Hello Everyone, don't want to say too much about this chapter, I'm trying to keep the intros fairly minimal here to keep the pacing up and just let the writing speak for itself, but I had to say, this is definitely my favorite chapter so far, you'll see why in a bit...
Ezra screamed, flailing as a mass of gray arms dragged him through the ventilation. Appendages restrained him pulling him through and he struggled to see in the dark.
At a moment's notice, the gray mass suddenly released him and he fell from the ceiling, hitting hard on his back. His impact was cushioned as he heard a sizeable squelching sound and his back hit a thick barrier of the gray ooze.
No sooner had he made his impact then the gray ooze moved around him, encircling him and crawling over his limbs. Before long Ezra was pinned to the ground, unable to move, unable to escape.
"You..."
His body froze, his eyes gravitating towards the sound of the voice. A lone Stormtrooper stood there, motionless, the familiar thin black frown staring back at him.
"You're not like the others... you're not like the ones in white... the weapon…"
He pointed to Kanan's Lightsaber, lying on the floor, the ooze seemed to pull away from it in fear.
"...where did you get that? Why do you wield it?"
"Weapon?" Ezra asked, his mind overwhelmed and confused. He hesitated to move, his eyes wide with fear, more afraid right now than he had ever been in his entire life.
"The sword! The sword made of light! It burns! It burns! It burns like fire... it burns me away..."
It sounded like Kalgen, the voice came from Kalgen's mouth and it certainly sounded like him, but Ezra knew straight away that he wasn't talking to Kalgen...
"You mean... my lightsaber? It's my weapon... no, no I mean I have my own lightsaber but this isn't it. This belonged to a friend, I'm just using it..."
"And where is this friend?" Kalgen asked.
Ezra sighed, "Gone..."
"Such is the way of all flesh creatures. They die, and only I remain. The flesh ones who owned this ship... the serpents... they tried to use me! Use me as a weapon against their rivals! They were fools! They were stupid! And now they are dead... just like your friend..."
"What... what are you..." Ezra asked. He gulped, his heart nearly stopping. This abomination was scaring him more than any Inquisitor, any Sith Lord. He was half expecting to wake up on the Ghost and be greeted by Zeb's snoring any second now. This didn't feel real.
"You are of flesh... you can never understand what I am, at least, truly understand. Many have called me many things... but I have a favourite... I... am the Mnggal-Mnggal."
"Nall... Nall?" Ezra asked, his tongue getting used to the strange word.
"Mnggal-Mnggal!" Kalgen sang with a malicious glee, savouring the complex pronunciation as if taking pride in its complexity, "It is from a tongue you will never understand! A tongue you will never speak! A tongue you will never hear! Those who speak it are long gone... they are dust... or they are me."
Ezra mulled over the words, "If this tongue is lost... how do you know it?"
"I am old... so old... I existed before existence itself. I watched in passive amusement as the Celestials sang your Galaxy to life, I observed as your 'Force' began to take shape, I bore witness to the darkness of a hundred years that spawned both the Jedi and the Sith, and I have watched great Sith Lords such as Exar Kun, the Lord Revan, and the Emperor Vitiate all rise to test the Republic... and I have watched as each and every one of them crumbled to dust against the waves of time... I have always been and I will always be... I am forever... I am eternal."
"Ugghhh..." Ezra heard another voice, one he recognised immediately. In another corner of the large room was another Stormtrooper, this one very much alive. A large orange Officer's pauldron singled him out as Ayer, Captain of the Chimaera's Stormtrooper compliment. He was still alive.
"Ayer? Ayer!" Ezra yelled, trying to get his attention.
"Wha... Where am I... what's going on..."
"Ah yes, you put up quite a fight, I must admit. Even while your men fled like frightened children. You are their leader, are you not? But yet... you serve another..."
"Another... You mean the Grand Admiral?"
"No... I speak of the man all you who wear white serve... the man who thinks himself a God."
"You mean... the Emperor?"
"Yes... the one you call the 'Emperor'... he sits at the heart of the galaxy... he looks down on all he possesses... entire fleets answer to his command... legions and armies bow before him... a demon in black, a puppet to his will, weeps for the one he's lost, and kills in his name... he thinks all who oppose him defeated... he thinks himself invincible... immortal... he thinks himself a God."
The Mnggal-Mnggal chuckled, a sickening laugh, condescending in nature, and dismissive in tone. "but he is wrong... he will die... they always die... all of his little legions, and all of his little fleets will simply crumble to dust... and only I will remain."
"Well that's one part we agree on." Ezra remarked, his cocky tone masking a deeply rooted existential dread. He tried to sound confident but
"Don't be so sure of yourself... you are the same... your 'Rebellion is just as finite as the Empire you oppose..."
"How do you know about that?" Ezra asked, taken aback by this creature's knowledge.
"The brains... I eat the brains... they are delicious and they tell me things... they speak of the Empire... of the man who thinks himself a god and the demon who serves him... and they speak of a great phoenix that would oppose them... tell me, are you... a Jedi?"
"Y...Yes..."
"Ah! A Jedi! A servant of the Force! Am I right? It's been so long since I've seen one... I recognised your sword of light immediately but I almost believe it! It's been so long since I've seen your kind!"
"Yeah, well... there aren't very many of us left..."
"Yes... this 'Emperor', he is a Sith, isn't he? One who gives himself over to the dark. A shame, I have watched your squabble with the Sith since it began so long ago... it was so much fun I will miss watching you kill each other with your swords of light and fire! Tell me... your friend... was he a Jedi?"
Ezra sighed in sorrow, "Yeah, he was... one of the best..."
"I'm sure he was, but he was a flesh creature, all made of flesh share the same fate."
Ezra grimaced, looking down, he began to wonder what Kanan would make of this absurd situation.
"Hmmm... tell you what, Jedi. Why don't you amuse me? I'm bored... let's do something fun!"
"Amuse you? No! I'm not your puppet!"
Ezra was met with a menacing chuckle, "bold words... Jedi... bold words. Do you know what my favourite thing to do in the whole Galaxy is?"
Ezra could only watch, as a single solitary appendage crawled up Ayer's armour, before resting just below his neck.
"My favourite thing... and the reason I was so happy when I found you... is making Jedi suffer... because for a group so stuck in their own heads... so focused on their precious little 'Force'... it is remarkably easy to do so... you care so much about life... about the wellbeing of others... all I have to do is show you suffering... pathetic... you run like scared children from that which you call the dark side, but you are so easy to drive right towards it, your minds just need a little... 'push' is all. So let's play a game, it's called 'hijack the nervous system and activate every single pain receptor in it at once.'"
The appendage shot in under Ayer's helmet. Ezra could only assume the Mnggal-Mnggal's "game" was exactly what it sounded like. Ezra winced, recoiling as Ayer's screams of pain filled the room and he struggled against his bonds.
"Every... Single... Pain receptor in his entire body... all activated at once."
"Stop! Stop it! Let him go!" Ezra yelled, thrashing against the liquid pinning him to the floor.
"Why do you care?" The Mnggal-Mnggal asked, "I thought that you fight the ones in white?"
Ayer caught his breath as the Mnggal-Mnggal ceased it's torment. It was obviously far more interested in Ezra, only using Ayer to toy with him.
"I... I..." Ezra stuttered.
"You've killed plenty of his kind! Have you not?"
"No! Never directly!" Ezra insisted.
"Maybe not directly... but they have died from your actions?"
Ezra stopped, thinking back. The Spectres weren't cold blooded killers, but he had to admit there was a sizeable trail of dead Imperials behind them… lots of collateral from Sabine's
"That's... that's just war, people die that's just... that's just how it is..."
"Then one more dead Imperial shouldn't bother you!" The Mnggal-Mnggal proclaimed with glee, before resuming it's torment of Ayer. Ayer screamed and flailed, straining and trying in vain to escape.
"I told you to stop it!" Ezra yelled once again.
"But why!? Why now of all times!? What's different!?" The Mnggal-Mnggal asked with a sadistic glee.
Ezra opened his mouth, ready to answer... but no reply came.
"Oh? You don't have an answer, do you?"
Ezra remained silent, a look of sad confusion on his face.
"Why not just let him die, Jedi? He is one who wears white, they are your enemies, are they not? He gives up his identity, this one here... like all the others he renounces his face... like the others he takes up a new one, he wears a new face, a face of murder, a face of death... and like all his other little soldiers he marches out across a thousand worlds and he spreads fear and he spreads death and he spreads terror... all in the name of the one who thinks himself a God."
"I... he..."
Ezra stuttered as his mouth struggled to put together an answer.
"Underneath that helmet there's a person, OK? I can't live with myself knowing I let him die."
"But why him!? Why not all the other Stormtroopers you have killed!? Did they not have faces!? Friends!? Families!? Parents and Children!? People who loved them dearly and whose hearts ache all because of you!? You and your Rebels!? You and your Spectres!?"
"I... n... no..."
"Look at this one for example..." Another Stormtrooper rose from a nearby puddle, body straightening as he stood up. It now stood over him beside Kalgen, blank stare fixated upon him.
"I devour their brains, you see... I see them... I see their memories... I devoured this one's brain, do you know what I see? I see him at the heart of the Galaxy... the planet you call 'Coruscant'. I see him joining the ship you call the Chimaera as it departs for Lothal. I see him and I see his wife, and his children. I see her, I see the looks of concern and worry on her face. I see him, as he kisses her, and holds her, and tells her that he loves her and he will be back soon. I see his children crying as he leaves. Now look where he is... all because of you, he is here because of you, he is on this ship because of your actions. Where is his family now? What will you tell that woman? And her children? That because of you he died alone far from home? His last thoughts were of them you know..."
Ezra was silent, unable to even speak.
"What would you say to them? How could you ever hope to confront them? The loved ones of every single one of them you've ever killed!? What would you tell them!? You did it for the cause!? For your precious Rebellion!? Would you look them in the eye !? And tell them their loved ones had to die because they were evil!? Would you have the will to even do such a thing, Jedi!?"
Ezra stuttered, unable to form words as tears streamed down his face.
"Ezra Bridger! Jedi Knight! Freedom Fighter! Hero of the Rebellion! Protector of Lothal! Fancy names you tell yourself to hide the fact that you are nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer!"
"NO!" Ezra screamed, "I am not a murderer! I've killed people! Okay!? Yes people have died because of me! There's blood on my hands I admit it!"
Ezra burst into tears at this point, his defences collapsing as he fell apart into a wreck under the Mnggal-Mnggal's verbal assaults.
"But the Empire... the Empire is something else! The Emperor! Tarkin! Vader! I've met them! They're monsters!"
"Is the Red-Eyed Admiral a monster?" The Mnggal-Mnggal asked. "The one you call Thrawn, the one you now work with, is he a monster? You two are very, very alike you know..."
"No." Ezra muttered, defeated, "I'm not like him..."
"Oh but you are! More than you think!"
"I'm... nothing like him... I don't destroy planets..."
"Oh no no no... I know of the Chiss, I know of the one called Mitth'raw'nuruodo. You want the same thing, you want to protect your homes. For him it is the icy plains of Csilla... the Ascendancy and the Chiss, for you it is Lothal, it's great wolves and it's plains of tall grass. Like you he is afraid, he fears not for himself but for his people. He will never admit it but I know better... he is afraid, he is deathly afraid of those that lurk in the dark... those who bow to dark Gods and desire naught but pain and destruction, those who reject tools of steel and plastic and instead turn to instruments of flesh and bone. Like you he kills, he commits atrocities and terrible acts in the name of what he thinks is right... and like you, he justifies it to himself under the pretense of protecting his precious home... and just like you, it's all a comfortable lie so he can sleep at night."
"Heh... now that's where you're wrong," Ezra almost laughed through the tears, trying desperately to regain some control over the situation. "Thrawn would never feel anything... trust me that man is a cold blooded murderer..."
"Ignorant little loth-rat, you know nothing. You don't know what he's seen... do you? The things he's seen... a lesser man would've gone insane. It was so long ago... before even your Clone Wars. He was so young... a mere junior cadet... nowhere near the great warrior that now commands the Seventh Fleet. On that day he watched... he watched on in abject horror, as the dreaded Voidlord and his dark armada burned the colony of Kinoss to the ground... The ground turned to ash and the sky was made fire... a thousand vessels of flesh and coral blocked out the sun... the entire planet ran red with blood as countless numbers of his people cried out in a single unified choir of agony and terror! And in that raging inferno... tempered in the flames of war... was born a warrior unlike any other... and ever since, deep, deep down in the very depths of his mind... buried beneath the cold, emotionless demeanour... is a single spark of fear and of dread, a scar of that day that will remain with him until the end of his life..."
Ezra didn't fight. He didn't have the strength to fight. He was emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. He'd fought, and he'd lost, this living nightmare was too much for him.
"You are alone... little loth-rat..." The Mnggal-Mnggal said, revelling in Ezra's despair, "you are lost and you are alone... you will never see them again... you will never see Lothal again... it's rolling green fields of tall grass are lost to you forever... you will never see your Rebellion again... You will never see your friends or your family again... you will never see Ahoska, or Rex, or Hera, Chopper, Kallus, Zeb or Sabine ever again. You will die here, this ship will be your grave, your body will be my puppet and it will dance for me… and only now, after I have made you realise the truth... that it is all meaningless, that it is all pointless, that the Rebellion, the Empire... even the Force, are fleeting, temporary things, and that in the end they will turn to dust as the Galaxy accepts my cold embrace... that I will allow you to die."
Ezra didn't know what to say, he didn't know what to do, he just sat there, waiting for the Mnggal-Mnggal to do whatever it was about to.
"I have had my fun with you, Jedi. I ordered you to entertain me and your suffering was more delectable than I could ever have hoped for. Now dance for me... dance for me like the good little puppet you are..."
"Fine, go ahead, I'm done fighting..." Ezra muttered, the words struggling to leave his choked up mouth.
The Mnggal-Mnggal moved, the liquid writhing on the floor. It made ready to engulf the Jedi... and then stopped.
"No, this is too easy. To just kill you now would be rather anti-climatic, don't you think?"
The Mnggal-Mnggal took a moment to think, before chuckling with satisfaction.
"No... I have a better idea... I'm just going to let you go!"
Ezra froze again, his despair suddenly becoming inter-mixed with a deep sense of confusion and apprehension. There was no way this thing was going to just let him go free without a catch.
"What do you mean you're just going to 'let me go'?"
"I mean I'm going to let you go, and all you have to do..." the Mnggal-Mnggal's chuckle became louder, growing into a gleeful laugh, "is leave this Stormtrooper here."
"Ayer? You want me to just leave him here?" Ezra asked.
"N-no, no I can't do that..."
"Are you sure?" The Mnggal Mnggal asked, "Alright, well one of you is going to be my puppet. I'll give you a choice, either you can leave Ayer here and go free, or you can let Ayer go and stay with me."
The room was silent as Ezra's mind tried to decide on his answer. The Mnggal-Mnggal had obviously given him this choice solely to mess with him further. There was no way he could just leave another person to die, knowing full well he could've done something to save them. Doing such a heinous act, Ezra didn't think he could ever sleep at night again for the rest of his life. The guilt would be too much for him to bare.
But Ayer was a Stormtrooper, an Imperial, they were supposed to be his enemies, right? Imperials had terrorized his friends, terrorized his home, robbed him of his parents, and they'd killed Kanan...
"No, no don't think about that right now." Ezra thought.
And what of the Seventh Fleet? Without his services as a navigator would they even be able to make it to the Chiss Ascendancy? Was he dooming them all by staying here? Would Ayer return only to later die at the hands of some other monstrous creature?
He couldn't think... he couldn't think... too many things to think about...
After a long, deafening silence, Ezra finally gave his answer.
He knew full well it may be the last decision he would ever make.
"No..." Ezra finally said, "I can't just leave someone here to die, let Ayer go, I'll be your 'puppet'..."
"Really now? You're going to sacrifice yourself to save a Stormtrooper? After all of the Stormtroopers you've fought? What would your friends-"
"Shut up!" Ezra yelled at the top of his voice, catching even the Mnggal-Mnggal off guard.
"I've made my decision! I... I don't care what you think! I am beyond caring what anybody thinks! Just give me this... let me do this one thing... please..."
"This isn't very logical you know, as a Jedi you are far more valuable than him."
"Well I'm not logical. If I left him here I don't think I'd be able to sleep at night ever again. Now let him go."
Kalgen's shoulders, under the direction of the Mnggal-Mnggal, simply shrugged in response.
"Very well," the Mnggal-Mnggal said, and with that the slime receded away from Ayer, freeing his limbs and allowing him to move again. Stiffly he struggled to his feet, using his arms to balance himself before pickup his blaster.
"Just... just go..." Ezra said, "I'm... I'm done."
"Your transport is that way," the Mnggal-Mnggal said to Ayer, "now get out of here, I'm done."
Ayer gave one last look to Ezra, his face expressionless thanks to the helmet, before simply turning and leaving.
"Very noble of you Jedi. Now, time for you to go. I've had my fun... time to die."
Ezra's head was violently jerked back as the grey liquid began to cover his face. His head hit the floor as his face sunk beneath the ooze…