And here we are once again! Sorry about the delay, but this chapter is pretty long and it's also the end of this little Mnggal-Mnggal arc, so without further ado, I hope you enjoy it.
"Their weapon systems are powered down, Admiral. All power's been diverted to forward shields and sublight engines. The ship's on a collision course with the Chimaera."
"Go to Red alert. All hands to battlestations." Thrawn ordered and the bridge jumped to action as the reports came in from all stations.
"All stations awaiting your orders Admiral" Faro reported briskly from his side.
"Be ready to fire on my orders, Commodore." Thrawn ordered.
"Admiral, we're receiving a transmission from the boarding party!" Lomar called out.
"Patch them through to the operations room." Thrawn said and Faro followed close behind. The Celaphid was still far out of range at this point so hopefully they could get some more insight as to what was going on with that ship.
The holoprojector lit up as they entered, and two figures appeared, an exhausted looking man in an Engineer uniform, and a BLX Series Labour droid.
"Hello? Chimaera? This is Chief Engineer Ormyn! Do you read?"
"Acknowledged Delta-1. We hear you Chief Ormyn, may I ask what exactly is going on over there?" Thrawn asked, his cool demeanour not betraying even a hint of urgency.
Ormyn opened his mouth, looking as if he was trying and failing to put together a coherent sentence.
"I... I don't know sir, we have the coolant, but two of the teams are gone. We're just waiting for Captain Ayer and Ezra to get back."
"Only one Squad made it back? Where are the other two?" Faro interjected.
Ormyn grit his teeth, "They're... they're dead sir. There's something on board this ship... some kind of Grey Slime."
"Grey Slime..." Thrawn murmured to himself.
"It killed them, and then it... I don't know it possessed them somehow. It's... It's using their bodies to drive the ship!"
"and it's headed straight for the Chimaera..." Faro noticed Ormyn's eyes widen, a look of grim realisation on his face.
"Where is Ezra and Captain Ayer?" Thrawn asked.
Ormyn sighed, "It tricked us, redirected all of the power away from the hangar doors, we thought the ship was running out of power but it just wanted us to give it access to the engines."
"Avoid the substance Chief Engineer, and await the return of Ezra and Ayer. Be ready to leave as soon as they are on board, Chimaera out."
Thrawn ended the transmission, face grim.
"Signal Captain Fel, order him and his men to move to the rear of the vessel and take out the sublight engines. We need to slow the ship down as much as we can."
"Agreed, Sir." Faro replied.
"That's your plan!?" Ezra yelled in disbelief, a nervous chuckle manifesting.
"Some plan that is! We'll be blown into dust before you can even reach the Chimaera!"
Kalgen's corpse chuckled in response,
"Maybe we will... maybe we won't... but either way, I am having far too much fun... time to die..."
The shambling mass of Stormtroopers moved in on the duo, surrounding them on every side. Ayer held his blaster at the ready, back turned to Ezra. Ezra held his saber tightly with one hand, and with the other he let out a massive force push, knocking most of the possessed off their feet. Without a second thought, he jumped at them, and started slashing away at the mass of Stormtroopers. He dismembered them, slashing the bodies apart, slicing and dicing them until they could no longer overwhelm him.
He felt no guilt, he felt no remorse. The Mnggal-Mnggal had already killed them, if anything he was doing them a favour.
More and more of the undead ran at him, sprinting in unison in a mass swarm. Ezra swung his lightsaber in every direction and every angle, dismembering all of them. When the ranks had been sufficiently thinned, he leapt out of the crowd's reach, and made his way to the door.
"Ayer! This way!" He called, seeing the Stormtrooper behind him.
Ayer was overwhelmed, the undead overpowering him and almost pushing him to the floor. Ezra reached out to the force, grabbing Ayer and pulling him to safety. Ayer lost his footing and fell, but he was grateful to be out of reach from the mob.
"Get to the door!" He ordered, and the two of them tried to put as much distance between them and the undead as they could.
The Jedi and the Stormtrooper bolted to the door, and just as Ezra was about to leave, Kalgen grabbed him once again.
"You will never leave this ship alive Loth-rat!" Kalgen yelled as grappled the Jedi.
"You will be me... you will all..."
"I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!" Ezra yelled, slicing the Stormtrooper in half. A Jedi's patience was great, greater than most, but it wasn't infinite.
Ezra had grown sick of this thing, it had laughed at him, it had mocked him. It had played with him like a mere toy and it had shown nothing but mocking condescension towards everything he stood for and believed in...
It thought of him like an insect, but as Ezra had just demonstrated, insects can bite back.
Kalgen's upper half flew to the side, thrown away by the full power of the force. Ezra was glad to be rid of him. For the briefest of moments he wondered what the Stormtrooper who once inhabited that body would've thought, before deciding he was better strewn across the room rather than the puppet of some unknowable malicious entity.
Ezra leaped over Kalgen's disembodied legs, the force propelling him straight to the door. With Ayer firing one last volley behind them, they made their way out to the hallway.
Him and Ayer practically jumped into the turbolift, and they were relieved to see the doors shut behind them, sealing the shambling mass behind them disappear and began moving upwards.
"Karabast..." Ezra sighed, the familiar expletive clawing it's way out between shallow rapid breaths as he leaned against the turbolift.
"And I used to think Inquisitors were the scariest thing in the Galaxy..."
Half of him wanted to laugh, the other half of him wanted to cry.
"Once we're at the top, how far until we get back to the hangar?"" He asked Ayer.
"I set the lift to go to as close to the hangar as it could. We should-"
A loud vibration cut off Ayer's sentence, as the ship bumped and shaked, and an audible bang could be heard.
"What was that?" Ezra asked.
"Captain Fel reports success, Admiral. The engines have been disabled and the ship is slowing down. Unless they somehow manage to switch off the Inertial Dampeners the ship should start slowing down any moment now. Should I order the Ion batteries to commence firing?"
"No, refrain from Ion fire, we don't want to risk the hangar doors shutting the transport in, especially if they are still alive..."
Thrawn and Faro stood on the bridge of the Chimaera, and Faro noticed Thrawn's expression gradually becoming grimmer.
"This mission was a mistake. If I had known the ship was infected with the Mnggal-Mnggal I would have simply ordered it destroyed."
Faro turned her head, "I'm sorry Sir, what did you say?"
"The Mnggal-Mnggal, it is the grey substance Chief Engineer Ormyn described."
"I presume your people have had some contact with it then?"
"The Chiss have encountered it before in the past, yes." Thrawn nodded.
"It's one of the most dangerous creatures in the entire Galaxy, and no amount of coolant or salvageable supplies are worth the risk of infestation. Especially when the potential loss includes our navigator."
Faro felt her throat go dry. The Grand Admiral knew the Unknown Regions better than any of them, if he said this creature is dangerous, then it's dangerous.
"All we can do now is make sure the ship is not a threat to the Chimaera, and hope that our team returns intact. Order Captain Fel to target weapons and shields, disable the ship as much as possible but refrain from damaging the power supply. I'm sure a man of Fel's talents should be able to accomplish that."
"Right away, Sir." Faro replied, suppressing her concerns. Organic starships? Killer slime? What else did the Unknown Regions have in store for her? All of a sudden Faro started to miss Imperial Space...
Bang! Bang!
Ormyn turned his head over, and he clutched the small sidearm attached to his belt. Something was banging against the door to the hangar, and the steel rectangular frame began to bend outwards under the pressure.
"Brex! Get back on the transport!" Ormyn yelled, and the two of them bolted back over to the door as fast they could.
Ormyn had only just reached the transport, when he looked back as the banging had stopped. Stormtroopers moved to stand at the transport's hatch and trained their rifles on the door.
Slowly, gradually, grey slime began to pour in through the small gap now present in the door, prying it open, the large grey wave split in two and pried the doors wide open, the writhing gelatinous liquid then parted and ripped the door apart.
And in walked a scene right out of a nightmare.
A mass of shambling stumbling stormtroopers and engineers poured through the breach, reaching out in a vain attempt to grab him.
"Join us! Join us! Emperor's Servants, join me!" They chanted in unison,
"Join us in death! Join me in death!"
Even Brex seemed disgusted at the sight.
The transport elevated as the pilots saw the horror in front of them, removing itself from the ground, and Stormtroopers surrounded Ormyn, beginning to blast the oncoming mass. Ormyn did have a sidearm, but he doubted it would have more impact than the Transport's lasers would in a few seconds.
The shambling mass continued to approach the transport, a slow crawling grey wave slithering between the legs of the mob. All the while, the entity continued it's choir, inviting the Imperials to their doom.
Ormyn watched from the door as the transport's laser cannons opened fire along with the Stormtroopers below, laser fire blasting the horde and sending them flying over the room. Grey masses, slime, and body parts flew in every direction.
"Damn it!" Ormyn muttered under his breath.
"Where is Ezra!?"
The Jedi and the Stormtrooper sprinted down the corridor to arrive at the hangar doorway, Ezra's heart sinking as he saw the shambling mass shuffling through the door.
"I hope you've got another Detonator." He said to Ayer.
Ayer, thinking ahead, reached to throw another detonator when all of a sudden the crowd exploded into fire, laser fire smashing through them and clearing the way into the hangar. They entered the doorway, and saw the transport hovering slightly off the ground. Stormtroopers clamoring back up the forward boarding ramp and a familiar face looking across at them.
"There you are!" Ormyn called out.
"Come on! We're leaving!"
Ayer jumped up first, grabbing onto the boarding ramp and pulling himself up with help from Ormyn, Ezra, using his Jedi abilities, simply leapt into the air and landed on the ramp.
"So, I'm guessing that is what's flying the ship?" Ormyn asked,
"I'm afraid so, I've never seen anything-"
"Watch out!"
Ezra turned just in time to see a massive, grey arm reach out and swat him. Ormyn stumbled back, missing the ooze just barely, and Ayer was still only getting to his feet, the arm flying over his head.
Ezra, who could only presume that he was the intended target, was knocked clean off the ramp and fell to the base of the hangar...
"Sublight engines are terminated, Admiral. The ship has come to a dead stop." Faro said.
"Excellent work, Commodore, and tell Captain Fel likewise. Now we wait and see if the transport will return."
"Admiral! Commodore!" Hammerly called out.
"They're redirecting more power to their engines!"
"But we've already taken out their sublight drives." Faro pointed out.
"Not the sublight engines Sir, the Hyperdrive."
Faro's eyes widened, she blinked for a minute.
"But at this vector they'll smash right into us! Helm! Bring us about! Get the Chimaera out of its direct line of sight!"
"Chief! Captain! Get in we need to leave now!" The pilot called out to them from the comm.
"Hang on! The Jedi's still down there!" Ayer yelled back.
"There's no time! We have to-"
"Without a navigator we can't go anywhere!" Ayer replied.
"And besides..." Ayer muttered to himself.
"The kid stuck his neck out for me, I owe him this much..."
Ezra landed squarely on his back, the pain reverberating throughout his whole body. He pried his head up from the floor, moving stiffly against the rigid aching and bending his limbs to make sure they still worked.
He sat up for only a moment to see a claw coming at him.
The Jedi immediately leapt backwards, narrowly missing the large outstretched hand clawing at him, the pain leaving him in an adrenaline fueled instant. Ezra was confronted once again with not only a shambling mass of undead, but also the last thing he wanted to see right now. He gulped as the massive arm that had swatted him from the transport coalesced. A flat head with a razor sharp smile took shape, and spindly limbs stretched out towards him.
Once again, The Mnggal-Mnggal loomed over him.
"Oh dear oh dear oh dear..." a voice called out to his mind, the smile drooling grey ooze onto the floor.
"The Admiral is determined to ruin my fun it would seem…"
Ezra braced himself, he reached for his familiar blue saber...
He couldn't find it.
In a panic he patted his hip, examining every inch of himself, where was it?
"Looking for this, Loth-rat?"
Ezra looked at the creature. It grinned back at him in sadistic glee, and it's claw dangled Kanan's Lightsaber in front of him, taunting him.
Ezra gulped, and his heart sunk as he lost the last memory of his old master, and his only method of defence.
The creature loomed over him, stomping and grinning as it stretched out and grew taller, the two giant arms splitting into four and the neck and torso elongating until a giant grey behemoth stood above the defenseless Jedi.
It stomped towards him, slowly, stretching and bending and becoming more deformed, like a predator moving in for the kill it prepared itself.
The creature stopped, feeling a blaster bolt impact on it's back. Ayer fired a few bolts at it in vain from the transport, but the shots did no help against the monstrosity.
In the space of a moment, Ezra weighed his options, he was cornered, he had no lightsaber, the Ghost Crew were definitely not coming to save him, and from the looks of it the creature was far too close to him for the transport to open fire or for Ayer to throw another detonator.
"You're going to die here! Yes you are!" The Mnggal-Mnggal sang with Glee.
Ezra backed away, dodging the Mnggal-Mnggal's attacks as much as he could. His heart pounded in his chest.
He reached out to whatever was nearby, whatever could possibly slow this thing down, right now it was standing between him and the transport, and every attempt he made to flank it was cut short by a long spindly limb.
He threw whatever he could at the creature with the force. All sorts of objects, anything large, anything that could slow it down, and kept trying to flank him.
He looked around, until his eyes settled on some kind of container, a container with a lot of red markings on it...
"Ayer! Hit this!"
Ezra wasn't sure if Ayer had heard him, or simply knew what to do, but sure enough as Ezra threw the container, and it hit the Mnggal-Mnggal in the side, embedding itself. Ayer shot it.
A large splash removed a sizeable chunk of the creature, but it soon bent and twisted, and resumed its shape.
Ezra didn't think his heart could sink any lower, but it did.
"Oh dear? What's the matter? Sad that you couldn't save your precious Spectres?"
Ezra continued to back away, panic overwhelming him.
"The Far Outsiders... the nightmare the Admiral tries to warn you of... Oh they are a horror! The Admiral fears them and rightly so! You should too! Do you know what they will do to Lothal? Do you know what they will do to your precious homeworld should- no... when they find it?"
Two appendages shot out at Ezra. They went for his legs, Ezra tried to push them back, but his lower legs received shallow slashes. Blood was drawn, and he grit his teeth and desperately limped backwards.
"I wonder which would be worse... me, or them... but you'll never find out... you'll die here, and the Far Outsiders will kill all your little Spectres..."
He concentrated, he tried as hard as he could to keep calm, but his mind was overwhelmed. Fear, panic, anger, all of them were building. He was at the end of his rope, and he didn't know what to do.
More appendages shot out, reaching for him, clawing at him. Ezra tried to push them back, but more than one of them hit. The Jedi began to buckle under the lacerations, and clutched his now bloodied chest.
"I'd imagine their deaths will be quite painful... to be quite honest with you... they'd be better off just letting the Empire kill them, your master should have let the fire consume you all..."
"Don't you dare mention him..." Ezra growled, gritting his teeth in anger.
"Piles and piles of dead bodies... burning fields of grass filled with dead wolves... and in the middle of it all... your friends, your oh so precious little Spectres... stretched across instruments of agony and despair... the life forcibly drained out of them through scream after scream... suffering and torture unimaginable to your kind... who do you think would the last the longest? I think the Lasat would be able to handle an impressive amount of suffering don't you? What about the Twi'lek, Hera? Oh yes she'd die very very slowly... do you think her last thoughts would be of her love? The one who gave his life for her? The Far Outsiders hate droids you know, they would rip little Chopper to pieces with their bare hands!"
The Mnggal-Mnggal laughed, it laughed joyously at the almost defeated Jedi in front of him.
"Oh... and let's not forget the Mandalorian... the one with delusions of artistry? Her kind were built to destroy, to kill and conquer, not to create, she fights her very nature... what an idiot. I wonder which will cause hurt her more? Will it be the torture breaking her body? Or will it be the shame and guilt of her failure to save you breaking her mind?"
"NO!" Ezra yelled, blasting the creature with as much force as he could. He put everything into one last assault. His growing frustration at the creature was let out all at once, and in a last desperate effort a large burst of energy very nearly split.
Ezra should've been at least somewhat relieved. He gagged, disgusted at himself for doing such a thing.
He'd gotten close there. Just there, he could feel it. His anger, his frustration, his fears being inflamed by the entity.
Just for a moment, he felt the dark calling him.
As far as Ezra was concerned, it was a moment too much.
If the Mnggal-Mnggal had vocal chords, it would no doubt be sore from the roaring triumphant laughter.
"Look at you! Look at you! I felt that you know! Oh this is priceless! I forgot how much fun you Jedi are! Ha ha! Some Jedi Knight you are!"
Ezra's knees buckled, physically exhausted. His wounds dragged him towards the floor, and he felt sick.
His stomach was in a knot, and he was paralyzed by his own horror. The Mnggal-Mnggal's laughter echoed through his head, a thousand invisible voices laughing at him from every direction, mocking him for his failure.
"No..."
He was beaten, he'd been beaten the moment he set foot on this ship. He was no match for this creature and his heart sank at the realization. This creature had toyed with him incessantly since he arrived here and it had placed him right where it wanted him.
"Oh no! Jedi aren't supposed to do that! What would the Spectres say? What would Kanan say..."
Those words stung like fire to Ezra. The mention of that name made his blood boil, but he was in no position to argue.
"It has been fun, Jedi... you have given me much amusement... it almost seems a shame to kill you... but if I don't kill you here you will simply wither away like flesh creatures do..."
For a moment, Ezra resigned himself to his fate. For a moment, he'd given up, he was done.
No, no he had to live through this. He couldn't die out here. Snap out of it, if you die now, Ezra thought, you can never redeem yourself.
Then he realized, he had one more trick up his sleeve.
It was a long shot, to be fair, and no other blaster had worked against the creature, but if it was powerful enough to disintegrate a living being...
Ezra responded, without uttering a word, by drawing the one tool he had left.
"Where!?" The Mnggal-Mnggal hissed.
"Where did you get that!? I destroyed them all!"
"Looks like you missed one." Ezra said coldly.
The Crewman's blaster, the one Ezra had found in the power core.
Ezra glared at the creature, hissing and moving to attack. The dial still set to maximum power, he raised his arm, and pulled the trigger.
A yellow beam erupted from the muzzle, blasting into the creature's chest as a loud sizzling noise filled the air. The Mnggal-Mnggal itself burned away, the ooze dissolving and evaporating into dust. The large form stepped back, and tried on multiple occasions to excise the chunk affected by the beam, but it was no use. The ooze continued to evaporate as the creature started to melt and wither.
"Don't feel too happy, Loth-rat..." The creature sneered.
"you think you are triumphant? You were lucky... there's no winning against one to whom time has no meaning... I will get you... sooner or later...I will get you"
"I look forward to it..." Ezra sneered back, filled with far more contempt at this creature than a Jedi should've been.
Ezra took a running start, ignoring the melting, dissolving mass of ooze, and leaping over the undead to grab onto the transport. Ayer and Ormyn pulled him up as the door closed and the transport turned to the exit.
Without a moment's notice, the ship jumped into hyperspace. The Chimaera had only just avoided a head-on collision when the chrome vessel blasted off into hyperspace, grazing the side of the Chimaera's shields as it left. The entire ship shaked and shuddered, with Thrawn, Faro and any other standing personnel grabbing onto nearby equipment to support themselves.
"The ship's gone, Admiral..." Hammerly reported.
"It's jumped to lightspeed."
"Is there any sign of the transport?"
"Delta-1 has responded," Lomar reported, "they're clear of the ship and are on their way back. Captain Fel's squadron is also returning to the hangar."
"Very Good, Commodore, gather a squad of Flametroopers and follow me to the hangar."
"Sir?"
"When dealing with the Mnggal-Mnggal, Commodore, it is best to take precautions."
Ezra never thought he'd be relieved to be back on board a Star Destroyer, but as he stepped out into the Chimaera's hangar, his eyes adjusted as he took in the large room, and the sterile Imperial architecture was a welcome change of pace after what he'd just endured.
A large circle of Stormtroopers with read markings flanked the transport on every side. In the middle, flanked by two Death Troopers, were Thrawn and Faro.
"Admiral?" Ayer asked.
"Captain Ayer," Thrawn said, stepping forward.
"Step away from the transport."
The Flametroopers stepped forward and took aim. No sooner had all personnel evacuated the transport than the ship was engulfed in flames.
"You're just going to burn it?" Ezra asked.
"A precaution." Thrawn replied.
Then suddenly, something squeaked and slowly crawled out of the landing gear.
"What the hell is that!?" Faro yelled.
Grey, burning ooze hissed and stretched out from the landing gear, more flamethrowers blasted the blob as it sizzled and burned. Ezra saw Faro gag in disgust and clutch her pistol as the entity made attempt after attempt under the fire to make a solid form.
It was all over after a few moments, and Thrawn simply stepped up, flanked by two Death Troopers, to stare down at the sad grey puddle. Ezra too approached it from the side.
"I didn't-" He sputtered, eyes wide in shock.
"When did it get a chance to-"
"Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo..."
Ezra heard the whisper again.
"We meet at last..."
Ezra looked over to the Admiral. So far he'd been the only one who could hear the Mnggal-Mnggal talking in this manner, and if Thrawn could hear the Mnggal-Mnggal talking, it didn't show on his face.
"Oh dear... how far you've fallen... the Emperor's greatest warrior... the man who kills for the tyrant... the man who betrayed his people in a misguided attempt save them... brought low by a petty street-rat... and now you cower in the dark... hunted like a rat by the monster you've spent your whole life running from... that icy cold face might fool your crew but I know just how scared you really are... when the Voidlord gets you... oh you should have let me devour you..."
"Troopers, eliminate the contamination." Thrawn said coldly.
"And you, Jedi..."
Ezra wasn't sure how he should react to the Mnggal-Mnggal abandoning it's petulant nickname.
"you will regret leaving Lothal... at the edge of the Galaxy you will face them alone... your Force will abandon you... and the Voidlord will come for you too..."
"I'm not afraid of any 'Voidlord'!" Ezra snapped coldly at the burning puddle, Thrawn and Faro both throwing an expression of surprise at him.
"oh but you should be... you haven't seen what he's capable of... but you'll find that out soon enough..."
A few more flamethrower blasts, and the puddle had dissolved entirely.
"Commodore, quarantine and scrap the transport, then run scans and sweeps of the entire ship. I want every potential trace of Mnggal-Mnggal eliminated."
"You knew that thing!?" Ezra asked in surprise.
"To be honest? I'm surprised you survived it." Thrawn replied.
"The Bellicose has finished integrating the coolant Admiral, they're back to full speed, and we can continue moving at our usual pace. Not only that, but the charts we downloaded from the ship's navicomputer will allow us to reach the Ascendancy at a much faster rate." Faro concluded her report.
"Mission accomplished." Ezra remarked grimly.
"Excellent work, Commodore, prepare to rendezvous with the fleet and continue as normal."
Faro exited the bridge, Thrawn was just about to return to his work when Ezra approached him.
"So you knew about that creature?" Ezra asked.
"I knew of its existence, not that it was on board the Celaphid vessel." Thrawn replied.
"Was that your big threat? Was that what you meant when you told me there are worse things out here than the Empire?"
"That was one of them, yes."
Ezra blinked. "One of them? There are more?"
Thrawn reacted to Ezra's surprise with cold satisfaction, "There it is. You're finally beginning to understand. Yes, there are many threats out here I had hoped to arm the Galaxy against, and what you encountered aboard that ship is just one of the evils I had hoped to show you. The isolated nature of the Unknown Regions has allowed many creatures to take shape, many you would find bizzarre, even horrifying."
"It laughed at me, it laughed at the Jedi, the Force, the Empire, the Rebellion... It thought of us all like insects. It knew about everything and it just laughed."
"You didn't think such a creature could exist, did you?" Thrawn asked.
Ezra sighed, "No, no I didn't."
"Yes, the Mnggal-Mnggal is known to possess an intelligence, one that enjoys inflicting suffering, it's been known to re-animate loved ones to torment it's victims, and apparently it takes particular delight in re-animating dead children in front of their parents."
"It seemed to get a lot of enjoyment out of tormenting me." Ezra remarked.
"It's origin is unknown, but it is old, possibly as old as the universe itself, and it is supposedly a highly knowledgeable creature, constantly taunting lesser beings with the promise of knowledge and wisdom."
"It wasn't part of the Force. I couldn't feel it in the Force. How is that even possible?"
"My people are not familiar with your Force. It was the blind spot you exploited on Lothal after all, but the Mnggal-Mnggal is a creature like no other and it wouldn't surprise me."
"Wait, your people don't know the Force? Do your people not have anybody who can use it?"
Thrawn ignored the question.
"The Mnggal-Mnggal is by far the most dangerous creature in the entire Galaxy. There are some that even theorize that the anomaly that separates the Unknown Regions from the rest of the Galaxy was created precisely to contain it."
"I hope I never see that thing again."
"A vain hope, Bridger. You will encounter it again. There are entire planets infested with Mnggal-Mnggal out here, enormous grey oceans that reach into the atmosphere to pull ships to their doom. Whether or not you find it again is not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of when."
Ezra sighed, "Listen, the Nall- I mean, whatever it's called, it spoke to me. I don't know how to describe it but it talked to me. It said something about someone called the... 'Voidlord'?"
Thrawn's expression turned cold at the mention of the name, and a glare made Ezra think that he shouldn't have mentioned it.
"It said you knew him or something, or your people knew him. Is he one of your Far Outsiders or-?"
"The agreement was that I would tell you everything about the Far Outsiders once we reached my home." Thrawn corrected him.
"But-"
"Once we arrive, I will tell you everything." He insisted.
"I put my life on the line there! That has to be worth at least something!" Ezra snapped back.
"I nearly died over there! I risked my life to save Imperials! A few weeks ago you tried to blow up my home and I still went out of my way to help you! That has to be worth something, anything!? I spent hours upon hours crawling around some abandoned old ship putting my neck out for Stormtroopers! Who's the 'Voidlord'!? Is he the leader of your Far Outsiders!? Give me Something! Anything!? Just a hint!?"
Thrawn looked taken aback by Ezra's outburst, but only mildly.
"I am taking a huge risk here helping you here! For all I know, when we're done here, you'll just arrest me, hand me over to the Emperor, and then go back to Lothal and finish it off! Have you forgotten that!? You can't just keep me in the dark!"
Thrawn remained silent, looking off to the side as if barely paying attention to him.
"I went through hell over there! It was the worst experience of my life! And you expect me to just quitely shuffle back to my quarters!? I'm not one of your little subordinates, 'Grand Admiral'! You might be able to act all mysterious and distant around your subordinates, but I am sick and tired of being kept in the dark!"
Ezra took a deep breath, a few nearby officers and personnel had turned to look at him, taken aback by the outburst. Ezra himself felt surprised, and figured that he had more pent up frustration from this whole ordeal than he realized.
Ezra sighed, turning to the door, defeated by the Admiral's lack of a response.
He was just about to leave the bridge and return to his quarters-
"The Voidlord... is not the leader of the Far Outsiders."
Ezra turned in surprise, looking back towards Thrawn.
"In fact Far Outsiders do not appear have a centralized leadership as far as we can tell, instead coalescing into various factions and groupings scattered throughout the Unknown Regions. The Voidlord is only the leader of one such faction, though he is... an oddity, and I hear even among his own kind he and his followers are viewed with distaste. I do not know the details, but I believe it is some form of religious dispute."
"Has he attacked your people? Have you had any encounters with him?"
"Once..." Thrawn replied, answering both questions in one word. He grit his teeth, and for the first time ever, Ezra thought he saw a sliver of anger.
"It was some years before your Clone Wars... and the incident which made the Chiss Ascendancy –and me- aware of their existence. The Voidlord and his forces attacked the outer colony of Kinoss, the planet was devastated, and Admiral Ar'Alani's forces only barely held him back. It was the closest the Ascendancy has ever come to falling, and it was this incident that prompted the Chiss to break their long tradition of isolation and start seeking out allies."
Ezra didn't know what to say, he was curious to know more
"Were you... were you at Kinoss?"
"I was a Junior Officer there, yes. I wasn't much older than you are now..."
Thrawn stared off into the distance for a moment, as if reliving old memories long buried down. Ezra didn't know how to react, was this Thrawn actually showing some semblance of emotion?
Such possibilities were quickly put to an end as Thrawn returned to his usual cold self.
"Does this satisfy your curiosity for now, Ezra Bridger?"
"Why do you think they're a threat to the rest of the Galaxy? If they're scattered across the Unknown Regions-"
"That part I will tell you when we reach the Ascendancy. I have already told you enough for now." Thrawn replied.
"But I assure you, I do have reason to believe they are a threat to your friends, and I will tell you why in time. Has this encounter made you realize what's at stake? Are you finally starting to understand why I chose to serve the Empire?"
Ezra was unsure of how to answer "Maybe, but I don't know."
"This was your first taste of what I warned you about Bridger. You've learned a valuable lesson today. Be sure not to forget it."
"That 'lesson' nearly killed me." Ezra replied.
"I won't."
"Hey! Ayer!"
Ayer stopped, turning around to see the Jedi walking up to him. He kept walking, and once Ezra had caught up the Jedi joined him.
"Hello again, Bridger. Did you want to say something?"
"Ayer, hey. I just wanted to tell you, for what it's worth... thanks, I probably would've died over there if it wasn't for you, and you didn't have to pull me out of that room back there so... thanks."
"Wars and causes aside, we're stuck working together for the foreseeable future
Ayer stopped, unsure of how to respond for a moment.
"Alright, but don't start thinking we're friends now. You're still a Rebel... and I've still lost a lot of good men because of you, especially today."
"Yeah... yeah I know." Ezra grimaced.
The two of them were silent for a moment, before Ezra decided to speak again.
"How do you... justify it?" Ezra asked.
"Justify what?"
"The killing, killing other people, killing other combatants, just killing in general. How do you live knowing that somebody's dead because of you?"
Ayer sighed, "You're still thinking about that whole talk that creature gave you, aren't you? I figured from your screaming fit in the hallway it got under your skin. Yeah I heard that whole conversation you had with 'Kalgen'. You want a word of advice? Don't think about it, you start thinking about every person you kill? You start crying over every single loved one somebody lost because of you? You'll drive yourself insane. People are going to die, it's inevitable, there's nothing you can do about it. So just don't think about it."
"Is that what the Empire taught you? 'Don't think about it?' I tried 'not thinking about it' before and that didn't work."
"There's a difference between 'never having thought about it' and 'choosing to not think about it'."
"Is that how Stormtroopers think then? You just don't think it?"
"I don't know kid. Look, I never really 'hated' the Rebels beyond losing a few good men to them. I never felt any particular love or patriotism for the Empire. Stormtrooper corps was a job. I needed the money, and I wanted out of the Coruscant slums, so I just signed up when I was old enough, got my armour and fell into line. At first it was honestly pretty boring, patrols, garrison duty, occasionally breaking up a minor insurgency somewhere. All that stuff you and your Rebels hate? They introduce that slowly, get you used to it, desensitize you to it, by the time you really get into the more questionable stuff you just kind learn to stop asking questions..." Ayer explained.
"You learn to not think about it."
Ezra sighed, it wasn't a good answer, but then again, was there a good answer to this question?
"I never went out of my way to kill anyone, you know. It just sort of 'happened'. The objective was always 'get the cargo' or 'take out this installation' and the dying was just... a side effect."
"And most Stormtroopers aren't exactly out for blood. For most of them the Empire just pays their salary, puts a blaster in their hands and tells them where to shoot."
Ezra sighed. He was beginning to regret never having this conversation with Hera, or even Kanan when he was still alive, they probably could've provided some good insight into this. They'd have to have thought about this at some point before, right? Surely they could've told him something had he asked.
Nope, instead he was stuck having this conversation with a Stormtrooper of all people, which amusingly, Ezra thought, was a microcosm of his present situation as a whole.
"Look, ask yourself this. That trick that you pulled, the one that put us out here, would you go back and do it again? Answer honestly."
"Of course." Ezra answered.
"Lothal would've been destroyed if I hadn't-"
"Really? Even knowing everything you do now? Even if you knew what was going to happen? How many men were going to die on that ship? In that manner? Because of what you did?"
He paused for a moment, unsure of how to answer.
"I mean, I couldn't just 'not do it'."
"Exactly, now you're starting to get it."
Ezra sighed, "Never thought I'd be getting advice from a Stormtrooper..."
They reached a crossing in the corridor.
"I have to go, I'll see you later Bridger."
"You too Captain, thanks again for... everything."
Ezra made his way down the hallway to his quarters, he was going to lie down for a while and just think of everything that had happened.
The creature from the ship still plagued his thoughts. It was still out there somewhere too, and while he hoped beyond hope that he'd seen the last of it, he somehow doubted that would be the case.
He got too close to the dark back there, far too close. The last time he got this close, he'd had Kanan to pull him back.
And now he didn't.
This was going to be a long trip.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have had SO much fun writing this! And I hope y'all have had as much fun reading it.
So first thing's first, my co-author, LBAERoss, has started up his own fanfic, it's called Star Wars Resistance: Dying Light (don't worry, it has NOTHING to do with the god-awful cartoon), it's on this site, and I suggest you go check it out. I've been editing it actually and I think it looks promising.
Now, I should probably explain why I haven't been doing these author's notes so much for the past few chapters, and honestly it's mostly because I didn't want to break up the pacing. Those last few chapter were fairly interconnected, and I kind of wanted to let them speak for themselves. So anyways, now that that's over with, let's dig in.
The Mnggal-Mnggal, the grey ooze that served as an antagonist in this arc. It's a fairly obscure Legends creature, one I'd wanted to make use of for a while. It was mentioned once in an RPG book and just never given any spotlight, it's a prime example of why Disney's lack of creativity frustrates me, I always thought you could do a really cool horror type storyline with this creature, but instead they insist on playing horsie on casino planet, so I did it myself. When I set out to write Ascendancy, I wanted a darker storyline, I wanted a significantly darker storyline because I was getting sick of how "saccharine" Disney Star Wars is (TLJ is the worst example with broom kid and the horsies, Resistance is also god-awful) so I did a dark horror where an eldritch horror murders dozens of people and psychologically torments the main character.
This arc was boring originally, it felt like a "fetch the coolant" video game side quest, but I have this lexicon of weird stuff in the Unknown Regions, a backlog of stuff I want to use at some point, and I realized somewhere along the line that the Mnggal-Mnggal would be perfect to use, and everything just sort of fit into place after that. I used the Mnggal-Mnggal because I wanted something
Ayer was originally supposed to just die in the initial attack, but Ross suggested keeping him alive. I'm glad he did because I really liked the idea of Ezra being forced to work with a Stormtrooper to survive. One of my least favourite aspects of Rebels (and one that Resistance, to my chagrin, has tripled down on) is the portrayal of Stormtroopers as incompetent bumbling morons. I wanted to give them their due here, and I think I succeeded. I ended up really warming up to Ayer, he was a fairly minor character in the Thrawn novel, he showed up for like one scene, but here he is being given a more prominent role, kinda like Faro.
And then there's my favourite piece of work so far, the first conversation between the Mnggal-Mnggal and Ezra. I had way too much fun writing that scene, and I'm not gonna lie, it was a direct jab at the "kiddie show brakes" Rebels is infamous for. You know what I mean, the "teehee they're clearly dying horribly but it's a Disney XD kids show so it's played for laughs or brushed off screen oh look at the clumsy Stormtroopers staring face first at a bomb that's clearly about to blow them to pieces", remember in the first episode where Kallus kicks a trooper off a cliff and it's played for laughs with a funny Wilhelm scream? Yeah, that's what I was jabbing at, also whenever Sabine explodes a group of inept troopers, that kind of thing. Ezra has obviously killed people before, but I don't think he ever really stopped to actually contemplate the gravity of his actions, the fact that the people dying weren't mooks or evil nazis, they were actual people, I wanted to see him come to terms with that, and I wanted to further erode the "kiddie show tone" from Rebels. One thing lead to another, and I ended up just flipping the whole tone on it's head. I like to think I succeeded, but I'll let you be the judge of that.
So, Ezra Bridger. Honestly, to me, Ezra was actually one of the weaker aspects of Rebels. His character arc was horribly botched, and I'm still bitter they didn't do anything with that sith holocron. He really was kind of the "kid character", the one put there so the younger audiences could empathize with him (he's also Aladdin but that's besides the point). In Ezra, I saw a lot of wasted potential which I wanted to try and redeem. I thought a lot about how to go about this, and eventually what started as a simple continuation of the Rebels storyline turned into kind of a deconstruction of Ezra Bridger as a character. He's out of his depth here, he's on his own and he's stuck with Imperials. The aim of Ascendancy was to just push Ezra to his limits and see what happened, to break him down as a character and kind of move him beyond that "kid character" baggage.
Oh, I also wanted him to really struggle with the Dark Side, because he didn't struggle enough in Rebels, and what better place to have that struggle than facing his worst nightmares in the dark of space without Kanan or anybody else to help him?
Oh and more Voidlord foreshadowing, he's still coming, and when he arrives, you'll be sorry...
I am nowhere near done with this story, and I've already started the next arc, so I'll see you next time!