A few light years away from Shedu Maad, what remained of the Jedi Order - a few hundred StealthX fighters - prepared to leave the Maad system via hyperspace. Team Jacen's Imperial shuttle spearheaded the exodus of the fleet, for not only would Onimi act as the ultimate link in the enhanced mind-meld against the Killiks, but Jacen's own special Force abilities would be able to cut the travel time significantly; thus, Thuruht can be defeated much sooner.
"All units, report in," Grand Master Hamner said over the Jedi fleet comm.
One by one, for the next minute or two, all of the Jedi reported in. Jacen was the last one to report for his team.
"All units," Hamner said once the reports concluded, "let's go."
With that, the entire fleet disappeared into hyperspace.
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Beyond shadows, Plagueis searched all throughout the whiteness of his surroundings to find some trace of Abeloth.
It didn't take him long.
A grey tentacle suddenly manifested itself out from the nothingness before him and struck. Before Plagueis could react, the Dagger of Mortis was knocked out of his hand, tumbling away from his reach. He reached out to the Force to retrieve it, but the tentacle curled up and punched him the chest, sending him flying back to crash against the semi-solid surface that he was just standing on.
The Sith Lord looked up and found that the tentacle was actually growing a body. Momentarily ignoring it, he looked off to the side to find the Dagger, but found that it was nowhere to be found. Redirecting his gaze back to the tentacle, he saw a hideous gray tentacled creature lacking all but the humanoid aspects of a mouth and eyes. That mouth and those eyes, however, were even more monstrous sights to behold. The mouth was wide enough to reach the beings ears, if she had any, and her eyes were deep wells of piercing starlight.
"Balance will never be maintained," the creature, Abeloth, said with an evil smile. Plagueis could see sharp, needle-like teeth protruding. "Chaos will never be stopped."
She then lashed out at Plagueis with a tentacle again.
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Soon, Thuruht thought, we will be strong enough to defeat Abeloth!
Aligning their Galactic Alliance capital vessels in various directions across the galaxy from the Coruscant system in order to spread their hive mind, Thuruht was ready to extend their reach from the heart of the galaxy to the rest of its body. In a few moments, they would disappear into hyperspace, and there would be nothing to stop them.
All of their actions, however, momentarily ceased at the sight of an Imperial shuttle dropping out of hyperspace from the direction of the Hapes Consortium. The Killiks and Joiners of the hive mind didn't collectively balk at the sight of a single vessel going against them, for it would have provided mild amusement for Thuruht at least, but instead, they balked at the presence of the invisible Jedi fleet led by the shuttle.
No matter, Thuruht thought. They will be assimilated just the same.
But before Thuruht could allow their queen, ThurSolo, to envelope the Jedi instantly into their hive mind, every member of the collective experienced a painful psychic attack that forced them to collapse to the decks of their vessels.
Moments passed before the wave passed, and all Galactic Alliance members of the hive mind were free again.
Now realizing how many members they just lost to the enemy, the Killiks and their remaining Joiners in the Chiss and the Jedi they already had responded just as quickly as the individual Alliance soldiers in their own vessels did. Battle stations on both sides were manned immediately, and it didn't take long before all types of projectiles - lasers, charric bolts, proton torpedoes, concussion missiles, etc. - were fired all throughout the system.
The entirety of the Coruscant system devolved completely into a war zone.
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"Solo!" Hamner's voice called over Team Jacen's comm. "Why didn't the attack cripple the hive mind completely?"
"I don't know!" Jacen, in the pilot chair of his shuttle, responded almost instantly. "Maybe the attack wasn't strong enough? Maybe there was some resistance from the hive mind, perhaps from their queen."
"Can we try again?" Hamner asked.
"We could," Jacen said. "But somehow, I doubt we can do that. It would take too long to muster that kind of power again, and we'll be caught in the crossfire of this battle soon enough."
"Which is why we can't use the nano-spiders, again," Nom Anor said from the copilot seat. "We risk hitting Alliance members."
Jacen nodded at his friend. "Right." He turned back to the comm to address Hamner. "So now we have no choice but to fight."
"We're too low in numbers, Solo!" Hamner argued. "We'll be wiped out."
"We have the Force," Jacen said. "That's all the matters." He then stared intently out at the battlefield that was the Coruscant system.
"So what's our plan?" Nom Anor asked.
"There's one way we can completely cripple the hive mind, for sure," Jacen said. "It's worked before on the Gorog."
"Eliminate the queen," Hamner concluded.
"My team and I will locate the queen, get in to wherever she is, and we'll kill her," Jacen reported to the Grand Master.
"How do you intend to find her?" Hamner asked.
"Trust me, I have an idea," Jacen said.
The thought of that little girl's voice in his mind saying, Daddy, was the genesis of that idea.
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Plagueis rolled out of the eye of the incoming tentacle and unleashed a Force wave in Abeloth's direction powerful enough to disintegrate an entire being. Instead of doing that, however, the blow only sent Abeloth staggering back a few paces, and the entity's vicious smile greatly contrasted with Plagueis's mix of determination and fear.
Abeloth lashed out with two tentacles this time, and Plagueis immediately countered by sending arcing bolts of purple lightning with both hands. The electricity rappelled the tentacles away from his general direction, causing Abeloth to screech for a horrifying scream in pain. Her lapse of agony allowed Plagueis to leap to his feet and charge the wounded creature.
When he neared her, though, she seemed to recover almost spontaneously from what she just suffered and struck out the same two tentacles again. They wrapped around Plagueis's arms in a matter of two seconds and they pulled him in closer to the hideous entity before him. He struggled in her grasp, and she only laughed with an amused mirth.
Plagueis sent another two jolts of electricity into her being, causing her to scream again as purple electricity danced all around her form. Her tentacles' grasp on the Sith Lord slackened slightly, allowing Plagueis enough personal space to launch a Force-assisted kick into Abeloth's torso. The electricity ceased to torture her as she was flung back across the surface of the plane upon which she and Plagueis fought.
She landed in a crouch, and when she looked up, Plagueis approached with his hands outstretched to her, sending more purple lightning in the process. But then Abeloth simply outstretched her tentacles in the direction, and allowed herself to absorb the electricity as fuel rather than torment. She closed her eyes and relished in the power she was now receiving.
Widening his eyes, Plagueis ceased the dual current he was giving his godlike foe, and when he did, her well-like eyes opened up, her face contorting into a mimicry of disappointment.
"Do you really think you are the only one to learn that trick?" Abeloth retorted.
She then leaped to her full height and charged with an a shrill, menacing roar.
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Jacen expertly dodged and weaved his shuttle all throughout the battlefield of the Coruscant system, avoiding both friendly and enemy fire, as well as debris from destroyed ships on both sides, all as he made for the ship where he pinpointed the location of the queen of the Thuruht hive mind: a Chiss Star Destroyer in the center of the Killik fleet.
Remembering the girl's voice that called him "Daddy," he had summoned a Force ability that allowed him to trace the origin of that voice in his head back to where it was now in the Force; it was similar to how some certain akk dogs were trained to sniff out a being's scent on a piece of cloth or any variant that once belonged to that being. It only took him half a minute, and once he had finished, he maneuvered his way into the rest of the battle with the Jedi fleet.
Hamner already commed the Galactic Alliance fleet, informing the high command of the Jedi Order's involvement in this last ditch effort to defeat the Killiks, so Alliance forces made no deliberate attack on any StealthXs they might happen to catch in the battle or Jacen's shuttle. Now all Jacen had to do was get to that Star Destroyer.
A Star Destroyer that was heavily defended by various other Chiss vessels, manned by Killiks and Chiss Joiners alike, whether they be clawcraft or other Destroyers. And the fact that the central capital ship, where the queen was located now, could defend itself pretty adequately did not make this mission a piece of uj cake.
"How are we supposed to get past all that?" Onimi waved at the defenses of the central Star Destroyer, which were firing in all directions against the Galactic Alliance vessels that fought on.
Instead of answering immediately, Jacen continually piloted the ship away from incoming projectiles that nevertheless managed a few strikes and damaged the shields a bit. After a while, though, when they were just a few light years from the central Destroyer, Jacen managed, "I'm gonna try another teleportation trick."
"At this distance?" Nom Anor inquired worriedly. "You could overshoot and we'll miss the Star Destroyer completely! It's not like between realities or even large distances across this galaxy-"
"Never tell me the odds," Jacen said before he closed his eyes.
They, and the shuttle, then disappeared in a white flash, a couple proton torpedoes from the Killik fleet barely missing them in their wake.
When they and their vessel next manifested, it was in the hangar bay of an empty Chiss Star Destroyer, cruising above the deck at a moderate speed for a wall up ahead.
Still, even a shuttle's moderate speed in space was still pretty fast when it was in a hangar bay of any kind.
Jacen immediately turned off the forward thrusters while Nom Anor shut off the engines. The shuttle then skidded to the ground and sparked against the deck for several meters before stopping just a few centimeters from the wall.
The members of Team Jacen, having shut their eyes and bracing themselves for impact, slowly opened their eyes, all glad to see that they were still alive.
"Are we in the right place?" Nom Anor asked Jacen.
Jacen closed his eyes and allowed his senses to guide him for a moment before he looked back to Nom Anor. "Yeah, this is the right place. I can feel the queen here."
"Then it's time to nut up or shut up," Onimi said as he stood up from his seat, cracking his knuckles.
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Plagueis twisted himself out of the grips of Abeloth's tentacles and did all he could to rappel the being away from him, sending physical attacks in the way of punches, kicks, and Force blows of all kind against her. Yet, the harder Plagueis fought, the stronger Abeloth seemed to be, and less fazed by the attacks at every moment.
"You are truly powerful," Abeloth admitted, not slowing down as she continued to lash out against Plagueis. "Not as powerful as I, obviously, but you would make for a most splendid avatar. No one, not even Luke Skywalker, could hold me off for this long."
Abeloth managed to grab Plagueis's arms with her tentacles again, and then extended two more tentacles from her form to wrap around his legs, effectively immobilizing him.
"You were quite a challenge for me," Abeloth said. "But it still wasn't enough."
Her upper tentacles, with which she used to trap Plagueis's arms, extended and snaked for his mouth and nose. The Sith Lord began to gag as he felt himself beginning to become a part of Abeloth.
But then another being leaped from the semi-solid surface beneath the combatants' feet and launched himself for the tentacled entity. Plagueis felt this new arrival put all his Force power into the launch, and the attack successfully broke Abeloth's tentacled vise on him, interrupting her assimilation of his being just in time.
Plagueis's new ally managed to tackle Abeloth onto the semi-solid surface, and then he leaped back to Plagueis's side.
"I intend to get my body back when this is over," Ben Skywalker told Plagueis.
"We'll see about that," Plagueis replied before he and Skywalker looked back to Abeloth, who rose to her feet and offered a look of pure hatred to her foes.
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Charging out of the Star Destroyer's hangar bay and into the corridors of this level, Team Jacen began slaughtering their way through Killiks and Chiss Joiners who got in the way and tried to put up a fight; Jacen slashed down bugs and blue-skins alike with his lightsaber, putting a little extra energy into redirecting charric bolts back at their firers; Onimi used the Force to let the bolts fizzle away quickly before attacking his foes with bursts of acid that he concocted in his body that he flung with his hands; and Nom Anor stayed behind his Force-sensitive comrades and provided cover and supporting fire where he could.
Jacen led his Yuuzhan Vong friends down through the corridor they were in and now, leaving a trail of Killik and Chiss bodies in their wake, before they made it to a turbolift. The human of the trio pushed the up button and a second later, the door parted up to reveal all six Jedi Joiners waiting there.
"Oh, good, I could use a challenge," Onimi said sarcastically.
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Together, Plagueis and young Skywalker managed to wrestle their way through Abeloth's tentacles, turning and muscling their way through her grasp, to finally tackle her to the semi-solid surface. They then began sinking all their Force power against her as they pinned her there, attempting to drain their Force energy as they were simultaneously draining their own energies.
"You fools!" Abeloth cried, straining against their attempts to push her through the semi-solid surface. "I offer you glory! I offer you knowledge! I offer you power! You reduce yourselves to nothing when you are against meeee!"
As she screamed that last word, Abeloth unleashed a Force blast that blew Plagueis and Skywalker clear away from her. They collapsed against the semi-solid surface and nearly sunk back into them; that Force blast was so powerful, it literally wounded both of their souls and threatened to plunge them back into what Plagueis knew was the Lake of Apparitions, as Skywalker managed to tell him before they combined their efforts to fight Abeloth head-on.
Abeloth pushed herself back to her feet, and walked over to the downed Plagueis. Instead of attacking him, she adopted a look of pity on her hideous face. "You wish yourself immortal, and I offered you that chance. The chance you failed to achieve in your first life. And you spit in my face... all in the name of BALANCE!" Then Plagueis convulsed as electricity suddenly appeared around his form; it didn't seem to come from Abeloth, but Plagueis knew it was.
"As your apprentice once said to Luke Skywalker before he died," Abeloth said, "you will pay the price for your stunning lack of vision."
The electricity continued for a while before it halted against as Abeloth swiveled around to confront an incoming Ben Skywalker. She sent a Force wave, which he dodged with relative ease, and continued for her.
Then, when he got close enough, he brandished the Dagger of Mortis from his robes and moved to strike her with it.
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In the initial moments of the duel against the six Jedi Joiners, Jacen managed to block off the initial several strikes of each of his opponents' lightsabers. It didn't take long before he managed to behead Jaips Greeq and then seconds later slash Qwert across the chest, killing them both instantly. Zierra Zuban was taken care of by Onimi, who managed to splash her in the face with some of his acid from his right hand before he dodged past Kolir Hu'lya's defenses and bit her in her arm. In seconds, she was dead before she hit the deck.
"Some challenge," Nom Anor commented wryly as they watched Jacen duel the remaining combatants, Rigall Brarun and Marr Idi-Shael.
In moments, Brarun was speared through the head by Jacen's saber, leaving Idi-Shael to fend for himself against the obviously-superior combatant before him.
"Jaden Korr ain't gonna appreciate this, Idi-Shael," Jacen said, "but it has to be done." He managed to get his blade in a lock with Idi-Shael's, punched his free hand into the Cerean's face, and then bisected him down the middle.
"Jacen," Onimi said, "either those were the most pathetic excuses of Jedi the Order ever had to offer, or you deserve the rank of Master."
"Ranks are quite meaningless," Jacen said noncommittally as he and his friends stepped into the still-open turbolift. The human pushed the button for the topmost level of the Star Destroyer, and they were brought up there in seconds.
When the door parted to the bridge of the Star Destroyer, the trio found themselves in a room full of Killiks, with only two human Joiners among them - Raynar Thul, a.k.a. ThurThul, and a little girl, all of whom stared at the trio of new arrivals.
"You know, guys, I gotta say," Onimi said to the Killiks, pointing back to the turbolift, "you need better help if those were the best you got in defenses."
"We beg to differ," ThurThul said before he unhooked and activated his lightsaber.
Then the Killiks attacked them.
Jacen began to slash Killiks down by the twos and threes with a little bit more effort than when he killed the Jedi Joiners; Onimi found himself flinging more acids against his foes than he knew he could produce; and Nom Anor clicked his blaster for all the charges it could muster against the swarming insects around him.
In the midst of this flurry, Jacen crossed blades with ThurThul, and their duel was on. The Killiks ignored Jacen from then on, leaving the Yuuzhan Vong to fend for themselves.
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Before Skywalker could plunge the Dagger of Mortis into Abeloth, Plagueis set upon her from behind and tackled her back down to the surface of the Lake of Apparitions. He then pushed off her and used the Force against Skywalker, sending him flying back.
Before the young Jedi could register that Plagueis betrayed him in the middle of this fight, he felt the Dagger sucked out of his hand and watched helplessly as it flew into the Sith Lord's grasp.
"Looks like you won't get your body back, Skywalker," Plagueis said with a smirk before he rose his arms up to finally end Abeloth once and for all.
But he was then thrown off of her by her sheer power, and he landed again on the Lake of Apparitions, the Dagger once again skittering away from his grasp. Plagueis watched as it moved out of his reach, but this time, he crawled for all the weapon was worth before it would sink beneath the surface again.
He managed to grab just in the nick of time, and then he felt a tentacle wrap around his legs. He was then pulled back toward Abeloth, but he managed to turn in her grasp again and slashed across her throat. A gleaming hole then opened up, and she futilely furled her tentacles against that fatal wound before Plagueis finally plunged the Dagger into her chest.
Abeloth looked up in horror at the one who had managed to end her for good and she let out one final screech of agony before disappearing in a blinding flash of light. Plagueis forced his eyes shut against the all-encompassing whiteness.
When he opened his eyes, he found that he was back on Abeloth's world.
And in his Muun form.
"Master!" Ford called out from behind Plagueis. "You are... you again!"
Plagueis turned back to regard his faithful droid and Five-U. He then looked at his body; it was no longer the compact, human form of Ben Skywalker. It was his skinny, lithe grey form that he had been accustomed to for well over a century of life.
And not only did it feel so good to be back in his own body again, but something from the Force told him the most extraordinary thing to ever happen to him. He couldn't help but smile in joy.
"Yes," Plagueis said, his feral smile brandished before Ford and Five-U. "I am back in my own body. And I have achieved immortality in the process."
"How do you know that?" Ford asked.
"The Force," Plagueis answered. "When I killed Abeloth, I gained her immortality; it is my reward from the Force itself for slaying the Bringer of Chaos for good."
"Does that mean you're taking her position as the Bringer of Chaos then?" Ford asked.
Plagueis shook his head. "The Bringer of Chaos was never supposed to be in the first place. And for stopping her, I have not taken her place; it is irrelevant now."
"Well, then, what happened to the Dagger of Mortis?" Five-U couldn't help but ask.
Plagueis looked at both of his hands to find that, indeed, the Dagger was gone. But when he looked back up at the droids, he knew the answer.
"It is forever gone now, just as Abeloth is," he said. "When she died, there was no further use for it; the Force felt that it was no longer needed." He was silent for a moment before he said, "But none of that matters. What does matter is that I have attained what should have been rightfully mine since my birth; immortality." looked up to the sky, raised his arms, and loudly declared, "I HAVE SUCCEEDED!"
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All at once, the Killiks stopped attacking Onimi and Nom Anor, giving the Yuuzhan Vong pause. At the same time, ThurThul disengaged lightsabers with Jacen, leaped back, and lifted a hand in defense.
"Stop," ThurThul said.
"Why?" Jacen asked.
"Abeloth is dead now," ThurThul said. "Truly."
Jacen looked confused. Then his eyes widened in realization. "Plagueis," he muttered under his breath.
"There is no further need of this violence or bloodshed," ThurThul said. "The Bringer of Chaos is no more. Thuruht has outlived its usefulness."
The remaining Killiks in the room then spontaneously exploded into chitin and yellow blood, drenching Jacen, Onimi, Nom Anor, ThurThul, and the little girl in all the fluid. In spite of the disgusting event, however, Jacen felt the Thuruht hive mind fade away completely.
"Aww!" Raynar, now free of the identity of ThurThul, exclaimed in disgust. "Gross!"
Jacen smiled. "Good to have you back, Raynar." He then looked over his friend and found the little girl staring back at him, not seeming to mind the bug remains on her.
"Daddy," she said. She then ran over to him and hugged him.
Jacen hesitated before hugging her, confused at what just happened.