Star Wars and all information pertaining to it is the property of Lucasarts Ltd. Knights of the Old Republic is the joint property of BioWare Co. and of Obsidian Entertainment. The short story both preceding and following this disclaimer is an unauthorized piece, spawned from my own imagination. As such, the plot and any original characters are the property of the author. Any money made from this story is against the consent of the author, who is not receiving one thin dime.
Chapter 5
The last thing Revan saw was a flash of brown that came at him too quick to dodge. Bastila's last sight was a scaly lump catching her in the stomach. HK-47 himself lasted long enough for a red beam of pure energy through his chassis to convince his processor that it needed to shut down.
Bastila's eyes fluttered open, and she found herself in blackness. The room she was in, which felt small, received absolutely no light of any kind. It was only by stretching out with the Force that she was able to perceive Revan a few feet away from her, sitting with his legs folded under him, waiting. Though she could sense no form of binding preventing her, she found herself unable to move.
"You're in shock." Revan's voice filtered through her mind. He had not spoken aloud, but had used the bond that had been almost entirely severed by his pains. "Don't try and move yet. The feeling will return soon enough." She groaned aloud, discovering the bruising on her stomach from where Taral's tail had hit her. There was a loud banging sound, and a harsh command from above. "Not a sound." Revan translated helpfully.
"Where are we?" she asked him, wincing from the pain in her abdomen. She didn't think anything was broken, which was good. The angry flare of Revan's Force aura told her all she needed to know. They were prisoners of the Sith. "Where are the others? Are they here too?" she was worried that the answer might be yes. If the rest of the crew had been captured, who would rescue them? It wasn't like they could do much at the moment. There had to be a reason Revan wasn't using the Force to break out.
She felt his perceptions broaden, searching. "No." He responded finally. "No they are not here. I can sense them, faint, moving. I do not know where." She was relieved. Although it didn't help their immediate predicament, it couldn't hurt to have friends on the outside. She rolled onto her side, then proceded to sit up slowly. "Be careful. Too much noise will alert the guards. And that is not something you want to happen in this place."
"Were you imprisoned here before?" she felt him nod. "It must have been terrible, having no one to talk to like this." Revan didn't answer, but she could tell that he was reliving the pain of those torturous years. "I…I'm sorry. I didn't…"
"Don't." he pleaded. "It's alright. It was a long time ago." He fell silent. "I think it's time we had a talk." Bastila almost felt her heart stop. She knew exactly what he intended to speak to her about, and she was almost grateful for the crashing sound from above and the harsh command. Revan rose silently. Bastila followed suit. "We are being taken to the bridge. Don't struggle." Tremendously strong arms lifted them out of their cell and clapped obsidian chains on them. Bastila immediately felt Revan's presence be torn from her mind. And she was blind again. The hallway was no darker than the cell, which meant that the chains must have been blocking her connection to the Force.
The creatures that were marching them along must have been extremely tall, and they set a terrifying pace. Revan, with his long strides, was able to keep up with only a little difficulty, but Bastila struggled more and more to stay upright until her guard simply threw her over a shoulder. The flesh was rough and uneven, but powerful. They ran through miles upon miles of pitch-black corridors until they were finally stopped. Bastila was set roughly down on the smooth floor. Another harsh command, which Bastila could not follow with no Revan to translate, and she felt herself be pushed forward. She must have passed through a door, as the current area was lit with a reddish glow emanating from the ring of crystals that stood a short distance ahead of her. She looked around, and saw Revan looking resolutely at an unusual patch of blackness in the centre of the ring. There was another unintelligible command, which was apparently not directed at the prisoners, and the floor shook slightly as their 'escort' departed the room. As soon as they were gone, the lights rose. Bastila was temporarily blinded by the incandescent glow. She looked around again.
They were in a spherical room. The walls were made of polished obsidian, blacker than night. Two large Massassi stood guard on either side of the doorway, wearing special goggles to filter the extreme light. They would have looked comical, if it weren't for the fact that the swords of their backs were almost as long as Bastila herself. Two more stood guard on either side of the prisoners. Up ahead there was indeed a ring of red crystals of varying heights and widths. In the center was an enormously tall figure wearing long black robes. It had it's back to them, but it had a long black topknot of hair and scaly green skin. It must have been Maleficus, Dark Lord of the Sith. Maleficus turned to face them, and Bastila was assaulted by a cool and calculating expression only achievable by the Falleen. "You will kneel before the Sith'ari." He instructed them in a low, guttural voice. Bastila glanced at Revan out of the corner of her eye, and was satisfied when he merely continued to regard Maleficus decisively. The Falleen gave a swift command to the Massassi next to Revan. The gigantic creature swept an arm under Revan, and the Jedi crumpled as his kneecaps broke. His teeth were gritted against the pain, but he would not scream.
Maleficus cast his dark eyes on Bastila. "Perhaps you will be more compliant." She certainly would not be. She stared back with the same determination Revan had. Another command, and the Massassi next to her broke her kneecaps as well. Nothing could have prepared her for the pain that flashed through her body. She had not realized how much she had relied on the Force to shunt aside the pain she felt in battle. The initial jolt wasn't even the worst; it was when her legs folded and her knees hit the floor that she loosed an agonized screech. Maleficus looked on with a satisfied smirk. Beside her Revan launched himself off of his broken kneecaps towards the Sith lord. The shattered bones carried him only as far as the ground, where he landed with a dull thud. A less collected being than the Sith Emperor would have begun laughing at the display. Not even the corners of Maleficus' mouth twitched. Revan's Massassi guard lifted him into the air and held him there.
"Well, well. It would seem that the traitor wishes to protect you from harm." He was addressing Bastila, but at the same time he was not. Revan continued to stare defiantly. The Falleen gave a command to the Massassi, and one of the door guards advanced to snap his obsidian vambraces on Revan's knees. The guard's wrists were so wide, the objects suited the captive Jedi quite comfortably as knee braces. He was set down, and one of the guards handed him a sword. Why he did not immediately slay the Massassi guards could be most readily explained as temporary insanity brought on by passion. Or perhaps it was simple common sense, a likely possibility when considering that the Massassi were twice Revan's size in every conceivable dimension. Whatever the reason, the newly armed Jedi took a hesitant lunge towards the Falleen Sith responsible for his imprisoned state. Since he was still chained his arm movement was limited, but the makeshift braces held. Maleficus did not even attempt the dodge the clumsy blow, and it made a glancing swipe off his arm.
Bastila shrieked in pain. A bloody gash, exactly the size and shape of the one that should be adorning the Sith lord, had appeared on her arm. It was not very deep, but it came extremely close to the major pressure point in her shoulder. Revan's eyes widened in horror, and Maleficus still remained composed. "And now you learn a valuable lesson: love is a double edged sword." His harsh voice was tinged with malice, but Revan would not rise to the bait now that he knew the consequences. The Falleen pulled a single lightsaber from his robe, and ignited the crimson blade swiftly. "As you attack others, your love is harmed. As you yourself are attacked, your love is harmed." He delivered a horizontal swipe to Revan's lower back. Bastila's spine inadvertently arched away from the place where a deep burn had appeared, in exactly the same place, accompanied by a scream. Revan faced her tormentor with hate in his eyes, but did not retaliate. Maleficus' eyes seemed to revel in the hate, like he was savouring a fine wine. "If you attack me, she suffers. If I attack you, she suffers. Your list of options is shrinking."
Revan knew this. It was rather obvious even at this early stage. He screwed up his eyes and slashed at his own legs, hoping to incapacitate himself and be led back to the cell. No such luck. Bastila screamed again as a fresh wound on her thigh opened and began to bleed profusely. Maleficus lunged with his saber, but Revan was ready this time. He parried the blow, and was satisfied when that did not cause any new screams. They duelled like that for a short time, one slashing and the other parrying. Every so often Maleficus would get a hit in, which would make Bastila squirm and scream. Somewhat less often Maleficus would lean into one of Revan's slashes, causing a fresh cut to burst open on Bastila's increasingly bloody body. After about five minutes of the back-and-forth duel, when the two were deadlocked, Revan had finally hit upon a plan. The next time his opponent made a strike Revan ducked, and slashed the saber hilt cleanly in two. His blade nicked the scaly green hand, but it was only enough to elicit a whimper rather than a full-fledged cry. The Sith lord almost looked triumphant when he issued another order which resulted in the two captives being carried back to their cells.
"I'm sorry." Revan's voice all but filled her mind once their chains had been removed and they had been unceremoniously dropped into the pitch-black prison. "If I could have, I would have spared you that pain."
Bastila squirmed slowly around. The variety of cuts and burns stung white hot, but with her connection to the Force restored she was able to block most of the pain from her conscious mind. "It's alright." She assured the apprehensive man. "They don't hurt at all anymore."
Revan was still concerned. "Well, let me try and heal you anyway." The blue-white energy poured off of him, making him sweat from the exertion. Bastila was touched; Force mastery had never been Revan's forte, and the healing arts were an even greater strain on him. As the tendrils of Force power curled around her body, she cried out in pain. Through some unholy Sith magic, the wounds inflicted on her were stimulated by the healing Force. The pain was intense enough to bypass her own mental blocks against it reaching her brain. Worse still the wounds did not close, only became more inflamed with further stimulation. The only upside is that she felt her kneecaps melt and reform. Although it was an excruciatingly painful process, the reformed bone would be much stronger than a naturally healed joint. As soon as that was complete Revan stopped trying. He had successfully, unintentionally of course, reduced the Jedi Master to a quivering heap of flesh, blood, and tears. She assured him mentally that she was going to be fine, and that there was no need to apologize. He didn't, but it seemed to be a struggle for him. His aura was pulsing with indecision, disquiet, and even…love? It occurred to Bastila that she had never really examined his imprint in the Force.
He was lying flat, his back against the stone floor, fingers linked on his stomach. His breathing was regular, and his aura subdued, suggesting he had entered a hibernation trance to pass the potentially long hours of their imprisonment. She looked deeper, using their bond as a door into his deeper mind. It was still active, as she had expected it to be. There were a lot of memories he was dwelling on. Some of his earlier encounters with Maleficus and Taral, a few of his less proud moments posing as a Sith, some recovered memories from his time as Dark Lord of the Sith. She could not 'see' the memories, but instead received emotional impressions of them. Through these impressions, she gleaned curious insight into the mind of one of the most feared beings ever to exist. Had she been able to learn these thins during the early two years of the Jedi Civil War, the years where Revan had commanded the Sith armada, the war may have ended much quicker. The most interesting thing she found was actually a confirmation of the suppositions of Darth Traya, who had re-instructed Katia in the ways of the Force under the name Kreia. She had guessed that Revan had never truly fallen, that he sought to conquer the Republic in order to protect it against a greater threat.
As it turned out, it was true. Revan, who even as a Padawan had been inquisitive about the dark side of the Force, had discovered ancient writings in the dark places of the world. They spoke of an primeval race of warriors who had fled the world, in no small part due to the Jedi. He extrapolated, correctly as it happened, that the warriors would seek to destroy the ones they perceived, correctly or not would be inconsequential to them, to have driven them from their homes. In this realization he had discovered a great truth, that the Force was neither light nor dark but an all-encompassing grey, and used this new knowledge to defend the Republic by overthrowing it. That last piece of the puzzle explained a number of things, like why Revan's Sith had left the military centres of worlds he conquered nearly untouched, and why he had risked his own life to save hers when she faced him on board his flagship all those years ago. Her epiphany must have registered somewhere in the dormant consciousness, as she suddenly found herself sweeping towards a darker corner of the mind.
---
He was there. Revan.
His armour was on, and he watched from the viewing platform of the Star Forge as his motley fleet of Star Forge snub fighters, Hammerhead-class cruisers, and Interdictor-class cruisers amassed and confronted the enormous armada of the True Sith head on. The battle was rather evenly matched, Revan's ship's skill deadlocking the Sith ship's sheer numbers. Nonetheless, he was unsurprised when a giant Corsair broke the ranks and landed in the Star Forge's docking bay. He was even less surprised when a commander informed him that a handful of Massassi, lead by a Falleen and a Hysalrian, were decimating the Forge's internal defence mechanisms. He called out subtly with the Force, summoning his other half to him. It would be unfair to call her an apprentice, even though she was still learning the methods of the new Empire, but she was not truly a partner. They were two halves of a whole, her and Revan, formerly opposing personalities merged together through the ultimate bond to become a single soul divided between two bodies.
She was shorter than Revan, though most were, and had brown hair. It was pulled back and covered by the hood of a cloak the colour of dried blood. The one eye that was not closed by a scar was icy grey, boring like a drill into the minds of those she fixed it on. A dark breastplate armour, of the same material as Revan's, covered her rather generous bosom and stomach, but left her arms mostly bare. A long black skirt, slit up the sides to reveal tantalizing glimpses of flesh, flowed to her ankles, where they met dried blood red boots. The black armoured gauntlets on her slim wrists possessed three small nubs, each over the knuckles of her first three fingers. "What is it, my love?" she asked in a smooth voice.
If the Dark Lord Revan was in any way affected by the appearance of the Dark Lady Bastila, no sign of it graced his body in any form. "We will be having guests, my dear. The Sith'ari and his apprentice should be joining us momentarily." He informed her in low, clear, and ominous tones.
They had little or no affect on the Lady. Her darkly rubious lips curled into a feral smirk, and she drummed on the nubs adorning her gauntlets where her hands were clasped behind her. She joined her lover, for want of a better term, in watching their fleet slowly demolishing the Sith fighters and capital ships. Every few minutes some officer or other would cautiously approach the two to announce the progress of the intruders, and the casualty reports of both sides. "This must be how my old apprentice felt when we were fighting our way up." Revan commented, his voice tinged with an amusement rarely shown to the soldiers. Bastila chuckled.
Finally the lift doors opened, and one set of footsteps and a sound akin to a beast of burden being dragged across the floor announced the arrival of their guests. The symbiotic partners turned as one, the exposed face of Bastila as emotionless as the mask of Revan. "Perhaps I underestimated you Revan. Your army is most impressive." The Falleen Maleficus praised in a deep, guttural voice. "And to think, we boarded your ship with almost a hundred Massassi and Kissai."
Bastila's eyes flared with anger. "You will address the Lord Revan properly, or not at all." She warned, a threatening note tingeing her usually dulcet tones. Revan raised an arm and placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. Now that the enemy was here, he would not speak unless necessary.
The lack of expression on the Sith'ari's face rivalled that of the Dark Lord and Lady. "Come now Lady Bastila, Revan and I are old friends. Isn't that right Taral?" The Hysalrian beside him nodded once, very deliberately. Maleficus turned back to them. "You may have won the battle, but it will not matter if we kill you both now." He pulled two long lightsabers from inside his cloak. Taral pulled a shorter one from his belt, and brought up a hand holding a long wooden staff.
Revan pulled a similar saber from his own belt. "You have already lost, Maleficus. We will give you one chance to submit, and only one." The Falleen did not respond verbally, but ignited the two double-bladed crimson sabers. His apprentice did likewise with his. Had he been anyone else, Revan would have sighed. His crimson blade ignited, and a six-inch beam of red energy erupted from each of the nubs on Bastila's gauntlets. As one, the two raised their arms to the ceiling, releasing a hidden cache of solid obsidian blocks from where they hung. They dropped, missing the quick moving Sith, shattered, and embedded shards of volcanic glass into the backs of the interlopers. Taral leapt forward, catching the upward thrust of Bastila's saber-claws on his staff. Revan, meanwhile, was mercilessly swiping at Maleficus' near-impenetrable defence.
Bastila slashed viciously at the Hysalrian, succeeding only in producing a series of claw marks of the clearly cortosis-woven wood of his staff. A hard upward thrust of the base caused her to fly through the air, only to right herself and land back on her feet. The opponents unleashed torrents of Force lightning at each other simultaneously, the blue bolts hammering off each other in midair. As he was more in tune with the dark side of the Force, Taral's lightning began gradually pushing back against Bastila's. At the last possible moment Bastila covered herself with a blue glow and absorbed the opposing energy into her body harmlessly. When the Hysalrian realized that he wasn't accomplishing anything he stopped, only to be knocked against the transparisteel window of the viewing platform by a burst of lighting from the Dark Lady fuelled by his own power. The smell of burning flesh filled the air as the powerful energy bursts overloaded Taral's lightsaber and finally struck his serpentine body. The lightning finally stopped, revealing a charred corpse where the Sith apprentice had formerly stood. In order to be sure, Bastila approached and decapitated it before turning to the Dark Lord and Maleficus.
Their duel lasted far longer. At the current time Revan had obliterated one of the Falleen's lightsabers completely, reducing him to a single double-bladed weapon. Bastila respectfully kept her distance, content to watch the two master swordsmen locked in mortal combat. Finally Maleficus' two blades overcame Revan's one, knocking the latter into a corner of the room. "I want to see the light leave your eyes." Maleficus hissed at Revan, his saber at his throat, before leaning in and pulling off the Dark Lord's mask. Revan's frigid blue eyes stared up at him, colour accentuated by the paleness of his skin. The Falleen's eyes gleamed with triumph. "Now you will die, and your precious galaxy will belong to the Sith once more." He thrust his saber into Revan's throat. Maleficus looked up to see why Bastila was not protesting the death of her lover, and so was not seriously damaged when Revan's corpse exploded in a shower of sparks and durasteel. The armour resisted the explosion, forcing an entire body's worth of polymer-covered alloy bones and shards of synthskin out of the armoured chest plate's neck. Revan had been replaced by a Human replica droid.
A rusty red droid, tall even by the enormous Falleen's standards, emerged from the shadows and unleashed a torrent of powerful blaster fire at the being who had killed his replica master. A side door opened at the top of the viewing platform, and the real Revan strode confidently out. HK-47's suppressive fire had done very little damage to the Sith Emperor, but he had tired enough that Revan was easily able to take his lightsaber from the remains of his fallen doppelganger and thrust it through the scaly chest.
---
When Bastila came to, she was once more lying on the floor of the dark cell. She cast out her perceptions, and learned that Revan was again sitting with his knees folded beneath him. And he was watching her. "What was that?" she asked groggily, through their bond.
Revan took a short time to answer. "It is a vision I had, on top of the Rakatan Temple when you tried to turn me to the dark side." He told her simply. That was when things started to click for her, when it began to make sense.
"So, that was what would have happened? If I had turned you and supplanted Malak?" Revan nodded. Despite the cruelty that they had used, they did not seem truly dark. She had used a Force absorption technique after all, a skill that drew on the light side of the Force. And neither of their bodies had been corrupted by darkness, although all she saw of Revan was a droid covered in synthskin. Even though they had destroyed the Republic, and mercilessly slew many people in the vision, she could not help but feel jealous of her Dark parallel self. That feeling was something Revan picked up on.
"Why do you envy that you? What does she have that you do not?" he asked slowly. His aura showed genuine confusion, and maybe a little concern for her mental well-being. Plus, she was tired of beating around the bush about it. As such, she decided to answer him honestly.
She rose to her knees and looked over at where she perceived him to be. She could almost feel her eyes connect with his. "You." She told him. One single word, nothing else. Nothing else was needed. She felt his eyes widen in shock, and he shuffled across the short distance that separated them.
He felt for her hand, and gripped it tightly in his when he found it. "You will always have me. All that I am, and all I could ever hope to be, if yours until the end of time." He whispered, giving voice to the realization of all her dreams for the past nine years. She was grateful that he had physically spoken, even at a whisper, rather than tell her mentally. Doing so would, she felt, cheapen the sentiment somewhat.
In the matter of moments immediately following Revan's declaration, several things happened. Revan and Bastila shared their first kiss in a little under a decade, in a Sith holding cell. The Sith complement of battleships turned their turbolaser batteries down to the surface of the planet Recopia, completely decimating the inhabitants of it's capital city Scapio. And, in the Council Room of the Jedi temple where the remaining Council members were conferring with the Supreme Chancellor via hologram, Councillor and Jedi Master Katia Mayin cried out in pain and collapsed.
Another cliffhanger, just because I'm evil.
I was at one point considering turning my AU Dark!Revan vision into a full fledged fic. Thoughts on that?
Recopia and Scapio are not my invention, I want to make that clear.
Sorry if it seems like I got Revan and Bastila together too fast. I never like beating around the bush about it, and I always have trouble coming up with good excuses to do so. It was long enough, in my opinion.
R&R, as always.