Theron entered the room where the source of the Force Wound was, and was immediately hit by how empty he suddenly felt. He stumbled towards a wall and could barely hold himself up without gasping for air. He looked over his shoulder and saw the three others in the same state. "W-what's going on?" Theron gasped.
"It's draining – agh – everything we have," Ana replied. She breathed heavily and was slumping on the wall just behind Theron. She pulled her hand from the wall and her shoulder collided with the vertical stone with a heavy thud. She grimaced and struggled to pull her secondary saber from her belt. She held it, inactive, in her left hand. She deactivated her primary saber, but kept it held out in front of her in case she needed to use its blaster function.
Theron heard a retching noise and turned towards its source; Rhen was vomiting on the ground. The twi'lek's stomach acid splashed across the ground and onto his feet. "Ew," he groaned. He struggled into a standing position and pulled his inactive doublesaber from his belt. "I'm saying we leave and get more Jedi."
"If Theron's right, we can't," Van replied. "More Jedi for this thing would mean more power for us to fight against. We'd be in the same problem as we are now." He pulled a flashlight from his pack and flashed it across the dark, empty room. The light flickered for a moment and died.
"Damn batteries!" Van shouted. He slammed his hand into the side of the light and it flickered back to life for a moment before dying once more. "Gah! The admiral said all the equipment we got was brand new!"
"Must not be, if the batteries died," Theron said. He took a deep breath and forced himself into a steady standing position. "Don't worry, our lights should work."
Theron reached up to turn the lights on his mask on, but was surprised when the button was already in the on position. "Uh – the light's are already on?" he said to the group.
In the dim room, Theron saw Ana look down at the light on her shirt. "Now that you mention it, I don't remember even turning my light off!" The woman ran her hand across the light until she found the switch. "And I didn't."
Theron gulped down the fear that was rising in his throat. "I – I think that this Wound – Nihilus – he's devouring the light."
Van laughed nervously. "Th-that's not possible. I mean... is it?" The normal man chuckled nervously a few more times when no one answered him. "Right?"
"Light's just energy," Rhen pointed out. "And this thing has been feeding on our energy since we entered the temple." He sighed and felt around the wall.
"What are you doing?" Theron asked his friend.
"I'm looking for anything we can use to see. The walls of quite a few old Temples are filled with Force-imbued glow-stones – they hunger for a bit of energy. Put enough into one and... There!" Rhen laughed loudly and the walls began to glow in a dull blue. The empty room was illuminated. "Odd... they should glow even more."
"Like you said, light's just energy. But with Force energy, they must be able to stand up to Nihilus for a moment or two longer. And our weapons are similar, even Van's blasters, so they should work, too," Theron said.
"You saw my saber working a moment ago," Ana said while Theron pulled his white blade out and activated the blade.
"You couldn't just let me have something for two seconds?" he asked the woman. "Yeah, her saber was working earlier. They all should work."
Ana smiled at Theron and activated her main saber again while Van drew his blasters. Rhen stared down at his saber and shook his head. "I don't know, this all feels – I don't know. Soemthing's wrong."
Theron nodded. "No, we're only in a temple full of evil hungry Sith consciousness," he said. "That's my ideal weekend."
Ana snickered once, then forced herself to stop. "This is not the time for your childish sense of humor," she stated simply.
"It's always time for my off-brand style of childish humor," Theron retorted. He swung his saber into the darkness and followed it. "We need to find the mask – whatever it looks like."
The image of a white, skull like mask shot through his mind. Their was an empty hunger in its hollow eye sockets. Red lines ran across the eye sockets and only evoked more hollow hunger with their placement. Theron gasped and stopped in his tracks. "What's up?" Ana asked. She placed her hand on Theron's shoulder and the spot where her hand met him crackled with energy.
Theron turned to Ana and shouted to everyone, "Look for a... skull like mask with a red line over either eye-socket."
"Hmm... I was expecting something more hi-tech from a Sith Lord," Van shouted from the other, dim corner of the room.
"Not all of them could have a Mandalorian woman's mask," Ana shouted out.
"Yea – wait, what?" Theron asked Ana as she walked away. "What do you mean woman's mask?" Ana didn't respond. "Hey! What do you mean woman's mask!?"
Then he felt something creep across his foot. "Guys, what was that?"
"How should I know?" Rhen asked from across the room. The glow of the stones gave him an even darker blue skin tone.
That's when Theron saw it. "Rhen, jump!" he screamed. Rhen didn't even consider not listening. He leaped from the ground where he stood and looked over his shoulder as the shadow of a claw collided with the ground where he had stood a mere moment before and shattered the stone.
"KARK!" Rhen screamed. He used the vestiges of his Force energy to pull Van with him just before another shadow jumped to where Van had been standing. The two men tumbled across the hard stone floor and landed next to Theron. He looked up at Theron, who was standing in a defensive position.
Theron looked back down at his friend and back at Ana who was standing across the room. She stood with her backhand silver saber held close to her arm like a shield. She was slowly backing away from a veritable army of the shadowy claws.
Ana held her orange shoto saber in front of her with a standard grip while the shadow advanced on her. She slashed at it with the orange light and fired a volley of silver laser blasts into its endless abyss of lethargy and hunger. She looked around desperately for the others while the shadow ignored her attacks and advanced even more quickly. She gritted her teeth and lashed out with a blast of Force energy as a last ditch effort; the shade froze in its tracks for a moment, but then advanced. Ana had the feeling that the creature had only been strengthened by her Force abilities.
The creature pressed on more fervently, as if it could sense the doubt that was flying through her mind. Ana gasped and dodged the stretching appendages of the creature. She leaped through the air and landed against with both feet against the wall. She saw the rest of the crew and she quickly bounded off of the wall and rolled across the ground to regroup with the others.
"This isn't working too well!" Rhen shouted. He was twirling his viridian doublesaber in his right hand to make a wall of plasma. The shadows seemed only to crawl around the blinding wall and struggle to attack the group.
"We'll figure it out!" Theron shouted. He sliced with his white saber at an encroaching shadow and the blade shuddered as the energy powering it flickered away for a brief moment. "We have to!"
I... you... to run! The voice screamed in Theron's head. The Gray Jedi ignored it and sliced again at the shape that was encroaching on him. His blade sliced through the stone floor but the shadow seemed to ignore the white fire that had burned into it.
"Does anyone know anything about a Darth Nihilus!?" Theron shouted. He put up a wall of telekinetic energy around his group and felt his mind clash against a vast, inhuman consciousness. He gasped as a wave of cold and hunger ran through his body and all of his muscles seized into activation. He gurgled in pain and a hollow pang ran through his every shuddering movement. Still, though, he struggled to keep the wall of energy up.
"What's going on with him?" Van asked, worried. He placed one hand on Theron's shaking body to stabilize him. "Why are the shadows not on top of us?"
Rhen glanced over at Van and then turned his attention back to the shadows encroaching from every direction. "He's holding Nihilus' consciousness back. It's ancient, hungry. He's feeling what we're all feeling – times a thousand."
Van gulped and fired a blaster bolt into the darkness that began to completely cover the dome of energy that surrounded the group. "How are we going to get out of this?" Ana asked. She sliced wildly with both of her sabers at the wall of black death.
Van laughed and whooped. "How thick are the floors?" he asked Rhen hurriedly.
"Uhm – I don't know. Probably a few inches if there's another floor beneath us."
"So cut. We can't go up or horizontal, right? We go down!" he shouted.
Rhen looked over at Ana. "Are we seriously considering this?"
She bit her bottom lip and nodded. "Let's do this," she ordered. She deactivated her shoto and plunged her silver saber into the ground simultaneously. The blade slowed as it collided with the thick stone and slowly burned its way through the rock. Eventually, she felt the resistance holding her blade up disappear – it had burned through to the next level. She grinned and looked over at Rhen, who was just as surprised and excited. The two began walking clockwise around Van and Theron until their two paths connected. They didn't fall.
"What's wrong? Why aren't we falling?" Van asked, fear creeping into his voice. "We should be falling!"
Ana and Rhen shook their heads wildly and struggled to come up with a reason. Then Ana gasped and looked over at Theron. "He's holding us in a bubble of Force energy. Theron! Let go."
"It'll – gaaacl – get us!" he gurgled. He painfully turned his shaking head to the woman.
"We will be safe for a few moments," she begged.
Theron stared at her and the Mask brought up readings on her internal state. "Heartbeat – normal. Brainwaves – normal."
He laughed internally and the feeling of hunger disappeared for a moment. Either crazy or right... Theron let go and collapsed to the falling stone beneath his feet. The hunger had drained everything from him, and he felt his eyes closing as the group fell towards the ground.
We don't have much time, the woman dressed in black and red said to him. He stared at the confusing woman, whose face was almost entirely covered by a red headdress. Her voice was an almost apathetic monotone. Still, however, she conveyed a feeling of urgent compassion to Theron. My old master will sense my presence very quickly.
Who are you? Theron asked her. He reached out to touch her gloved hand and he merely passed through her.
I was once Darth Nihilus' apprentice. We had a powerful Force bond that a friend once helped me exploit to destroy him. We thought.
Can you help us stop him again? Theron asked the woman. She pursed her lips and shook her head. Why not?
The woman sighed inaudibly. My presence in the galaxy has long since vanished. As it should. Nihilus... he grips blindly and foolishly to your plane of existence. His hunger commands him to. He does not seem to understand that he is hurting himself alongside the galaxy.
Well, if you can't help us stop him, Theron said, why are you here?
We are here so you can stop my former Master. Our Force bond is still very powerful. Once you find his mask, I may be able to send you and your friends into his decaying mind. There, you may be able to destroy him forever... or your minds will be cast forever into Chaos as your mindless bodies are slowly devoured and toyed with by Nihilus. The woman turned around. He has heard me... find the Mask of Nihilus, then I can help you.
Who are you!? Theron asked as he felt himself waking up. Why are you "helping us!?" he screamed as he woke up. He breathed heavily and looked around. He and his crew were in a dark room with dull blue light flooding in from a circular hole in the ceiling. "Guys, where are you!?"
He heard a groan from a few feet away and scrabbled over. He reached down and pulled Rhen up to his feet. "Last time I listen to that cocky pilot," Rhen grumbled.
"Hey, I got us out, didn't I?" Van shouted. He pushed himself to his feet and cracked his back with a heavy groan. "We're alive... I think."
"We're alive," Ana said. She walked gracefully out of the shadows and smiled. "Two Jedi who couldn't land on their feet?"
"I was having a seizure," Theron replied. He grabbed his friend's shoulder. "I don't know what problem Clumsy here had."
Rhen looked at his friend with an annoyed sneer. "Thanks, buddy. He's not a Jedi, either," Rhen said. "He likes to point that out to people whenever he can."
"Hey, he didn't correct me," Ana said. She ignited her silver saber and pointed to where she had just come from. "There's nothing over there that looks like the mask you said we should be looking for."
Theron nodded and then grimaced from the movement. There was something pulling him in one direction, and the movement of his head made the gyroscope in his mind wobble apart from the rest of him. "I think it's that way," he groaned. He pointed behind himself and into the darkness. He slowly turned around and motioned for the others to follow him.
"What are we going to do when we find it?" Van asked.
"A woman told me what to do – don't worry."
"What woman?" Ana asked hurriedly.
"The one from my dream," Theron said simply while he walked. After a few more steps he heard more feet following him.
"Y-your dream?!" Ana shouted. "I – I mean, your dream? What dream?"
Theron sighed and stopped walking to explain. "While I was seizing a dead Jedi told me she had known Nihilus and how to stop him. Can we get going?"
"Oh – okay. A dead ghost," Van said. "Should we believe mister concussed seizure over here?"
Rhen laughed once. "Yes, of course. He had a Force Vision. His first, unless I'm forgetting something."
"Thanks for bringing that up... again," Theron sneered. He sighed and continued walking towards the Mask.
"You've never had a vision before?" Ana asked. "But you're so proficient in the use of the Force."
"So I've been told," Theron said again. "I'm very good at fighting. I've just never been able to coax a vision from the Force."
"The Force gives visions, Theron. They can't be forced," Rhen said.
"Ha... forced. Get it? Force, forced?" Van asked.
"Wow – the same joke every second year apprentice makes to their master," Ana said sarcastically. "So incredibly funny."
"Bitch," Van said. Ana barely fought off the thought of cutting off his most treasured appendage.
"Guys... is that it?" Rhen asked. Everyone stared at the white mask imbedded in the wall.
"Yeah," Theron said. He walked towards the mask and pulled it from its face-shaped perch on the wall. "They must've sealed off the room when the mask was found. Make sure no one was stupid enough to put it on and completely release Nihilus' spirit."
"Cause that's possible," Van snorted. He stopped. "No, wait... of course it is."
Theron walked down to his crew. "According to the woman, we're going to be diving into Nihilus' mind. It's going to be... twisted, to say the least. Death there will still be final, as well. I understand if you don't want to follow me in there."
Rhen laughed. "I can't leave all the heavy lifting to you."
"And the thief steal Imperial glory? Never," Ana said.
Van laughed. "How would you three survive without me?"
Theron nodded. "Okay, friends. Here we -"
The eyes of each person glazed over one at a time – Theron, Ana, Rhen and finally Van – and their bodies hit the ground. Aside from shallow breathing and the occasional, slowed heartbeat, they seemed dead. The shadows around their bodies crawled across them and seemed to create a dark cocoon of hunger that began to drain their lives away. But they did not know that.
They were already in the fight of their lives.