"He's already gone," Horn noted as she surveyed the spaceport, the last place from which the Eagle had sent its location code before jumping into hyperspace. "But do we have any idea what he came here for?"
Ana ignored the woman, staring at the white crystal between her thumb and forefinger. She twisted the lightsaber crystal with her fingers, letting a rainbow of light refract across her hand. She could feel the powerful, smothering strength of Theron's Force signature flowing from the crystal like a waterfall of power. It was not Dark, but neither was it Light. Ana knew that the crystal was connected still to the man half a galaxy away, but was not sure if the crystal was reflecting who he had been, or who he had become.
"Ana, are you alright?" Horn asked, shocking Ana from her thoughts. The two women stood apart from Rhen and Van, who were questioning the dock workers on the topic of Theron and the Eagle. "You seem oddly... infatuated with one who murdered your father in front of you."
Ana felt a flash of anger run through her. She took a deep breath, and began to ignore it. "He did kill my father... but the Moff never really raised me."
"He cared deeply for you, Ana," Horn assured the young woman. She placed her hand on the Imperial Knight's shoulder. "He decided he could never know you so none of his enemies would know of you. Threaten you and, by extension, him."
"But he killed Theron's family... I don't know if infatuated is the right word, Grand Master," Ana said. She pocketed the crystal and bit her lip. "But I certainly understand that Theron's life has been dictated by your actions. By my father's actions. I feel some measure of responsibility for that."
"I suppose that the sins of the parents are the sins of the child," Horn noted sadly, her eyes staring off into the trees. "I'm sorry for that."
"No one here can say if they've seen Theron or the Eagle," Rhen suddenly said, drawing the two women's attention. He and Van had disappointed looks plastered on their faces. "Their eyes just glaze over and they stare off into the distance whenever we mention him."
"Which means," Van began as he crossed his arms, "that no one can tell us what the kriff Theron was doing here."
"So it would seem that we have reached a dead end," Horn said.
"Not quite," Van replied. He gestured to Rhen to continue. "Tell them what you noticed."
"The sheer number of people at this spaceport alone is... somewhere in the thousands. Out of the number of people we've talked to, all of them are under Theron's Force suggestion. If I had to guess..." the Twi'lek's voice trailed off and he shrugged. "I think everyone here is under his control."
"We would have caught up to him if he had tried to control the minds of so many. The mental strain, along with the time it would take to influence everyone in the spaceport would immobilize the boy," Horn said, putting her hand on her chin. "Which means that he has become astronomically more powerful."
"You think he did this all at once?" Ana asked the Jedi.
Horn sighed and looked towards the ground. "I hold great fear for the galaxy if that is the case, Knight Gann," Horn replied hollowly. "Manipulative willpower on such a scale has been unheard of for... perhaps ever. There is a dulling of the senses here, one that weaves through the Force signature of the region – perhaps the entire planet."
"Theron is... strong, I'll give you that," Rhen said with a half hearted laugh. "But... that would make him... I don't know. Stronger than the stories about Vitiate, or Marka Ragnos. Than the entire Valley of the Jedi in Ruusan."
"Not just more powerful than them, Rhen Vao," Master Horn said fearfully. She swallowed the pit in her throat. "They would appear as... infants next to his abilities. To control a world of strong willed beings without much effort is an impossibility given what we know of the Force. Yet..."
"Yet here it is," Ana finished for the Jedi. Her hand glided to the crystal in her pocket and the energy flooding from it did nothing to ease her apprehensions. Where are you, Theron?
SWSWSWSWSW
Theron's gaze wandered around the installation on the asteroid. The station was hidden quite well; Theron was sure that, without the tracking subroutines, he would never have found it. The station was ominous and formidable, a strange combination of foundry and fort. The machines that had once built the defenders of the station, however, were rusted and broken with their ancient age. "There is nothing here," Kralle groaned as she and Theron walked deeper in.
"There is," Theron replied simply. She began to argue, but the young man raised his hand and she quieted down. Theron closed his eyes and began to, once more, follow the stream of Force energy so familiar to him. The mask on his face hummed with excitement as he followed the stream of Revan's leftover energy from millennia prior.
I... I lost one of my best friends here, Revan noted as Theron looked at the high ceilings and decaying droids. An impenetrable fortress that could build its own army, repair itself, even in the midst of battle. Fueled only by the Force, I once... I almost defeated an Empire. I almost killed trillions.
Theron began to wonder what exactly had happened to prevent such an atrocity, but stopped as he came upon a huge room. The ceiling was clear plasteel that looked out into the galaxy, the ancient remains of ships drifting between the cratered skins of the asteroids. A short bridge connected a large platform that hung over a vast cavern to the main hall. In the center of the room was the source of the Force river; the proximity was causing Theron to perceive his mask as virtually erupting with energy.
Suddenly, it all went white.
Theron was standing behind a cloaked figure, one whose face was barely visible. Deep marks were scattered all across the man's face, and scars ran from the man's chin down his neck, probably further into the robes. They were the signs of torture. "What should I have done, Bastilla?" the man asked. Theron noted with little surprise that the voice was Revan's, except more desperate and manic. Broken, almost. His voice grew more desperate. "Please, just tell me!" His head fell when no response came.
"By order of the Empire, you are about to be executed!" a smug voice called. Theron saw a group of four – a Sith woman with two lightsabers, a human male with lightning crackling between his fingers, a Chiss with a sniper rifle, and a Cathar bounty hunter with a blaster pistol in one hand– enter the room, a shroud of Darkness surrounding each of them.
Revan sighed and spoke without turning to the group. "That HK unit you destroyed... he waited loyally for three hundred years. I can rebuild him... but it won't be the same," Revan said, still kneeling on the ground. He stood up. "Can't you see you are on the wrong side? The Emperor is Death... for you, for me, for the galaxy!"
The human laughed. "Says the man aiming to murder the entirety of the Empire," he smirked.
"I'm doing this to save lives, not for... for glory!" Revan spat as he turned to the group. He still believed he could save them. "I will mourn for the dead, and do what I must."
He turned and walked from the group. He gazed out into the endless abyss of space. "As a young Jedi I went to war. I accepted violence and Darkness, and your Emperor called to me from across the galaxy. He made me a Sith Lord and cheapened my name, he named me Darth Revan. I killed for him, I turned on the Republic! But now I have found redemption!"
"Isn't there a cult on Kaas that worships this moron?" the bounty hunter asked gruffly, her voice coming suddenly and like gravel.
"So I have heard," Revan replied, uninterested. "Not what I would have wanted, given the things I did. I nearly destroyed the Republic, and that nearly destroyed me. When the Jedi returned me to the light, my memory was shattered. It took me years to track and confront your Emperor again. I tried to end him, and... and he... he murdered my companions, and locked me away."
"You make a good Sith," the woman with two sabers remarked. "You've stewed in your hate for centuries, and now you get a chance to murder everyone with it. I approve."
Revan glared at her. "I care little for your approval, worm. All those years in his prison, I could feel him in my mind. Drawing on my connection to the Force..." Revan smiled darkly. "But I was in his mind, too. Fighting him."
Revan walked to the center of the room again. "Only I have been both Jedi and Sith, and through this found clarity in the Force. Only I understand him, and his death is my responsibility."
Revan, with apprehension and some form of manic glee, placed the mask onto his face. He breathed in deeply and grabbed his ornate saber form his hip. "You think you're the only one of your silly religion to come over to the Empire?" the Chiss asked. He laughed, mocking Revan. "Half our ranks are those Jedi who saw how weak they were. You're weaker and more deluded than most!"
"Think what you want, it doesn't matter," Revan replied, his purple saber swaying as he approached the group of four. His Force Aura radiated outward, and Theron saw the two Sith take half steps back in fear. "I've saved the Republic twice before: I've fought Mandalores and armies of the Dark Side. You won't – you can't stop me." Revan flourished his blade around his body, faster even than Theron's eye could track.
The two sabered Sith was the first to leap into the fray. Her leap was quick, but her body was grabbed and thrown out of Revan's path as he advanced on the other three. "You're deaths will bring me no joy," he said as he threw his saber at the bounty hunter and traded lightning with the human. He deflected the blaster fire of the Chiss with his hand. The bolts ricocheted wildly around the room, exactly as Revan had planned. The other Sith struggled to deflect the bolts that flew at her from every direction.
Revan's saber returned to his hand and he jumped between the jar'kai Sith and the bounty hunter. His blade passed through the defenses of the Sith and grazed her arm as she dodged back just in time. His blade bounced off of an energy shield used by the bounty hunter, but the punch he aimed at her midsection did not. With a blast of concussive Force behind the blow, the Cathar woman was thrown back across the room. Revan walked over to the human Sith again and raised his hand, grabbing a small asteroid harvested for materials by the Foundry. With a flick of his wrist, the space rock plummeted towards the human, who barely used the Force to leap out of the way in time.
Revan's saber moved behind him at the speed of lightning, deflecting the twin sabers of the other Sith. He lashed out with one leg and caught the woman in the midsection, sending her flying away as well. A quick Force blast seemingly took the Chiss out of the fight. "Surrender, Sith. No one is left but you."
The Sith backed away fearfully, then. "No," he replied. His hands glowed with Dark green energy, and Revan suddenly felt pain in his back. He stumbled forward into a blast of lightning, then into a kick from the other Sith. He barely was able to raise a telekinetic Force shield in time to take the brunt of a grenade explosion sent by the Chiss.
"I think you should surrender," the Cathar said as she aimed her blaster at Revan's head.
He looked up at the four arrayed against him. He had failed. Perhaps... perhaps the Force had not been on his side, perhaps his plan had not been in the right. He raised his hands, and the Sith group flew backwards, pinned by his Force power. He laughed. "And in the end, as the Darkness takes me, I am nothing..." Revan groaned. He was forced to realease his physical hold on the strike team as he fell to his knees again. He glanced at his hand as he took it from his side – it was drenched in blood. "Now I know how you felt, my friend..." And, in a flash of light, Revan disappeared.
But Theron saw the truth. He saw space folding around Revan, the sheer amount of will that the ancient Jedi, or Sith, had enacted upon the universe. He had pulled the galaxy, at the very fabric of reality. That flash of light was merely the release of energy, the snapping of the universe back into place. For but a brief moment, Revan had made Yavin IV and the Foundry one at a single point, and he slid through the cracks. Theron thought on this for a moment as the world returned to normal around him.
SWSWSWSWSW
"What did you see, master?" Kralle asked once again.
Theron growled. "I am no Sith, Kralle. Do not call me your master," he ordered. Then he groaned. With how often he was snapping commands at the Zeltron, he was beginning to sound like a Sith. "Just... don't."
"Hm..." Kralle acknowledged, but Theron was not sure if she was agreeing.
The two boarded the ship in silence, afterwards. "What did you see, Theron?" she asked again.
Theron smiled, noting she hadn't called him master. "A very old battle," he replied as he primed the ship's engines. He punched Nar Shaddaa's coordinates into the navcomputer for when they were out of the asteroid belt and not in danger of running right into one of the large rocks during escape. A few moments later, he pulled up on the yoke and the ship flew away from the Foundry. His eyes widened as he came ship-to-ship with a Triumvirate ship. The familiar energy of Ana, Rhen, and Horn flowed from the gray ship that floated just outside of the Asteroid belt, woefully unaware of where he had come from.
"Theron, Theron, are you okay!?" Ana asked as communication were forcibly opened. Theron narrowed his eyes at the image of his three former crew mates that popped up on the front viewport. "Please, come back with us. We can fix this."
He furrowed his brow and took a deep breath in response. Finally: "There are some things I need to do alone, An- Miss Gann." Theron reached over to the navcomputer and began to activate hyperspace, but then he froze. They would be able to quickly follow him into hyperspace if he did it so close to him; he couldn't have his friends – Crewmates, he corrected himself – on Nar Shaddaa. His hand drifted away form the hyperspace activator.
"What are you doing!?" Kralle hissed, hiding outside of the gaze of the video communicator. Theron raised his hand to calm the woman.
"Theron, I know you haven't fallen yet. Please, come back," Rhen begged. "We were all good. We were friends again."
"Until you decided you would lie to me. That you would defend Gann!" Theron screamed, surging to a standing position. His eyes glowed red briefly as he stared at the three.
He will kill them, now, Kralle noted with glee. She manically hoped to be present – party, even – to the final death of Theron Fel and the birth of a newer, greater Darth Revan.
Instead Theron sighed. "I don't plan on falling," he responded simply. "But you will just get in the way. I hate you right now... but I don't want you three to die. And you will if you follow me."
"We'll just follow you into hyperspace, Theron!" Ana screamed as Theron's hand approached the controls for the communcations.
"I know," he replied. Then he closed the channel. He turned to Kralle, grim. "I need you to keep us out of turbolaser range. What I am about to do will require an immense amount of concentration."
The Zeltron frowned uneasily, but sat at the controls. Theron nodded gratefully and sat next to her. This fool will never be Sith... she thought as she examined him momentarily. She turned her attention to the space outside the ship and began to fly as quickly as the Eagle could away from the Triumvirate ship and Theron's former crew. But even so, if he kills Lord Nihl, I may yet be Lady of the Sith. At that Kralle grinned evilly. She sped up, racing sublight through the vacuum of spice and dodging the green blasts of turbolaser fire that the Triumvirate ship was blasting to cripple the Crimson Eagle.
Kralle deftly twirled the ship's bulk between the quick fire, infuriating the pilot of the other ship. The Force easily assisted her in dodging the blaster fire, and her finger edged towards the firing mechanism for the Eagle. Perhaps the 'accidental' death of his former crew would be what pushed Theron into the role of Revan. At that she froze – she desired the title of Dark Lady for herself. Her finger slid away from the trigger and she continued dodging the turbolaser fire in the asteroid belt until, suddenly... they were no longer there.
Kralle's hand flew from the yoke and she stared in amazement at the orange-ish moon floating before her. "Nar Shaddaa..? But... but how?" she asked. She turned to Theron, who was panting with exertion. His face was far more pale than normal, and he clutched at the mask in his lap with both hands. "You did this?"
He looked up at her, his irises crimson for a moment. He nodded silently, then turned to the datapad sitting next to him. "Set us down in the Old Industrial sector," he stated, following the data on the personal computational device. "What I'm looking for is there."
I left that buried there for a reason, Theron, Revan explained.
But the Rakata are chasing it, Theron silently replied. And I'm chasing them.
I hope you can survive this, Theron. I really do.
SWSWSWSWSW
"How the hell did he escape?" Van asked the three Force users in the ship.
"That..." Horn shook her head. Her communicator beeped and she pulled it hastily from her robes. With a scream of anger, she threw the small machine through the freighter and fell to her knees.
"What is it!?" Rhen asked, worried for the fate of the Jedi Master.
"Nar Shaddaa," Horn croaked. Her head fell down at her hands and her shoulders fell limp. "How could Theron have reached Nar Shaddaa in a mere moment?"
Ana clutched at the crystal in her pocket, feeling for the connection it had to Theron, but failing. She shook her head and let go of the crystal in her pocket. "How powerful is he becoming?" Ana asked the Grand Master.
"He bent the galaxy with his mind, Ana," Horn replied hollowly. She looked up at the Imperial Knight. "He was able to grab the fabric of reality itself and and fold it so that the Eagle was simultaneously here and above Nar Shaddaa. That flash was the universe snapping back into shape."
"He... he moved the entire universe?" Van asked incredulously.
"The size of the object doesn't matter, Van," Rhen explained. He stood up from trying to aid the Grand Master. "If a Jedi is strong enough, imaginative enough, he – or she – could move anything. The Force is so much more powerful than any physical matter, even the entire universe."
"After what we saw on Kashyyyk, I'm not sure if this even surprises me," Ana remarked. She shook her head and rubbed her brow. "How long until we can get there?"
"Five hours, at least," Van explained as he checked the various tools. "We're basically on the other side of the galaxy right now. If you thought we were far behind before..."
"I know. But it's all we've got," Ana said. She looked over at Rhen. "Get her... somewhere. Anywhere."
"And what are you going to do?" Horn asked as Rhen helped her to her feet.
"I'm going to think of what Theron needs to hear to get him to come back, Grand Master," Ana replied. "Because I don't want to think of what will happen if falls, now that I've seen what he can do."