Chapter 13- Old Shrine

It was truly beautiful. Everything about it was absolutely gorgeous. It shone as the sun did, it sparked like love. The blue Force Lightning spread from my fingertips and through the body of the screaming, young, half naked excuse of a woman at my feet. As the electricity consumed her, her skin split in small places and bled ever so slightly. She was ruined. I electrocuted for just under an hour. By civil standards she'd have died but the love within her allowed her to stay strong. The love inside me for this girl allowed me to stay strong and not let down this field of death that I was producing.

I stopped and withdrew my hand. She flopped and gulped for any breath of fresh air she could grasp. She looked like a fish out of water. It was amusing. Then sad. Extremely sad and quite a terrifying sight. The girl was sitting, trying not to cry. If she cried, then she would surely lose all breath and pass away. I stopped. What was I doing? What had I done? Why? What? I couldn't afford to be Jaq anymore. I was Atton Rand.

I dropped down beside her and hugged her. I tried to pull her up onto the bunk but still struggling she pushed me aside. How could I have done this? I stood and stepped behind the curtain. How could I? This was a moment I would never be able to afford to walk away from. I came from back behind the curtain. Thalia was now sitting on the bunk taking deep breaths. She looked at me and her scared expression turned into a smile. How could she manage such a feat when her own boyfriend just tried to murder her?

"It's okay. I trust you." She said, most likely reading my thoughts.

"How can you? All I saw was that you were an enemy to the Sith Empire. You weren't even that big of an enemy and only appeared late in the roster of murdering that I have been fulfilling my entire life!"

"No, Jaq was the murderer. You are my little Ewok, Atton. I love you, and most of all I trust you."

"But I don't trust me."

She stood. Thalia had recovered from my attack, my outburst of Sith rage and approached me for a hug. She was so strong. The hug was her way of informing me that time would be the key of success to our relationship. I looked down and she looked up at me. She placed her right hand on my chest. What was she doing? Should I move in? Should I grab her right thigh and lift her leg up to me? Was she- My confusion was replaced with darkness.

I found myself suspended in a void, a void of complete blackness. Coming at me fast was a large blue wave of water. The wave stretched as far below me and as high as I could see and seemed to be completely flat vertically. As it came near I discovered that it was not water, nor bacta, nor kolto. It was the Force. The massive wall stopped suddenly right in front of me. I placed my hand on it and suddenly I was thrown back in the real world.

A lifetime seemed to have passed there yet I awoke still looking down upon my Thalia.

"Congratulations Atton Rand, you are now a Force user. No longer are you Force Sensitive, but one who can use it to as many lengths as myself."

Using strange abilities she had used all her Force to force the Force right out of my seemingly Forceless Force-sensitive body.

"What did you do?" I asked her.

"I just told you. You can do far more with your powers now."

I couldn't go back now. If I returned then that would mean I had failed my mission. If I returned then Malak would notice my new abilities for sure. He would turn me for sure, indoctrinate me into some mutant Dark Jedi abomination. This power wouldn't stay with me forever, it would disappear once more before my master, Meetra, brought it back to the surface all those years later. This untold power would disappear the day I said goodbye to Khar for the last time.

"This practice, this forced evolution of power – it is a practice forbidden to all Jedi. I'm not supposed to do it, but to show you I love you I am giving up the Jedi code and becoming a free person. Soon I will travel to Coruscant and give up my lightsaber. They will surely exile me but I will take my leave here on Naboo… with you."

"I love you."

I loved her. The thought of love was a dangerous one. As I closed my eyes and pictured my future I saw Revan. He approached me on Malachor very much alive and stabbed me in the gut with his lightsaber. As I collapsed, in my dream, I saw Thalia. Revan arrived at the cave to meet the eagerly awaiting ex-Jedi. He picked her up with the Force and snapped her neck.

I snapped out of it and saw that Thalia had let go of me. She was still standing there in her undergarments now making the bed. She was beautiful. She was strong, but Malak was stronger. If the Sith ever found out about me, the new me… if they found out about her, they would unquestionably torture her. They would break her and make her one of them.

Anger swept over me. They couldn't do that to her. I wouldn't allow it. I couldn't allow it. They won't. They won't change her, they can't hurt her. I had to save her. I had to kill her, because I loved her. That was what I thought, but really: it was because I loved her that I ended up killing her.

"No!"

I reached out with the Force and her lightsaber appeared in my right hand and activated. I leapt towards her and as she turned I plunged her golden crystalled lightsaber through her chest.

"I'm sorry, my love. Forgive me." I said to her.

Her eyes were wide and she struggled to breath, struggled to speak. But as she fell onto the bunk she pushed out her last breath that formed her dying words.

"We could have…beaten… it. I… I'm sorry. I will…always…love you…"

Soon all the life faded from her as she slipped into death in my hands. I rested her comfortably on the bunk. She looked so innocent.

At this point I was unsure whether it was Jaq or Atton who had killed her, who was I now? Was I a Sith or a smuggler?

I turned when an overwhelming sickness came into my gut. I threw up in the corner. I couldn't handle it. She was gone, my Force bond was now broken and a part of me ceased to exist. My love had fallen and it was because of me. I was sick again. It was because I was Sith that I had to kill her, they were going to do worse. Because I was Sith, Jaq murdered his one true love. Why did she love me? Why did she love him, Atton? Or was I Atton. I threw up a third time and struggled to find breath. If I wasn't a Sith, than she wouldn't know me and bring me here. We would never have met and she would still be alive. I was a monster, and the Sith had allowed me to become one. No, the Sith encouraged this. They made me Jaq.

I was angry. Angry at the Sith. But as the final splinter of live Force left my love's body, the anger died with her. It was her lost hidden request, the bond she had allowed her to remove the Dark Side from me. Thalia had killed Atton… or at least fatally wounded the Schutta.

Her lightsaber flickered off. I grasped it tightly in my hand. I would keep this as a memento. It would act a token of our love but a reminder of a past worth forgetting.

I approached the dead body of Jedi Thalia Evnairis. I was fully clothed in my combat training gear. She was so innocent. I felt no regret in killing her, at least not yet. I leant over and kissed her forehead lightly her eyelids already closed.

"Goodbye, my love."

I faced the cave mouth, water still ran over the edge. All purity in the world ceased to exist yet nature continued on. I looked at my feet where the fire was still ablaze. I waited a moment and considered the consequences of my future actions (a trait Jaq never would have considered). I picked up a smouldering log piece and placed it on the bunk beside her. Facing the mouth of the cave I ran through and leapt at the last inch of rock that lay at my feat. I flew through the sky and landed on the land at the rim of the lake at the base of the waterfall. Fire spouted out of the cave, her legacy only existing through me. The flames desperately tried to escape the scene but there attempts were constantly being cut off by the rushing flow of the waterfall.

I was done. The Sith had succeeded in breaking me as I had feared. Though they had only done so subtly and through the powers of another Sith agent. The Sith had killed me through Jaq, Jaq had killed me. Now it was time to get payback on them, but I wasn't going to do it the evil way. Oh no. I was going to simply resign, by blowing stuff up and walking away in slow motion. I was going to resign the Atton Rand way… in style.