choices, there seemed to be political disgrace. She realized that she had no time to think as the warrior prepared to lash out at the unprotected princess. Hapans hated not having the time to thoroughly think out their decisions and Sil was no exception, but she made a hasty decision based on estimates and hoped for the best.
"Paccus dor, ré'o n'mor." Sil whispered as she raised her lightsaber in a short-lived salute. Her partner deserved the full death chant, but the abbreviated version would have to suffice for the duration of the battle. For a moment she wanted to kneel beside her savior's body and plant… The princess shook away the thought and turned her attention to the problem looming over her head.
The amphistaff above Sil's head began to descend, and the princess was forced to deliver an overhead block. The girl staggered, but without losing her lightsaber's contact with the Yuuzhan Vong weapon, she spun around in a series of Hapan dance steps and radically altered the angle of the blades' intersection. She took one hand off the hilt to extend her outreach and the warrior immediately began to take advantage of the mistake.
The Yuuzhan Vong struck out at the sides that Sil left unprotected and the princess was forced to totter backwards to preserve herself. She hoped to be able to return her right hand to the handle of the weapon, but the chance never came, for the misstep caused her to trip over her friend's fallen body.
"Foolish girl. Your pitiful dance is of no use to you." The warrior gloated in a low, rumbling voice as he pushed his next move. The princess tripped over her own foot, accelerating the speed of her fate.
-scene change-
From the other side of the room, the older Jedi watched as the remaining apprentice fell into a crumpled heap, her head landing on the boy's belly. The Masters had overestimated the teens.
"No." The Sword of the Jedi groaned as she slid backwards and gained a new opponent. Her hands were already bloody from grabbing and turning aside amphistaffs, and now she had another one to deal with. She raised her free hand to bat aside the weapon, or so she appeared to. A moment later, a warm stud landed in the woman's hand and a silver blade joined the bloody clash.
Jacen, meanwhile, stood his guard behind Jaina's back. He felt torrents of rage like he had not felt since he was made to believe that little Murra was killed. The raw power of the Force bolted through his fingers as if he was once again confronting the pirates whom he believed to have taken his second daughter, for nobody attacked either of his princesses and lived. Only that this time, the power surge was stronger than any Jacen had called upon himself before and that he was not going to bother with wiping the memories of those who witnessed his wrath. He shook his head. He only erased Ben's memory because his young cousin was not meant to and did not deserve to watch a massacre.
The Jedi Master first felt a ghost of the sensation when Anakin died and thought that he brought out its full powers when his younger daughter was 'killed', but those two incidents were barely sensations compared to the present wave of rage.
The emerald green saber hacked several Yuuzhan Vong to pieces within seconds, but its wielder hardly noticed. All that Jacen cared was that he would breach Shimrra's flesh-filled chasm and reach the former heir of Hapes. More bodies fell as Jacen's powers grew. Suddenly, he felt a small dot in either the Force or his Vongsense, and not caring which sense it was, Jacen reached for the dot above him. The higher he ascended, the more his thoughts and consciousness mingled into the surroundings, but he fought to hold on to himself.
The Force sang through Jacen as if he was coordinating one of the largest mind melds in history, but the Jedi had become far more powerful than ever before. Yet, Jacen always knew that there was something in the Force beyond his current level of power, some truth or weapon beckoning for him, waiting to be used. It was as if every previous battle meld and every scroll found on Ossus built towards and pointed to something that was yet to be discovered, or perhaps rediscovered, about the Force. However, before Jacen found the necessary level of power, his presence, or what was left of it, slammed into a barrier.
"No, anytime but now!" Snarled Jacen under his steaming breath as he slit the throats of two Yuuzhan Vong in his path. At the moment, the Jedi needed the knowledge to win the battle and he needed the power for his daughter's sake. Why did the Force have to deny him his request at that particular moment? His anger rose to unimaginable levels and his stretched mind suddenly put itself back together, seemingly hovering over the other participants of the massive mind meld. Once Jacen realized that his anger brought him focus, he readily reached out as far as he could into the Force with his raw emotions and found himself on the brink of discovering some fundamental, forgotten truth. The unrelenting currents of the Force washed through Jacen as he delivered his revenge and approached his fallen daughter.
However, just before Jacen could attain the next level of power, Jaina withdrew from the meld, halving the powers that he just gained.
-scene change-
Jaina dared not to look back at her twin as she blocked herself from their bond and concentrated on Shimrra's throne. She did not know why, but she had a feeling that something was horribly wrong. It's not as if anything doesn't go wrong. The woman reminded herself upon realizing that she, Jacen, and Luke were the only survivors of the pack of Jedi. Still, it upset and scared her when Jacen went on his wild streaks, no matter how logical the cause. A part of her wanted for Jacen to adopt her philosophy of abstaining from attachment, even from those of family members, but another part of her told her that to do so would be taking her brother from her.
The short, Jedi woman scolded herself before embracing her cold, calculating shell and discarding all emotion in order to simultaneously battle and analyze whatever could be wrong about Shimrra's throne.
-scene change-
"Incompetent fools!" Kodachi Cha nearly roared as she pored over the latest reports from battle. "Grutchins do not eat carrion eaters!"
"Neither do our blaze bugs lie, Lady Kodachi!" Yelped the frightened seer. "Great warrior, please, don't be…" A stab to the chest ended the desperate pleas before the seer could finish.
"I won't be merciful, if that's what you wanted to ask. I have been in this galaxy since I was a child, yet the infidel concept of mercy is still foreign to me." Growled Kodachi Cha, whose amphistaff-wielding arm was still raised. She then withdrew her bloody, serpentine weapon and turned to face a tall, unknown warrior with the mark of Domain Lah on his body.
"Speak, underling." Kodachi Cha huffed as her weapon retracted and coiled around her forearm.
"I come to report that Domain Lah is unable to…"
"UNABLE to do as I commanded? Take this message back to that idiot Qu'rang Lah." The angered Kodachi Cha thrust the head of her amphistaff at the messenger's chest, but he brought his own weapon up to intercede. Somehow sensing that Kodachi Cha's amphistaff was one of the new, mutant breeds, the other warrior dropped his weapon before the woman could kill it. Then he dodged the attack with speed that few could match.
"My domain's worldship fell asleep." Argued the young messenger as he ducked Kodachi Cha's jabs.
"I give your bunch half a planet and this is what I get in return?" Demanded the woman as she made another attempt at the younger warrior, but once again, missed by a millimeter.
"I had a feeling you might do tha-AH!." Screamed the young warrior as he accidentally kicked the warmaster's amphistaff in an attempt to back up.
"What? Can't stand the holy pain? Serves you right to die by venom." Grinned the woman. Realizing his mistake, Sheng Lah quickly closed his mouth and brought his foot up to kick Kodachi, who stepped aside and allowed for the younger warrior to nearly overbalance himself. Just as the man's blue leg slid past her body, Kodachi raised an amphistaff to cut it. However, just before the blade could hit the skin, Sheng Lah maneuvered himself so that he would just miss amputation by mere millimeters and landed back on his feet.
As Sheng Lah balanced himself, one of his hands moved in a swift stroke too fast for Kodachi Cha to follow, but she caught sight of a symbol that horrified her. Just beneath the tattoo of Domain Lah was that of Domain Yu, a relatively unknown Domain that few warriors knew about. Having been forced to learn the names of various Supreme Commanders, Kodachi Cha was one of the few. She then gasped upon remembering the information that her intendant spy had given her. Before anyone could perceive a change in emotion, however, she became angrier than before. That was no ordinary messenger; that was the traitorous Jedi who dared to come under Yuuzhan Vong skin.
Kodachi Cha's guesses were verified when Sheng Lah, albeit hesitantly, activated a glowing purple blade to intersect her attack. Even though the warmistress held the most advanced of weapons, her choices were limited to experiments that survived, which meant that she could not have the ray-deflecting 'staff that died within a day of its creation. She channeled her frustration into the next series of attacks that she launched, which served to drive the Jedi towards the sole corner of the round command room.
"I am merely stalling you." Sheng Lah whispered as he hopped over one of Kodachi's swings like a jump rope and then deflected the upward blow. However, just as quickly as Sheng Lah was able to defend himself, the opponent threw another jab aimed for his chest by taking one hand off the amphistaff and grabbing the nearest couffee.
"WHAT? Nobody stalls Kodachi Cha!" With that, the woman attacked with twice the former vigor until Sheng, in one massive twist, knocked the couffee from her hand and forced her amphistaff down to knee level. He then moved in for the kill by attempting to slash through her neck, but one of the woman's implants stopped his weapon.
"Didn't you know, Jeedai traitor? The shapers had made me invincible." Kodachi Cha grinned ferociously as one blow after another glanced off her body. She was glad that she had chosen all of the implants for defense when she was elevated to her current rank, which meant that various creatures replace every square centimeter of her skin. When the shocked Sheng Lah's grip on his lightsaber began to slip, she added. "Unfaithful traitor, thank the gods for showing the shapers this knowledge in the last days of my predecessor!"
"Do it, and I will spare you. Not only will I spare you, but I shall make you the greatest of my servants! You will be pardoned." The asymmetrical warrior woman roared after her opponent appeared to back off and hesitate.
"No, milady. Contrary to what you say, I can't be a traitor." When the almost blue Sheng Lah finally replied, his voice was strong and adamant. After Kodachi Cha's proud boast, he could not help but scan her appearance carefully and draw back in disgust as he noticed the unnatural ugliness that frequently lined her once-beautiful face. Somehow, most Yuuzhan Vong considered Cha's face to be a divine gift, but Sheng Lah could not bring himself to agree and found the creatures that replaced her skin revolting to the last.
"Grr… in that case, may the gods devour you twice a day!" The implant-covered woman snarled as she renewed her onslaught of amphistaff assaults, coming closer and closer to Sheng Lah's skin with each strike until its fangs hovered dangerously by his unprotected neck.
"Kill me, then. Yun-Yammka will just send another Jedi messenger to you in my place." I hope. Sheng Lah added silently as he prepared to embrace death amidst the roomful of burnt creatures that fell casualty to the duel between him and Kodachi Cha.