Their footsteps echoed off the cold stone walls. Sheera Maliv shivered intensely as the cold ran over her skin, a wave of chill pulsating from the long-untouched vault and the darkness it contained. Feels more like a tomb, she noted inwardly. The pirate adjusted the aim of the blaster in her hands and looked over to Yaren, the sides of her sight bordered by her open-faced bronze helm's edges. "How much deeper?"
The other pirate held a hand out before him, and consulted the device mounted on his wrist. He looked back to Sheera. "Energy tracing indicates a power source dead ahead. Should have some lights so we can see whatever it is we're actually looking for."
"Whuzzamatter, Kreev? You scared of the dark?" Oran chortled from beside the tall man, though the paleness of the youth's face betrayed his own evident cowardice.
"Quiet." The trio of spacefaring robbers whipped around to the man who'd hired them, standing behind the group. Despite him standing in the light and the pirates in the shadow, his features under the black robe's hood could hardly be seen. "I'm not paying you three to stand here and bicker. Get those lights on."
Oran scowled and stuck his tongue out. "How about you an' your stupid bath towel come in and help us?"
"Oran." Yaren Kreev dug his elbow into the boy's shoulder before the man could say or do anything. Retribution had already been delivered, so he only scowled. Despite that, the robed figure stepped over the border, crossing from the searing desert heat to the cold stillness of a vault forgotten by the galaxy. Sheera smiled at the boy's antics and took a hand from her blaster, pressing it against a button on her shoulderpad. From that same shoulder rose a flashlight, pointed in the direction of her gun and following the barrel's aim wherever it swayed. It cast a sweeping blue glow on the gray chamber, revealing the blankly carved walls and almost impossibly smooth floor. Oran nearly tripped, on several occasions.
She shifted the light's direction a few times, until finally it landed on a wall-mounted crystal orb. It glinted with the lantern's glare, eliciting the pirate to squint as she looked upon it. Yaren stepped ahead and holstered his pistol, attempting to understand the strange device with both hands, full focus, and maximum hopes. His efforts amounted to nothing. "This should be the power source, but…I can't turn it on. There's nothing."
"Have you tried hitting it, like, really hard?" Oran added his own two credits, though was quickly shut down when the man pushed past him.
"Out of my way, child." He stood before the orb not long after. The robe curled back as he extended a tanned hand, laying it to rest upon the device. Astonished and amazed, the pirates watched the orb hum to life. A brilliance of colors filled the room, the entire spectrum glowing in their eyes and dancing across their view until at last it had simmered down to a raw white, bathing the chamber in pale light. The man took the orb from its slot in the wall and held it high, and gasps filled the silent vault.
Before them, the tunnel emptied out into a pit. And within that pit was a sea of treasure. Ancient artifacts, elegant droids, and opulent decorations with outer-world gems encrusted within them. Oran dashed towards the edge and might've dived headfirst into the shimmering room had Yaren not grabbed the boy by the collar. The older man pushed the young pirate in the direction of the ladder instead.
But while they staggered drunk on riches through a pirate's paradise, running to investigate every little glimmer and glint, the robed man took his time. He had come searching for one thing, and one thing only.
Sheera stayed back and let the boys have their fun. She had her own eyes on the stranger. Something about him screamed "untrustworthy," and it wasn't just the black robes or the lack of given identity. It was the way he carried himself, a posture she was all too familiar with. She had her own suspicions regarding the man, but they were confirmed when she saw him activate the orb. Not even her husband, who excelled in figuring out foreign devices, could do that. And he'd simply…touched it.
"You don't seem particularly interested in any of these," she began at last. "I'm sure just about any little trinket you're strolling past could make you and your entire bloodline rich. But you don't care, do you?"
"I wasn't aware I was hiring you to ask questions." He said lowly. "Shall I deduct the answers from your pay?"
But Sheera pressed on. "How'd you even know this vault was here? This is a dead planet—nobody lives here. But the broken gear we found outside…that was Imperial, wasn't it? Makes it…thirty-six years old, at the youngest. You don't seem nearly that old, so I gotta wonder…if you weren't part of whatever Imperial expedition discovered this place, who are you?"
The man ignored her. While her eyes were fashioned on him, his own were fixed elsewhere, amidst a particularly tall pile of treasure. Sheera watched him shuffle through a collection of possessions that any ordinary person would've stopped to observe. At last, he came to a gold-bordered painting nearly as tall as he was, tilted at an angle and leaning against something else. She was just beginning to wonder what sort of value this painting could've possibly had when he brushed it to the side, letting it clatter to the ground. The sudden sound attracted the attention of the other two, and Sheera nearly gasped as she saw what stood behind the painting, propped against the wall.
"They didn't discover this vault," the man responded at last. "The Imperials. They made it. One of five, spread on lifeless, nowhere planets all over the galaxy, storing the Emperor's most valuable possessions. Every last worker on the vaults were quietly executed immediately following their construction, which made it difficult to find this one. But nothing is ever truly unknown. I've waited so long, for this moment…"
A figure, embossed in carbonite. He was only half-formed, as most were with his affliction, his one hand raised as though attempting to push himself from the blank slate while the other was clenched in a hateful fist. His heavy armor jutted from the gray material, and the immediately recognizable mask covering the lower half of his hairless head could be mistaken for nobody else. Oran and Yaren both were visibly unimpressed, but that was only because they didn't know what Sheera knew. They hadn't grown up as she had, hadn't been taught the same legends as she. They knew not of Darth Malgus, nor his tyranny.
But she did.
"Take a good look, Sheera." The man called her name, and her breath caught in her throat. How does he..? He turned to her and lowered his hood. Sheera's world fell away as she gazed upon the sharp, familiar features of the young man. Even with the amber eyes, black bags under his eyes, and the new scars and their stitches than lined his cheek, she'd had recognized them anywhere. After all, they'd grown up at the Academy on Yavin IV together. "Do you recognize me?"
"Iaros." The name came out, almost as a whisper, and the man grinned upon hearing it. Behind her, Sheera felt the burning gaze of Oran and her husband alike.
"Sheera, who..?"
"You don't have to do this, Iaros." She tried to reason with the man, but she could see it in his eyes: he was too far gone.
"Don't I? The Jedi have grown weak in Master Skywalker's absence, Sheera. The Knights are corrupt and the Masters are indecisive. The underbelly of their galaxy is ruled by crime, and the Jedi won't do anything about it!" He yelled suddenly. Sheera flinched, and backed away. She didn't stop until she was at Yaren's side. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand on the blaster pistol in its holster. "You know that, don't you? You left because of it." The woman frowned as the sweet and gentle young boy she once knew spoke with a fervent passion she'd never expected of him.
"So what?" She countered. "You'd unleash a greater evil? What good will that do, Iaros, beside make everything worse?"
"Evil?" The disillusioned Jedi scoffed. "Don't tell me you really believe that. History is written by the victors, and the Jedi are excellent at hiding the truth. They always have been. That's how they've muddied the line between evil and strength, buried it to the point that even they believe the two to be synonymous. But I know better. I know true strength, the power of change, and it is not found in the Jedi! The Dark Side is the path to real peace, not placidity! Not sitting around, waiting for things to change! If you want a better future…" Iaros' anger simmered down. He turned and pressed a hand to a crimson circle on the carbonite tablet. Sheera lunged for her gun, but it was too late. "…then you have to make it."
An aura of evil exuded from the slate, and Sheera froze. She tried to move but couldn't, she was paralyzed, and nothing she did was good enough to make her budge even an inch. The carbonite sizzled, took on a light red hue as it glowed intensely. Then, within the stone, the frozen Sith Lord moved. His fist unfurled and his raised hand lowered. The brightness faded, and where before had been a statue, suspended in time across era, now stood a Sith Lord. He let go of a breath he'd taken millennia ago, and filled his lungs with the air of a new age. The silence was deafening before he broke it at last.
"You are not wholly incorrect, Jedi, but nor are you entirely right either." Malgus spoke, and all before him listened. The Sith looked to Iaros, who gazed back wide-eyed, as though the realization of his actions had finally dawned on him. "It is, indeed, strength which ultimately brings about peace, but this strength cannot be found in the Dark Side any more than it could be found from the way of the Jedi. So long as there is a Force to harness power from, that power will be used for conflict. There is only one path to peace."
"Yes, Lord Malgus?" Iaros asked, hangin onto the Sith's every word. But he did not answer, and only stepped away from the smaller man. His flesh was white but his armor was black, bathed in the light of the disgraced Jedi's orb.
"…It has been far too long since I've killed something." He glanced elsewhere, staring at one of the blank vault walls, before his gaze snapped back to Iaros. "Your lightsaber."
"Uh—yes, Lord Malgus! Do you…wish to have it?"
"Draw." He said, calmly.
"I'm…sorry, Lord Malg—?"
"Draw." It was something in the Sith's tone which incited Iaros to obey. Even Sheera would've obeyed from the sidelines, had she still had her own. Iaros reached into his cloak and his tanned hand emerged brandishing a silver hilt. He activated it, and a verdant emerald blade emerged from the argent cylinder. Malgus scoffed under his mask.
"You betray your own order, but you've not yet bled your crystal? You take half measures. Like a coward."
For once, Iaros said nothing. Once Malgus knew he'd get no response, he decided to take his turn. He held his hand away from his hip and into his grasp was summoned a dual-parts white-and-black lightsaber. Two curved blades rose from the either side of the vent, shimmering in the orb's light; the white light which was overtaken by crimson when it ignited. "Come."
One motion.
Malgus gave Iaros his chance to impress him. He allowed Iaros to take his best shot, gave him multiple chances, but each one failed to bypass the Sith's defenses. And when Malgus bored of this faux dance, this imitation of a true duel, it took only one motion to separate the Jedi's head from his body. The general turned away from the corpse before it had even fallen, dismissing Iaros just as quickly as he'd died, and his gaze settled on Sheera. She pulled her husband close, broken from paralysis at last, and pushed the trembling Oran behind her. Her eyes were wide and her lips were parted, but she met the revived Sith's gaze nonetheless. There was a different kind of duel altogether, a silent and motionless one, fought with their eyes.
At last, Malgus nodded. "Do you have a lightsaber?"
"No." She responded, trying to keep her voice as strong as possible, but it came out only as a trembling squeak. He strolled past the trio, and the raw force he exuded incited a full-bodied shiver in the once-Jedi.
"Take his and follow me. You will tell me all that I missed."