EPISODE III
Chapter 4: Newborn
After a few minutes of discussion, Zolph and Hiriss had decided that they would fly to the region of Felucia that the Dendroba called the "Forsaken Lands", home of the rather pretentiously named "One United Tribe of the World". It wouldn't be a subtle approach seeing that the Forceless Collective had literal eyes watching the skies, but whether they knew Juganak survived his mutations or not, they almost certainly were prepared for the possibility that he relayed his intel, and that the Jedi would be coming somehow. Thus, the subtle approach would be a waste of time, as it would not only take a few days to reach the Ancient Abyss even on speeder, they would waste their energy fighting many lifeforms that were hostile even before being possessed.
The flight to the Forsaken Lands only took a few hours, and upon entry, the Jedi quickly sensed why they got that name. This region was a jungle like most of Felucia, but Zolph and Hiriss felt a sudden chill, and they weren't even at a high enough altitude to be freezing.
"Wow. When did it get so cold?" Hiriss shivered.
R9-C4 chimed in. "Temperature Readings = Humid. / Hiriss's dress choice + Outside Temperature = Hiriss suddenly feeling cold?"
"My dress isn't that poorly suited to this weather!" Hiriss blurted out defensively.
"This cold we're feeling isn't the weather, Seefor." Zolph answered. "It's the Dark Side. This whole region has been tainted by it, and it really makes it stick out from all the other Forceless-possessed regions of Felucia. But how and why, I don't know."
Hiriss then changed the subject. "Anyway, we should start looking for the Sarlacc. It it's a mega-sized one, it shouldn't be too hard to find."
Seefor chimed in again. "'Shouldn't be too hard to find' = Understatement of the day. / Seefor's sidekicks = Look below ship."
Zolph and Hiriss quickly peeked out the side viewports to look below the Manthis. Poking out of what seemed to be soil below and next to some of the giant plants and mushrooms were giant, hooked teeth. These teeth formed a giant circle, and there were increasingly smaller circles of teeth at lower elevations, at the center of this circle was what appeared to be a fleshy throat and many giant tentacles poking out of it.
"By the Force! This thing is a lot bigger than I thought it would be!" Zolph exclaimed.
Hiriss threw in another comment. "It looks like the 'One Tribe' could live on top of its gums. And without fear of it trying to eat them since it's gotten too big to consider them nutritious."
"Sadly, the same can't be said for us since it's possessed now."
"I thought the plan was to let it eat us. Don't tell me you're having second thoughts now."
"I'm not. I'm concerned that it's going to try to kill us first since they probably suspect that we know about Cordycia. And while Sarlaccs are usually blind and detect by vibration, I wouldn't be surprised if the Forceless made it grow…aye-aye-aye!"
Zolph was appropriately interrupted by the sight of a few bright red dots lighting up on the Sarlacc's gums and tentacles. The Sarlacc immediately let out a loud, high-pitched roar and swung its tentacles towards the Manthis, prompting Zolph to barrel-roll to the side and away from the throat.
"Well, this could be worse. They could have made it completely mobile again and dropped all pretense of appealing to the One Tribe's faith." Hiriss commented. "Anyway, we'll need to incapacitate this thing before we airdrop into it."
Seefor suddenly chirped out a status alert. "Eyewings = Incoming. / Zolph + Hiriss + R9-C4 = Deal with fighters before dealing with giant spiky mudhole."
Zolph spotted three Forceless Eyewings heading towards them. Unusually, however, they had Dendroba warriors riding on top of them like they were Thrantas.
"Oh, kriffing hell." Zolph cursed. "They definitely know what we're trying to do."
Zolph promptly locked the Manthis's s-foils into attack position and boosted towards the Eyewings. He destroyed one of the fighters and its rider with a few laser blasts before vaulting sideways to avoid the other two fighters' shots.
One of the remaining Eyewings tailed after the Manthis while it shot at some of the Sarlacc's freshly grown eyes. Hiriss fired the rear turret at the pursuing fighter, prompting it to dodge and break its aim on the Manthis. Zolph then flew right above the Sarlacc's maw, with the Eyewing continuing to chase. In response, the Sarlacc tried to crush the Manthis between its tentacles, only for the Manthis to accelerate out of their path and the tentacles to crush the pursuing Eyewing instead.
With one more Eyewing left, Zolph chased after it and released a volley of blaster fire on it. Just before the shots obliterated it, the Dendroba warrior riding the Eyewing leaped off it towards the Manthis and used his webbed hands to suction on to its hull.
As the warrior climbed up towards the cockpit, both Zolph and Hiriss got a glimpse of his face. Unlike the possessed warriors from the other tribes, this one's tendril mask looked wilted, exposing a ghoulish face with bulging eyes and a large permanently slacked jaw.
"Woah! I've heard the Dark Side doesn't do wonders for one's looks, but… Damn!" Hiriss commented.
The warrior un-suctioned one of his hands to unsheathe his sword and started bashing it against the viewport. Thankfully, transparisteel was much stronger than glass, as was necessary for space travel, but it was only a matter of time before the blade broke through. In response, Zolph spun the Manthis to try to throw him off. While the spin caused the warrior's weapon to fly out of his hand, he still managed to hold on. Thanks to the Forceless symbiote, Zolph's maneuver didn't even break the warrior's suctioned arm.
With no weapon in hand, the warrior started producing acidic saliva from his mouth. Before he could melt through the viewport, Seefor popped her flamethrower from her dome and shot a burst of fire at the warrior. As the burning warrior writhed in agony, Zolph spun the Manthis again, this time sending the warrior flying from the ship.
"Good work, Seefor." Zolph commended the droid. "Now, let's cripple this tentacled terror so it doesn't try to squish us while diving down its throat."
Zolph made multiple passes around the Sarlacc until all its eyes were blinded by blaster fire and the tentacles maimed by proton torpedoes.
With the Sarlacc unable to fight back and lacking a beak that some smaller specimens had, the Manthis positioned itself directly above its throat.
The cockpit opened, Zolph and Hiriss equipped some respirator masks, and prepared to dive in. However, even through their masks and from several kilometers in the air, they could smell a putrid stench coming from the creature's mouth.
"Well, we didn't plan for this mission to be glamorous, and that was before we knew were going to be doing this." Hiriss said before leaping out and diving towards the Sarlacc's throat, with Zolph following afterward.
The Manthis then flew to safety as the Jedi literally descended into the belly of the beast.
The inside of the Sarlacc's stomach was dark and smelled like more rotting corpses than Zolph and Hiriss cared to count.
"Dank Farrik!" Hiriss cursed. "And I thought this thing smelled bad on the outside!"
"At least it's much more spacey than the last stomach I was inside." Zolph replied. He and Hiriss then noticed some subtle beeping coming from their respirator masks, which was used to indicate the presence of oxygen for resupply. "And it's much easier to breathe in, apparently."
"I have a bad feeling about this." Hiriss quipped as she and Zolph removed their masks.
"How so?" Zolph asked.
"Let's just say that the oxygen likely isn't here for our comfort."
"I think I know what you mean. But let's not dwell on that and worry more about Cordycia."
As the duo moved through the Sarlacc's interior, a few smaller, internal tentacles tried to grab at them, only for them to cut them down with their lightsabers.
Eventually, the Jedi entered a much larger stomach chamber. As they entered, Hiriss was startled by what felt like a slimy hand grabbing her bare shoulder and reacted by slicing the hand off with her lightsaber. She then the recoiled as she heard the hand's source give off an agonized scream and saw the source itself: a humanoid, who was so heavily digested that it was difficult to determine what species he was and was embedded in the Sarlacc's stomach lining. Yet, he was somehow still alive.
"Is someone there?!" The humanoid asked deliriously in Galactic Basic, as his eyes had already been completely wasted away. "Please help me!"
"By the Force!" Hiriss uttered. "What is your name?"
"My name is… my name is… my name is…" The man repeated over and over before screaming, reacting to some sort of stimuli that couldn't be seen. "This thing! It took away my name!
"How long have you been here?"
"I-I-I don't know anymore! I've lost count!"
Zolph and Hirss had both heard the stories about the Sarlacc's digestive process, and how unusually cruel it was for a wild animal, but part of them wanted to believe it was just an ancient fable written to keep children from wandering too close to them, or something sadistic criminals said to terrify their victims before feeding them to it.
"So those stories about the Sarlacc were true after all. It doesn't just preserve its prey to digest for a thousand years or so; it also keeps them alive and awake so it can torture them. This torture apparently also includes messing with their minds." Zolph pondered.
"I can understand the idea of preserving meals to compensate for a sedentary life cycle, but how could any wild animal be cruel enough to violate their prey's minds?" Hiriss asked.
"I don't know how reliable this rumor is, but I've also heard somewhere that Sarlaccs may be semi-sentient, which may explain its capability for psychic torture. Either way, this is very karked up."
Hiriss turned her attention back to the half-digested man and activated her lightsaber. "Don't worry. We'll get you out of this." She cut at the stomach lining and separated the man from the wall, only for him to spill into a mess of slush as he fell to the floor, almost as if the man's skin had become part of the stomach lining. This sight made Hiriss sick to her stomach, but no more than leaving him to such a horrible fate.
The Jedi then heard many more half-digested beings of various species - whether they be native to Felucia or from off-world, sentient or non-sentient - screaming and begging for help, even if that help meant killing them. However many there were - whether dozens or even hundreds given the One Tribe's long history of ritual executions - this was almost unbearable, both for the Jedi and victims.
"We don't have time for this." Zolph told Hiriss. "I don't like leaving them like this any more than you do, Hiri, but if we don't find Cordycia as soon as possible, several more people may suffer this fate."
They then heard a feminine laugh echo through the Sarlacc's stomach. "Oh, no need to rush! You should savor this!"
Both Jedi activated their sabers and watched as a few vine-like tentacles emerged from a hole in the wall, followed by an inhumanly tall humanoid from which the tentacles came from the back of. The tentacles lowered the figure to the floor. It looked like a humanoid woman in a ballroom dress but had biological features of both animals and plants. The dress was made of dark gray petals, and her head looked like a flower, with a Forceless eye crystal serving as a bulb, and long gray hair draping behind the flower.
"Look at you two, contemplating the murder of who-knows-how-many innocent people. Last I heard, that's not very Jedi-like." The figure addressed them.
"I take it that you're Cordycia?" Zolph asked the figure.
"Yours truly. So, the muscly blind man told you my name? It's a shame he won't be able to help you now." Cordycia taunted him.
"If you think he's dead, the joke's on you. Juganak is still alive. You didn't think I would be able to save both him and the village, did you?" Zolph asked smugly.
"Ah, but he's still incapacitated. If you healed him completely, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Anyway, welcome to the Ancient Abyss! Or at least, that's what those gullible, primitive frogs call it, but I prefer to think of it as one of my manors. All we had to do was possess the One Tribe's chieftain, get him to see things our way, and the rest of the tribe drank the nectar. Of course, you've probably already seen some of the dissenters inside this chamber."
"You are one sick woman, Cordycia." Hiriss replied.
"Oh, don't blame me for the One Tribe's superstitious paranoia and xenophobia. It was already there for us to take advantage of."
"But why come up with such a convoluted method of staging an invasion when you can literally just warp a fleet to any planet of your choosing at any time? The Collective obviously doesn't use hyperspace lanes like we do."
"That's easy: It's what inside of here that's valuable to us."
"And what's so valuable about a bunch of tormented, half-digested people? They wouldn't be effective soldiers."
"Not as they are. What's really valuable about them is how they can be used against Jedi." Cordycia then extended one of her back tentacles towards a captive Kameksu in the upper section of the chamber and stroked her, causing her to recoil in terror. "Plus, they make for some decent entertainment in my case."
"If this is just another version of the whole 'kill an innocent person or condemn them to a fate worse than death' dilemma that you and the Collective have repeatedly tried to put us through, it's starting to wear thin." Zolph replied with exasperation.
"Ah, but I can already sense that you two have already shared in my playthings' anguish, even without them being completely possessed yet. Besides, a giant creature that reproduces through interstellar spores being so close to Ossus would be too big a threat for you to leave unchecked, and one that would warrant the Silver Seraph's intervention."
"So, everything you've done on Felucia was a trap, specifically for Zolph." Hiriss concluded.
"And the green one just figured it out! Of course, I figured that killing this creature wouldn't be your first choice for stopping it, because you presumed it was just another innocent animal caught in our little war. But even if you chose to forsake your precious code for the sake of victory, killing a specimen this large would take a lot of effort, maybe even destroy Felucia itself. You'd also have to come inside and kill me before you even thought of de-possessing it, because I would just re-possess it otherwise, and I know you don't do things half-way with us Archfiends."
"You've certainly looked at a lot of angles regarding how to get me inside this rotten beast. However, you're missing at least one important bit." Zolph pointed out. "What's going to stop me from Seraph-ing and atomizing your petaled ass? I've already done so to two other Archfiends recently."
"You've already become the Silver Seraph once today, and I know you meatsacks can only handle so much of the Force at a time."
Zolph's bravado faltered a bit, as he realized Cordycia had a point. Not only was his body merely a conduit for the Force, turning into the Seraph again so soon with barely any time to recover could potentially kill him. He also realized that even if he could turn into the Seraph again, the overwhelming agony from the Sarlacc victims and the anger he felt over it might result him in turning into the Berserker instead.
"You underestimate both of us, you plant-brained witch." Hiriss boasted. "Zolph has already defeated many Archfiends, even before he learned to become the Seraph. And I've fought a few of them alongside him too."
"And just how much did you contribute?" Cordycia sniped back. "Or were you just playing fifth wheel to Vaelor and Maesterus's widow? Compared to those two and Arcidus, Emperor Valkor barely even acknowledges you, Hiriss Moraana. As far as Jedi go, there's nothing remarkable about you aside from your fashion sense."
Hiriss and Zolph then raised their blades. "Want to take that bet? I may not be a Force demigod like Zolph here or know any unusual Force powers like Grein and Arcidus, but I still do my part all the same. Besides, I take a bit of pride in my fashion sense."
Cordycia then pointed her tentacles towards the two Jedi. "I don't plan on killing you two. I'm going to add the both of you to my doll collection."
"Might I remind you that your Emperor wants me dead?" Zolph pointed out.
"I doubt he would mind you being trapped in here to be slowly digested alive as long as you are out of his way. Besides, you will die eventually… if this creature doesn't assimilate your consciousness."
Cordycia whipped her tentacles towards the duo, who then fanned out in response. Afterward, Zolph and Hiriss chopped a few of her tentacles.
Cordycia then raised her elongated arms and fired a barrage of thorns from her fingertips. Hiriss managed to dodge or cut down most of the ones aimed at her, only getting some cuts in her dress and hair bow. However, Zolph got some punctured into his mechanical arm, which started causing a bit of corrosion. Zolph switched his lightsaber to his left hand so he could shave away the thorns before they could do any more damage. Cordycia then regenerated some of her tentacles.
Cordycia's chest cavity – which resembled an alien skull with red eyes – opened and released a green gas while she twirled around like a ballerina, prompting Zolph and Hiriss to reequip their breath masks. Inside the potentially toxic gas cloud, Cordycia this time stabbed her back tentacles into the Sarlacc's stomach lining, and a high-pressure stream of stomach acid sprayed from an orifice in the wall. While the stream didn't hit the Jedi directly, some droplets of acid landed on their breathing tubes and on their faces. The burns weren't too severe, as the Sarlacc's stomach acid was incredibly weak, but they managed to dissolve off part of Zolph's beard and slightly shortened one of Hiriss's frontal bangs and part of her ponytail.
With their breath masks rendered useless, the Jedi used the Force to dissipate the gas cloud. Cordycia prepared to make another gas cloud, prompting Zolph to ready a thermal detonator and tossed it into the chest cavity's "mouth". Amazingly, the ensuing blast didn't kill her, but it apparently damaged whatever her gas-spewing organ was called.
"Okay, you two have impressed me so far, even without Vaelor turning into the Seraph." Cordycia commended them. "However, I have something new to teach you about Forceless symbiotes. I know you two have your regrets when it comes to killing possession hosts, but have you ever had them when it comes to killing the symbiotes themselves?"
"What do you mean?" Zolph asked.
"You probably presumed all of those years that the symbiotes were just an extension of Valkor's and his origin symbiote's consciousness. So, no regrets about killing them if they aren't exactly individuals themselves, right? But did you ever notice how some of them act autonomously?" She then looked up at the digestion victims in the upper sections of the stomach chamber and addressed them. "You want to be free from this never-ending torment, don't you?"
"Help me!" One of them screamed.
"Well, I have an offer for you: In exchange for your freedom from this creature's stomach, you pledge your loyalty to the Forceless Collective and kill these two Jedi."
"I'll do anything! Please, just help me!"
"It's a deal then!" Cordycia then focused her attention back at the Jedi. "Remember when I said that these poor souls wouldn't make effective soldiers as they are? I meant they wouldn't be useful as rotting lumps of meat."
Suddenly, a few of the digestion victims – including a few who didn't directly agree to her terms – melted off the stomach lining into puddles of Black Matter. These puddles then formed into vaguely humanoid slime creatures that the Jedi only knew as Newborns.
"WHAT…WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!" One of the Newborns screamed in a distorted voice. The other Newborns were just as horrified about they've become.
"Nah uh uh. A deal is a deal." Cordycia scolded them. "Now, you need to fulfill your end of the bargain."
"This wasn't part of the deal!" Another one protested before breaking down into a puddle again.
"Would you rather spend some time out in a dark, endless void?"
The other Newborns charged at the Jedi, hoping to capitalize on their newfound freedom, whether it meant life or death away from the Sarlacc. Zolph and Hiriss easily cut down the Newborns in defense, but they were troubled by the wider implications of what they witnessed with the creation of these Newborns.
Cordycia addressed a few more of the digestion victims. "You're probably thinking this is a bad deal if you're just going to get cut down by these two, right? Even if you die, it'll still be better than being slowly digested for a thousand years."
"Shut up, you demented schutta!" Zolph snapped at her before making a counterargument to the victims. "Don't listen to her! Even if we were to kill you as symbiotes, the Collective will just keep resurrecting you to serve them for who knows how long. It's just more of the same torment you've already gone through, except you'll be their slaves this time and if they aren't stopped, it will last a lot longer than it would take for the Sarlacc to kill you. Please, be patient with us; we'll get you out of this, even if our solution isn't the most ideal."
"How about YOU SHUT UP!" Cordycia yelled at Zolph before whipping a tentacle at him, which sent him flying into the stomach lining. A few micro-tentacles then wrapped around Zolph's body and limbs and shackled him into the stomach lining.
"Zolph!" Hiriss cried out.
"Now, it's just you and me, Moraana." Cordycia addressed her. "Look at all that glamour. You're probably incredibly vain for a Jedi. What will happen if I took all that natural beauty away from you by having this creature slowly rot away your flesh? Or I made you into one of us?"
Cordycia raised her left hand and attempted to fire a few more corrosive thorns, only for Hiriss to throw her double-bladed saber like a buzz saw at Cordycia, cutting her left arm off.
"Not all of my beauty is natural. I've also done quite a bit of maintenance to complete myself, whether it be cosmetics or surgery. Ruin my dress? I can patch it up or make a new one. Ruin my hair? I can trim it up, regrow it, and restyle it. Getting my work undone is nothing new to me, so it's not the trauma you expect me to make it out to be."
As Hiriss attempted to call her lightsaber back, even severing some of Cordycia's head petals in the process, Cordycia grappled her with her tentacles and lifted her up off the ground.
"But what about those things I can take away from you permanently? Those damages that will make you ugly forever?" Cordycia boasted as she used one of the fingers on her right hand to make a cut down Hiriss's cheek.
"I might be a little shocked for a while, but I also know beauty's not all external. Give me some scars? Nothing bacta can't fix. Take away some body parts? I'll just become one of the cutest cyborgs in the galaxy, even if I'm just a brain. I've already known the anguish of feeling like a freak just because my body didn't entirely fit me or some narrow-minded fool's definition of a girl as a kid. There's nothing you can do to me that can break me."
As Zolph watched Cordycia continue to torture Hiriss, he felt a swarm of unpleasant thoughts entering his mind. First, he felt like he was reliving the moment he was forced to kill Dynn over and over. However, he was also experiencing what felt like memories other than his own. The death of someone's child, being exiled from their community, being a victim of persecution, stuff like that.
However, in this swarm of unpleasant memories, Zolph discovered a very peculiar one. This perspective was from a person with a red lightsaber, presumably a Sith Lord, surrounded by Jedi. Rather than face capture or death, this Sith Lord jumped into the Sarlacc's maw, hoping that becoming one with this creature's consciousness would make them immortal. This assimilated Sith Lord could possibly be the explanation for why the Forsaken Lands are so tainted by the Dark Side.
As he was being overwhelmed with thoughts, Zolph also felt something being pumped into his bloodstream. A preservative agent? A paralytic neurotoxin? Whatever it was, he also felt something familiar being pumped into him alongside it: Black Matter. Zolph was uncertain about whether it was safe for him to Force channel again so soon. However, the Black Matter was already inside him and pushing his body to transform, Hiriss was in danger, and he himself was in danger of becoming another decoration for the Sarlacc's stomach lining, so he practically had no choice in the matter but to transform. Besides, even if it did kill him, at least he wouldn't be slowly digested alive for a thousand years.
Cordycia and Hiriss watched as a blackish-red light enveloped Zolph, which broke away the micro-tentacles holding him to the stomach lining. However, unlike the last three times he transformed, Zolph did not transform into the Silver Seraph. He had transformed into the Black Berserker. The process had also de-possessed the Sarlacc and its victims.
"What is this?" Cordycia asked. "This doesn't look like the Silver Seraph I was told about."
Hiriss then bluntly told Cordycia. "Let's just say you are royally screwed, Cordy."
Zolph lifted his right hand and used the Force to violently rip the tentacle holding Hiriss from Cordycia's back, causing her to scream in agony.
"Did you ever hear about what happened to Harphscor?" Zolph asked. "This form might not be as powerful as the Silver Seraph, but since you've pissed me off, now you're going to wish you were dealing with the Seraph!"
Zolph then used the Force to throw Cordycia off her feet and into air before slamming her back down. Cordycia followed up by using one of her tentacles to make a cut in the floor, causing the Sarlacc to bleed. Suddenly, tentacles made of blood emerged from the cut.
"I'll have you know that I was a prodigy of Hydrojus!" Cordycia shouted before commanding the blood tentacles to attack Zolph. However, Zolph dissipated them with little effort.
"And I'm the one who killed Hydrojus!"
Zolph then created an energy blade from his right arm and slashed off Cordycia's right arm.
With both of her main arms gone, Cordycia used her remaining back tentacles to climb the stomach walls. The skirt of Cordycia's dress bloomed open like a flower, revealing she had no legs underneath, but several more tentacles, which lashed out at Zolph. However, Zolph created another energy blade from his left arm and used both blades to cut apart the volley of tentacles before cutting Cordycia in half at the waist.
Anchored into the stomach lining, Cordycia once again used her hydrokinetic abilities to manipulate the Sarlacc's acid nozzles to spray Zolph, even if the Sarlacc wasn't possessed this time. However, not only did the acid have almost no effect on Zolph, he redirected one of the nozzles at Cordycia, causing her to scream as all of her back tentacles melted off at the roots and she dropped to the floor. With no limbs left, Cordycia was almost completely helpless.
"Please! Have mercy!" Cordycia cried out, but Zolph did not listen. He then used the Force to lift Cordycia by her head and slowly crushed her eye crystal until cracks started to form.
Hiriss had already concluded beforehand that the chances of sparing Cordycia's life were very slim, as Archfiends were undyingly loyal to the Collective or had their own ambitions. Nevertheless, she was still disturbed to see Zolph taking his time with killing her. She called her lightsaber to hand, activated it, and threw it at Cordycia's eye crystal, completely shattering it and killing her. However, to guarantee she didn't resurrect later, Zolph formed his energy blades again and slashed her remains apart until there was nothing left.
However, Zolph hadn't reverted to his human form. He then lifted his right hand up and made a gripping gesture, and the Sarlacc started to throb and cry in pain. The Black Berserker was apparently using the Force to slowly crush the Sarlacc's heart.
"What are you doing?!" Hiriss scolded Zolph.
"This creature has inflicted a lot of pain and suffering! Do you expect me to just do nothing about it?!"
"Don't kill it out of anger! It is not our way! I don't know what you experienced when it prepared to digest you, but it's just a wild animal."
"Do wild animals psychically torture their prey?! Do they make their prey relive each others' worst memories?!" Zolph asked rhetorically.
"Maybe not, but why would it? No creature is born evil, especially not a wild animal like the Sarlacc. I think a bunch of external factors caused it to become like this."
Zolph then remembered something from when he was tapped into the Sarlacc's collective consciousness.
As tormented as many of its victims were, Zolph realized that the Sarlacc itself was tormented by its victims' thoughts and its own existence as well, especially since there were no subterranean predators on Felucia that could prey on it at this point. It was much more mobile when it was younger and did not take so long to digest its food. Now that it was old and sedentary, it had no choice but to preserve its meals in case other creatures actively avoided it. Unfortunately, it had no control of its psychic abilities, and assimilating the minds of prey it had swallowed whole – creatures that at this point in its life, would provide barely any sustenance compared to creatures it would have to kill to consume, such as Rancors - not only made it long for its days of mobility, but also made it bitter and nihilistic. That Sith Lord becoming one with its mind and the One Tribe constantly making sacrifices to it over the years only exacerbated this.
With this realization, Zolph stopped throttling the Sarlacc and was enveloped by a bright light, turning from the Black Berserker into the Silver Seraph.
However, Zolph then lifted his hand and made a quick tight grip with his hand. This gesture killed the Sarlacc instantly. In the process, the many digestion victims that were preserved beforehand also started to die, mostly to their own relief.
"Okay, so you obviously calmed down seeing as you turned into the Seraph, but you killed the Sarlacc anyway?" Hiriss asked with confusion.
"Like you told me, I didn't kill it out of anger. However, letting it continue to live would have been just as cruel. Not only would I have condemned many innocent beings to a slower, agonizing death, I realized the Sarlacc was suffering just as much as they were. Even if it was only semi-sentient, it had no control of its psychic abilities and the swarm of thoughts from the prey it had swallowed whole were too much for it. It and its prey would have continued to suffer as long as it were alive for the One Tribe to continue force-feeding sentients to it."
"That… makes a lot of sense when you put it that way. It's not much different from why we often kill Forceless possession hosts."
Zolph then put his hand on Hiriss and enveloped her in a bright light, healing all the injuries that Cordycia had given her, including the poison. Immediately after, Zolph reverted to his human form and collapsed to the floor.
"Are you okay?" Hiriss asked Zolph.
"I took a hell of a gamble when I channeled all of the Sarlacc's Black Matter, and I'm lucky to have survived it." Zolph answered. "Let's hope I don't need to do it a third time today, because I'm kinda burned out."
Suddenly, Zolph and Hiriss felt a disturbance in the Force, and Zolph got back up on his feet with his lightsaber ready.
"We've killed Cordycia and purged the Sarlacc, but I can still sense a Forceless presence. Unless…" Zolph then realized his mistake. "Oh no."
"What's wrong?" Hiriss asked.
"I think my mass mercy-kill just created a new Forceless symbiote."
"But where would it have been born? I would presume it's close by since we're in the vicinity of the original disturbance."
Suddenly, Zolph noticed a puddle of Black Matter sneaking up on Hiriss. "Hiriss! Behind you!" Zolph tried to warn her. But his warning was in vain.
As she turned around, the black slime jumped into Hiriss's throat. She throbbed a bit as her green skin started to turn dark gray and a few minor growths showed up around her body. However, unlike the possession hosts from Valkor's or Azath's Collectives, her eyes glowed bright blue instead of red.
"No! Please, no!" Zolph pleaded sorrowfully. "I don't want to do this again!"
He wanted to de-possess her, but he was too weak to Force-channel again so soon. Zolph stressed at the thought that he would have to kill one of his closest friends again.
Before Zolph could make any hasty decisions, however, Hiriss suddenly spoke in a calm voice.
"It's okay, Zolph. She's not going to hurt you or me."
Suddenly, the symbiote came back out of Hiriss's skin pores, turning her skin back to her natural Mirialan green and undoing most of the mutations, almost as if she was never possessed. The symbiote then formed into a melting creature that had a humanoid upper body and a lower body like a seal, and like Hiriss when she was possessed, her large eyes glowed blue. She suddenly started stressing out.
"Mon…ster. Mon…ster. Mon…ster." The symbiote repeated over and over.
"You are not a monster, Elscorsef. And you don't have to be." Hiriss assured the symbiote, calming her down.
"Hiriss, care to explain what's going on?" Zolph asked her.
"I think I've become the first Jedi Forceless Herald." Hiriss answered him. "Anyway, this is Elscorsef, or you can call her Elsie for short."
"I've got a lot of questions about her and your newfound status as a Forceless Herald, but that can wait for later. This carcass isn't going to be supplying any more oxygen, and it's going to reek more than it did when it was alive. We're too deep underground for our communications to work, and even if Seefor noticed the giant Sarlacc dying, there's not enough room for her to fly down here. So, how are we getting out of here?"
Elscorsef reverted into a puddle and re-possessed Hiriss, who in turn sprouted a pair of wings from her back. "We've already got the answer to that."
Minutes later, Hiriss had flown out of the Sarlacc's mouth carrying Zolph. Upon landing on Felucia's soil, Hiriss's wings retraced into her back and Elscorsef exited her body once more, slumped onto her shoulders, and gazed in awe at the world around her. Thanks to the Dark Side presence slowly disappearing with the Sarlacc's death, it felt like life was slowly returning back to the Forsaken Lands, even if there was room for improvement.
"Now that we've got fresh air, here's my question: Does Elsie have any of the souls of the Sarlacc's victims in her?" Zolph asked.
"No." Hiriss answered. "She only has one personality right now, and she's basically a newborn baby."
"Okay, but why did she possess you and make you her Herald?"
"While she was possessing me, I learned something new about Forceless at their most primal. Because Forceless are completely devoid of the Force, Elsie felt incomplete. She craved a connection to the Force, even if it was a basic one, so she was attracted to me."
"I can see where Argem was going now when he said Forceless deserve a chance. She's lucky she chose you because my body might have accidentally killed her. But what's going to stop her from possessing other beings? Even if she doesn't know what's wrong with that, most would see it as overstepping boundaries."
"Because she already learned what you and I have experienced from Valkor's Collective when we resonated. She felt guilty the moment she read my mind and learned about others like her, even if she had done nothing else wrong in the few minutes she had been alive. Besides, the comparison between Elsie and Valkor's symbiote should be clear as day: Elsie is a child who has yet to learn to tell right from wrong; the Collective we're fighting against are just as sentient and have lived more than long enough to know better."
"Anyway, I can imagine Cina Onae is long gone by this point. So, no point in hanging around on this planet much longer. But how are we going to explain having a Forceless symbiote with us to our allies, especially the Jedi Order?"
"I'm not worried. The headmaster is Luke Skywalker. I'm sure he'll understand."
Zolph then buzzed his comlink. "Seefor, we're ready to go home. Come pick us up at these coordinates. And just a heads up, we have a new passenger. And if it's any consolation for you, we won't need an extra seat."
A few hours later, the crew of the Manthis had made it back to Ossus. Surprisingly, Seefor had very little complaints about Elscorsef's presence despite her being a Forceless symbiote. In the time that Zolph and Hiriss had been away, Headmaster Luke Skywalker had returned from Coruscant.
In the Academy's briefing room, Zolph, Hiriss, Luke Skywalker and Kyle Katarn contacted the Seferites on Barsemic to report their findings on Felucia.
Arcidus and Grein showed up on the display screen.
"Greetings, Arcidus. We're reporting that the crisis on Felucia has mostly been resolved. We couldn't save the planet from the Collective yet, but we've defeated another Archfiend and removed the Ancient Abyss as a weapon for the Collective. We also learned Cina Onae was there, but she was as uncooperative as usual and only left a few breadcrumbs for us."
Grein glanced at Elscorsef. "Before we discuss these breadcrumbs, do you mind explaining why there's a Forceless symbiote with you?"
"I would like to know too." Arcidus commented.
"This is Elscorsef. She was born today, and I am her Herald." Hiriss answered.
"What happened on Felucia that caused her birth?" Grein asked. "I know Forceless are born from near-simultaneous mass deaths."
"Yeah, funny story, Grein." Zolph awkwardly answered. "She was born when I killed the Ancient Abyss."
"You did WHAT?!" Luke asked with astonishment.
"It's a lot less terrible in context." Hiriss answered. "It's more accurate to call it a mass mercy-kill than a mass murder. Zolph was saving the digestion victims and the Sarlacc itself from a fate worse than death. We'll list more details about the mission in the official report. Anyway, regardless of how she was born, Elsie is not a threat to us. As her Herald, I can guarantee that."
"Very well. I'll take your word for it." Grein responded. "Even if most of my experiences with Forceless have been terrible, I know for a fact that no creature is born evil. However, I'm worried everyone else won't be able to tell the difference, even with a different eye color, and will persecute her for the Collective's actions. So please, take care of her, Hiriss, and be a better mother than I was to my own child."
"Back to the mission report, won't killing the Sarlacc create cultural shockwaves among the One United Tribe of the World?" Luke asked.
"I did think about that, and I understand why we try to avoid interfering in the development of alien cultures, but in this instance, I decided to make an exception. The Dark Side corruption in the Forsaken Lands was coming from the Sarlacc and has been a toxic influence on the One Tribe for who knows how long. While this tribe still has some vices that can't solely be blamed on the Dark Side, hopefully the death of their alleged god will allow them to grow beyond those vices with time, provided they are free from the Collective's grasp."
"Speaking of gods, you just reminded me of something." Kyle interjected. "While you were away, we got reports of some strange, masked monks showing up and liberating planets we thought were lost to the Collective. These monks are calling themselves the Church of Yalbdalaoth."
"Dank farrik! Not that name again!" Zolph cursed.
"Yalbdalaoth?" Kyle asked.
"Now we're getting to the breadcrumbs Cina left for us. Juganak mentioned that name when he was relaying his intel. While he was under the Collective's possession, he heard a disciple mention that name, only for the poor bastard to get melted down as punishment, and from the way he relayed that name to me, this Yalbdalaoth is bad news and a name the Collective doesn't want us to hear. What do you know about this Church?"
Luke followed up. "According to them, Yalbdalaoth is some lord of light and order, and they're pushing for people to join the Church if it means salvation from the Collective, which they also claim to be a demonic legion led by a goddess of darkness and chaos called Thalnyara, with Valkor as her herald."
"That's… incredibly cliché." Hiriss commented as Elscorsef crawled up Kyle's leg and climbed on to his left shoulder. "And a bit sus, since not only is Elsie here living proof that Forceless aren't inherently evil, what Juganak suggested is that Yalbdalaoth is either another alias for Valkor or the true mastermind of the Collective."
Kyle interjected again as he patted Elscorsef. "In my experience, not every religion with a light motif is sincere or really aligned with the Light Side. I've also heard from one of the worlds they 'liberated' that they've committed 'cleansings' against groups of people that have been possessed by Forceless."
"That makes me even more suspicious about them." Zolph replied. "We might've killed a lot of possession hosts ourselves, but we're not proud of it. As Jedi, killing even in defense of ourselves and others is dirty business at best. It sounds like we're dealing with a bunch of extremists."
Luke added in. "And if Juganak's assessment is accurate, we might actually have another Clone War scheme on our hands."
"Can you explain to us kids who were born long after that war?" Zolph asked.
"This might be a sham war with someone playing both sides, and this galaxy just happened to get caught up in it. Even if that's just a hunch and Juganak was missing some context, I don't think these are the kind of allies we would want to have."
"Unfortunately, I get the feeling a lot of non-Force sensitives, especially in your stupid Senate, are going to fall for their offers and join the Church, which might ultimately be the same as joining the Collective, just with a different coat of paint." Grein pondered.
"Anyway, I think now would be a good time to close this report." Hiriss replied. "A lot has happened today, and since Zolph and I were inside a Sarlacc, we both need to take showers."
