Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed or Star Wars. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not created with commercial aim. I make no money from it.

Phase 21: Skyfall

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Interlude: The Father

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Once again, the Force was out of balance, however this time it was in the Dark Side's favour.

An old man sat upon a carved stone throne and his mind drifted examining he consequences of said imbalance upon himself. Those few who knew who and what he was, called him the Father. He was the embodiement of the Force as a whole and saw things more clearly than his so called children.

For a thousand years the Light Side ruled the galaxy almost unchallenged and as it was its nature, it strived to put things back on tracks so the status quo could be maintained and the timeline restored. It almost succeeded too, though it took a lot of interventions that wouldn't have been possible if anything resembling a real balance existed at the time. A future that should have been erased when the anomaly appeared four thousand years ago was forced back into existence… only for the anomaly to appear again.

The Father looked wearily through the fabric of the Force itself. Now the balance had shifted again, heavily in the Dark Side's favour and she was gleefully taking an advantage of her position to shake things up.

He knew what his children intended. Left to their own devices, they would ruin the galaxy and the Force itself through either neverending conflict in strive of advancement and evolution or eventual stagnation… Unless a permanent balance was achieved their conflict would repeat itself, again and again and again as it had happened without error for more than 25,000 years already. That was why he was intervening himself more and more. The slate had to be cleared up, the neverending cycle of conflict broken. It had to die with both the Jedi and the Sith so a new generation of Force Adepts could arise unburdened with the sins of their forefathers.

The Dark Side was acting already, preparing to complete a gambit it began a long time ago, when the anomaly first appeared and they saw a potential future, one that the Light made sure it came to pass, all because it was certain that this time around the golden age of the Republic and Jedi wouldn't fall to the Dark Side.

Those children, so blinded by their own prophesies and forever bound by their nature… The old man sighed. He had a lot of work to do if the conflict was to end at last.

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Part 6

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Landing pad

KDY HQ

Kuat

Tentacles made of corrupted energy lashed at Master Perrion with bone shattering power. The crystallized Force surrounding him was up to the task of facing that attack with the only effect being five sharp cracks that echoed above the roar of emergency sirens and accelerating vehicles. He looked at Vael and at that moment he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that every he had done to combat the Sith had been justified. The Sith Lord attacking him was nothing less than a disease within the Force itself and a manifestation of all that was wrong with the galaxy. He felt both relief and exaltation because it was now clear why the Force brought him to this time and place.

Vael was a monster as bad if not worse than the Sith Emperor, someone who already damned the galaxy for power. At that moment, with that realization, Perrion threw everything he was into attack and the Force was with him. They clashed, an azure lightsabre against bloody red just like their predecessors throughout the ages. Blades enveloped with searing light and devouring darkness slammed into each other while the auras themselves that enveloped the combatants lashed at everything in range. There was little to no finesse to that battle, no reason at all. Both Perrion and Veil were avatars of the Force replaying their eternal conflict one more time, with the future of the galaxy being the spoils.

Lightsabres met and the mere backslash sent inky blackness to eat the ravaged metal of the landing pad before the next strike seared it away with liquid light before the process repeated itself again and again. They fought while people fled the whole continent and a nation sized star fortress ponderously hit the upper edges of the atmosphere despite everything the Kuati fleet could do to slow it down. Escape pods and SAR craft swarmed the heavens, tractor beams strained to the breaking point and soon capital grade weaponry spoke despite tens of thousands still being trapped into their metal coffin.

The combatants below that apocalypse didn't notice. They fought with the two sides of the Force lashing at each other using them as conduits, to no avail. They were too evenly matched, the sides of the same coin. Even as the platform cracked and shook, even as the bodies of the two combatants began breaking under the strain, no one could take the upper hand.

Yet, that was an illusion. While strictly speaking, one side of the Force wasn't more powerful than the other even with the Dark Side on the ascension, their chosen avatars were far from perfect. While Perrion believed himself a paragon of the Light Side, it was months ago he began losing himself to vengeance and his actions had tarnished him. The Dark Side had her claws in him and he was just one step away from plunging head-first into Darkness.

Veil on the other hand, while he no longer cared for anything but vengeance, wasn't alone in his head…

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Having a front roll seat of the Dark Side betraying and twisting her Master was enlightening. It was at that moment that Aria fully comprehended why he had been hammering into her head that the Dark Side was a tool, a very dangerous and incredibly powerful one, but never an ally.

With all the lies stripped away, especially those he kept saying to himself, it was inevitable that the Dark Side would claim him in his moment of weakness. After all, the dying screams of billions upon billions were seared in his mind. Allowing himself to feel experience his buried conscience was a perfect way to break him.

Aria barred her teeth in a soundless snarl at the Dark Side flowing through her Master only for her presence to be brushed away as of no consequence. The Dark Side was drunk on her power, fully concentrated on the fight with Perrion. As far as it was concerned, this was the point of no return, of a victory that would plunge the galaxy into darkness for the next thousand years at least.

Aria didn't care about that. If it happened, it wouldn't be because the Dark Side decreed it but a conscious choice of the Sith. Her Master, Zash, if she somehow survived and of course herself. She knew that her Master was beyond the point where mere words could sway him and that didn't matter. Considering where she was, she had other, more effective options.

If the circumstances were different, Aria wouldn't have dared intervene at that moment because such a distraction would have proven fatal. However, she was well aware that right then and there, her Master was little more than a puppet with its strings pulled by the Dark Side so she struck without a second thought. Aria pulled images out of his mind, every single one of a madman lost of the Dark Side who her master had to confront. Every single time he was infuriated by how low they had fallen and their lost potential. From the wasted Acolytes who died in the Sith Academy during his initial training, to those Acolytes he had to chase all over the Empire before becoming a proper Sith, to Wilsaam and even members of the Dark Council claimed by the Dark Side. She brought his feelings about them and the Dark Side to the forefront of his mind in an attempt to break his unthinking rage and thirst of vengeance.

"Master, this is everything you loathe!" Aria screamed in his mind. "You're better than this!" She echoed Ashara's words from so long ago even dared push that particular event to the forefront of his mind.

That did give him a pause. Suddenly her Master was manifesting within his mind and stared at her with eyes promising long, agonizing death.

"You dare?!" Vael roared.

Power grasped her whole form and all she knew was agony.

"I dare, Master!" Aria screamed back her defiance. "We aren't tools of the Dark Side! She is ours to use, not the other way around! This isn't what she wanted, you know this!"

At those words the presence of the Dark Side became suffocating and the agony intensified if it was at all possible. Then and there, Aria knew she was dead. The Dark Side didn't appreciate her meddling and came to devour her. Tendrils of power jumped at her from all directions and she knew she was dead.

Any moment now…

Aria blinked in confusion. There was no more pain. The jagged tentacles made of pulsing darkness stood all around her like daggers falling for a deadly strike, yet frozen in time. Only then did she saw her Master's face, which was a twisted mask of fury.

"When I really saw you in the Jedi Temple, I saw something that every Master wishes to see. It wasn't raw, untamed power, or even potential, though you have that, apprentice. I saw someone just like myself – used and discarded by those who should have forged you into something equal or greater than themselves."

The mindscape shook with the roar of the Dark Side.

Veil's heat turned to look at the oppressive darkness surrounding them. "I always knew you were such a treacherous whore. Thank you for reminding me not to trust you." He sneered and grasped the Dark Side with his will alone.

The tentacles ready to tear her apart broke into wisps of black smoke that got blown away as if a hurricane passed by.

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Part 7

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Landing pad

KDY HQ

Kuat

It has been a long time since I had to fight both the enemy in front of me and the Dark Side within and around me. The first thing I did when I broke through the vengeance fuelled insanity gripping me broke thanks to Aria was to jump back as far as possible from Perrion. The solid aura of energy surrounding me exploded outwards ravaging everything in its way. It washed away centimetres of reinforced alloy from the landing pad making it groan under my feet and the backslash gave even Perrion pause, which bought me a few more moments to catch my breath.

All around us, the Dark Side screamed in fury. It fought me for every tiny bit of power I could wrench from her grasp, something that only infuriated me even further. As I was right now, the bloody Jedi had most advantages. He would likely win a single combat with me having to fight him and the Dark Side.

Fortunately, I wasn't alone.

A glance at my HUD showed that at least a company of marines were still descending above us with the rest of the battalion busy storming and securing the KDY HQ behind me. It was a simple thing to designate Perrion as a primary target and even as he charged me, blaster bolts began raining upon him. I took a moment to thank Aria for dragging me from my funk and sent her a mental request to help me deal with the temper tantrum thrown by the Dark Side. Almost immediately the strain to channel the Force abated and I could use more of my concentration to deal with Perrion.

Bursts of blaster fire detonated like flack shells almost a metre away from the Jedi when they encountered the edge of the concentrated Force field around him. While the onslaught didn't slow him down, it had to sap his endurance and take a part of his concentration to maintain said defence. Given the situation, every little bit helped. I knew that the smart thing to do would be to get off the platform and fight him another time, yet both my still burning lust for vengeance and sheer practicality drove me to continue the engagement. If I could end him here, the most dangerous man on the other side would die.

I simply couldn't take the chance of facing him at a time and place of his own choosing, especially if I had to exhaust and burn myself using Battle Meditation to win another impossible victory. It was sheer fury that drove me too – I burned to prove to myself that I could win despite the stunt the Dark Side pulled, even with her fighting me every step of the way.

All those emotions, I used them as fuel. The very rage clawing at my sanity I weaponized and used to enhance my body. It became a cold, frozen thing that helped me sharpen my mind.

I met Perrion's charge headlong and when we clashed my armour began to heat and smoke from the sheer light and heat radiating from the Force surrounding him. When our blades clashed a shock-wave rippled through the air and the abused metal below our feats cracked in an expanding circle. For a moment our weapons locked in each other as we tested our strength and I used the opportunity to slam my artificial first into Perrion's helmet. As my punch approached, I used all the power and concentration I could spare to engulf it into burning storm of lighting and telekinetic power. It punched straight through Perrion's defences though not without issue – the outer layers of my armour ablated and burned away, the armoured gloves covering my metal fingers simply disintegrated, however then my strike hit home. My metal fist shattered on impact but not before denting Perrion's helmet and discharging all the energy surrounding it on impact.

The backslash alone would have been more than enough to shatter the bones in my arm up to the elbow and mangle the muscles if it wasn't for the Dark Rage protecting me all the while causing its own ravages upon my body. Even then, I felt muscles tear and bone crack.

That strike alone should have killed Perrion. It had more than enough energy to take off the head of an ordinary human an, hell it would have turned the brains of most known species into liquid. The telekinetic impact shattered the right side of the Jedi's helmet while lighting discharged right into his face. The momentum of the impact threw him away from me and finally the Force manifestation protecting him cracked and detonated just as mine did.

That discharge caught me before I could properly protect myself. The barrier I managed to throw in front of me popped like a soap bubble and the front of my armour was ablated away just before the blast wave threw me off my feet. I landed hard and moments later, when I got my bearings back, I found it hard to breathe. Only then I felt searing pain on the lower part of my face and neck. Looking down at myself was agony made worse by the charred wreck that was my armour. It was half melted and seared away and even with the Rage making my flesh far stronger than it had any right to be, the melted metal had still burned and fused with my skin in places.

Perrion was better, alive when he had no right to be but at least not unscratched. His jaw hung loose and I had no doubt that the bones in it were shattered. The right side of his face was charred ruins with his eye closed and leaking fluids. He still had his lightsaber however and managed to block some of the incoming fire. What he missed got tanked by his mostly intact armour and then its shield re-initialized and bought him a moment of respite.

Perrion glared at me and I gave him a terrible smile. I got to my unsteady feet with every movement bringing new agonies then I fell to my knees when the Rage broke and left me panting for breath. I fell the copper taste of blood in my mouth and something felt broken in my chest. Still, I wasn't dead yet and this was going to end now, one way or another.

Marines began landing around me. Some of them continued to shoot at Perrion while a couple of medics rushed my way. I saw others kneel or even jump prone on what was left of the landing pad and aim at something behind me. I felt a familiar presence over there and took a moment to look over my shoulder, a movement that made me feel as if barbed wire tore at my neck.

There were two armoured figures there wearing the same gear as Perrion and a furious looking human woman who held a roughed up Snips in front of her as a shield and had an ignited lightsaber to her throat.

"Enough!" The woman screamed.

I felt Perrion pull on the Force, a distant warning of danger echoed in my head and then KDY's HQ shook. One long, distinct crack echoed above the crescendo of shooting blasters and roaring sirens before slowly and ponderously the massive building began to collapse towards us.