And so ends Act 2. (announcer voice): RELEASE THE DRAMA-LLAMAS
Thanaton fight soundtrack whoohoo
In retrospect, I haven’t done as well by Thanaton as I had wished to (narratively speaking; in actual fact I hate his guts, the arrogant snot). He was really not a very scary villain in the game, just kind of being annoying and antagonist-y without being very effective, and I had wanted to change that. I’ve made some effort to make him more active (Leppo, the useless Hoth assassins) but it’s really not enough, isn’t it? I’ll try again once I get to the final showdown, but Act 2 could probably use a rewrite to make it even more mastermind vs. mastermind, rather than mastermind doing his own thing vs. some distant vague threatening… guy.
I do have at least one idea to improve him, but it would involve taking Hoth apart and then putting it back together again and I think I’d rather see the story through to the end first before going back, since I might get other ideas!
Part 19: Conflagration
Dromund Kaas was just as he remembered it. The humidity, the thunderstorms, the sinister thrumming of the Dark Side. It was… not bad to be back, surprisingly. It wasn’t home to him the way Nar Shaddaa had become, but it was familiar, and familiar was comforting. The only thing that really bothered him was his companions. He ordered them to stay behind, and when he arrived at the gate to the Sith Sanctum, they were getting out of the taxi speeder behind his.
“You are the worst minions,” he growled at them under his breath, trying not to attract attention.
Ashara gave him a big, if nervous, smile from under her black apprentice hood. “Thanks!” Khem loomed behind her, swathed in shapeless black drapery to hide his unusual species.
“It wasn’t a compliment,” he growled. “There’s nothing you can do. If I win, you won’t have to do anything. If I lose, I die, and you’ll have a much better chance of surviving by leaving in the Viper immediately.” The Viper was docked under a fake registration, so if Revel were clever – which he was, about ships – they could have been away completely unnoticed before Thanaton had time to order a search. “I left orders for that contingency.”
<Little Sith is arrogant,> Khem grunted.
“We’re here now, kid,” Revel said. “We want to be.”
“You can never be too prepared!” Drellik said. The two human men needed no disguises. Mercenaries and low-rank officers were a common enough sight around the Sith Sanctum. At least on the lower floors. Up where he was going, less so.
“This isn’t preparation,” he hissed. “This is foolishness. At least wait outside Thanaton’s chambers. I don’t need you slowing me down and alerting anyone.”
Ashara stared up at the massive edifice of the Sith Sanctum. “Sure is big enough. Bigger than the Senate Chambers on Coruscant.”
“Shh,” he said. “Come on, then.” Her touristic curiosity was only to be expected, even if he couldn’t let her indulge in it. He wondered if she were the first Jedi to set foot on Dromund Kaas. If Aristheron had brought Janelle here at any point, if other Jedi had ever come here under any pretext in history – besides as prisoners or slaves, which he’d fully believe had happened.
They really shouldn’t have come. They couldn’t help against Thanaton, and he had no intention of engaging the guards, so there really was absolutely nothing for them to do besides wait in the closest available common area, which was probably not so close, given how Thanaton’s private sanctum was even higher and further back than the rest of his chambers. None of them had been there before except for Khem and Zash. This wasn’t helpful at all. This was distracting.
He left them in the common area he’d picked out, blessedly free of other occupants for the moment, changed his boots from the rain-soaked outdoors ones to the stealth-soled ones he’d ordered for this occasion, told his companions vehemently to stay put, and sneaked down the corridor before they could get any funny ideas. Ashara looked like she wanted to say something, but he didn’t wait for her. She had already told him to be careful back on the ship. He pulled the Force around him like a shroud, and once out of sight of anyone, living, droid, or camera, he found a service corridor and crept into the ventilation system.
Now he could focus. He could sense so many lives around him, so many Sith, weak and strong. And somewhere, up ahead and above, was the one that had already technically killed him once. The only one that mattered right now. Hatred stirred within him and he forced it back down under control. Thanaton couldn’t be allowed to sense him coming.
He was halted several times by security within the ventilation ducts – this was the Sith Sanctum, they weren’t stupid – but he glided over pressure sensors and confused visual sensors with the Force. He was strong enough to do it effortlessly now, perfectly, even, as long as he knew the sensors were there. He didn’t think he’d been detected.
It took longer than using the corridors and elevators, but as far as he sensed, no one had seen or heard him by the time he dropped lightly from a vent two stories up the wall into the antechamber of Thanaton’s private meditation chamber. The meditation chamber itself had ventilation ports no larger than the diameter of his skinny arm, so while he could just cut through the wall, that would be the opposite of stealthy.
Besides, he had the key, stolen by his late too-ambitious apprentices. Not that the door was locked. Thanaton probably couldn’t lock it anymore. He’d brought it anyway, just in case. As such, he’d briefly considered locking the room and gassing Thanaton, but… that wouldn’t work. Thanaton would find or make a way out, or just hold his breath for ages the way masters of the Force on both sides were said to be able to do.
He pushed the door open and let it slide silently shut behind him as he entered, crouching. There had been no guards for the inner door, though he’d sensed them for the outer door that he’d bypassed. Should he be suspicious? Or was it always like this?
The room was large enough to land the Viper in, domed with a transparisteel ceiling on which the rain poured silently, the sound unable to penetrate its thickness. Ten-metre tall statues were arranged around the perimeter of the room symmetrically, and in between them shelves of artefacts. He could see doors on the outside of the room and wondered if they led to other rooms full of artefacts, or perhaps libraries of holocrons, or what. Maybe a refresher, if Thanaton were as practical as he was.
“You think I can’t sense you?” Thanaton said from the centre of the room, sounding like a disapproving father. He was meditating, it seemed, facing away from him. Well, that was what he said the room was for. “You hide yourself very well but the ripples of your presence still… intrude.”
Murlesson stopped crouching and walked up to the edge of the central platform of the room. “I never thought you’d be surprised by my return. But it was worth a shot.”
Thanaton stood and turned to face him. “After Lord Cineratus’s death, I knew you’d be here eventually. A lesser Sith would run and hide under a sand dune. But it’s obvious you’re not a lesser Sith.”
He could feel his hatred welling up, his teeth beginning to chatter as his breath seethed. “I will kill you.”
Thanaton snorted. “I’ve faced many challenges over the years. My death is no more certain now than it was then. You are young and proud. No doubt all you see is a withered old man waiting to be crushed and succeeded. This time I will be sure to dispose of your corpse personally.”
“You won’t dispose of anything,” he rasped hoarsely. “I will never – never be a slave again! Not to you… or your Empire, your rules, your threats!”
“Slaves and Sith all die the same,” Thanaton said. “The Empire endures eternally.”
“I swear,” Murlesson roared hysterically. “I swear I will burn everything you have ever built to the ground!”
Thanaton had a slightly disbelieving smile on his face as he watched this rapid descent into raving madness. He drew his lightsaber-
-and Murlesson ripped it from his hands, forcing him backwards with a hand trembling with rage. For the first time, he unleashed the power he’d accumulated, felt it boiling up with his long-restrained hatred, so much, so much – too much-!
And for the first time, Thanaton looked alarmed. “What are you doing!? You must stop this nonsense now!” He wasn’t going to stop, not now, he was so close!
And then the whispers started. Different whispers, different people, all overlapping, blending into one hissing cacophony in his head. Don’t let him talk to you like that! He’s a treacherous snake. Cut out his fangs! Careful now. Don’t lose control. I warned you ghosts were dangerous. I warned you we were not for the weak. But you did it anyway!
He gasped for air, but whether or not he had control, the power would not be stopped. The Dark Side erupted from him, arching his back, drawing out a scream from his throat, every tendon in his body tense as a wire, every muscle straining to its limit. His hearts were pounding like they would burst, his head felt like it was going to explode. He was floating in the air, his senses somehow numbed and yet hypersensitive, a dark wind howling around the room in a tornado. Holocrons and artefacts went tumbling from the shelves, some of them smashing on the floor with sharp tinkling impacts. Lightning began to crackle down his arms, wreathing his own body. He found his eyes watering, leaking tears as he gaped at the sky through the window above.
Dimly he heard Thanaton’s shout. “What have you done? You fool! You can’t handle that kind of power! No one can!”
No, he couldn’t. But that was the point. He’d sacrifice anything – everything – to destroy Thanaton. Agony was coursing through him, unbearable torture, worse than anything he’d ever suffered at the hands of any Sith, and yet it would be worth it to obliterate Thanaton from the galaxy-! The chamber was being ripped to shreds; transparisteel from the dome was raining around him and getting picked up by the screaming wind, the statues were being knocked over, as far as he could tell the entire chamber was shaking with the violence of his strength.
Except it wasn’t his strength. He couldn’t direct it to make the final blow. He was being torn apart, body and soul, pulled in four directions at once. He howled, feeling lightning discharge from him, again and again; a violent pulse of energy blasted anything left in the chamber. He could no longer hear, see, or feel…
With one final burst, it was over, and the power left him. He fell to the ground, landing on his feet but tripping immediately over the crater that had formed beneath him in his storm and falling heavily to the ground. He was spent, utterly, too weak to lift a finger. It was raining on his face and he couldn’t stop it.
All he could manage was a whisper. “What just happened? Where’s Thanaton?” He couldn’t sense him anymore.
Who was he talking to? The voices in his head?
But they answered. And now he began to recognize their voices.
Darth Andru, whom he’d bound to complete Thanaton’s trial: You’re dying, little snake. Don’t struggle. It’ll only prolong the agony.
Lord Ergast, the one he had bound first to test his abilities: One thing they never tell you about Force-binding: you should never, ever, bind more than one ghost at a time. Or else, well, you’ll see.
He snarled, weak as a sick manka kitten. “Shut up! I need to think…”
Horak-Mul, from Hoth: He wants to think! He should have thought before he grasped for power beyond his abilities!
He hadn’t known the name of the last one, Ashara’s ancestor, but the name floated into his consciousness now: Kalatosh: We had no choice but to serve you before. But now, we can finally have some… fun.
“No,” he moaned, as these suddenly-clear presences pressed in on his mind, falling into black despair… and physical darkness.
Ashara looked up. “Gosh. Do you feel that?”
“No… yes,” Talos said, touching the wall with alarm. It was vibrating. She hadn’t even meant that, had reflexively reacted to the sensations reaching her in the Force, but… yeah, that too! “Is that… Is that the fight? Is it causing that?”
She knew her eyes were wide with fear. Fear is of the Dark Side… but if I centre myself in the Light, they’ll sense me… “Yes, they’re fighting. I can feel them from here. He’s… He doesn’t have control.” But power, so much power, like a great black star, burning through the Force like a furious beacon.
“Weird, usually he’s good on control,” Andronikos said. “Meeting his arch-nemesis must have really shaken those screws looser.”
<He should not have left us behind! Little foolish Sith,> Khem growled. She was getting better at understanding his speech, although the easiest words to understand were still ‘fool’ and ‘Sith’, because he used those so often. Also things like ‘devour’ and ‘kill’. She almost liked talking to Zash better, except something about Zash made her even more uneasy, despite her friendliness and passion for history and Basic conversational skills.
“You’re right,” she said. “We need to go to him, now.”
“Through Thanaton’s security?” Andronikos grumbled. “Ah, well, they’ll be freaking out at the same time anyway. Maybe we can take advantage of the confusion.”
“Exactly! Let’s go, quickly.” The metaphysical storm was rising in a crescendo of something that sounded very much like inaudible screaming. He was in torment, and she needed to get there, needed to stop it, immediately.
The corridors were full of people running; they blended right in and no one stopped them to ask who they were. The storm ended with one final piercing shriek. Were they too late? She led the way, since she could sense where he was, up stairs and down halls, until they came to a door that had been blown open by some catastrophic force. All was quiet, and she could barely sense him now, just a huge brooding black mess that didn’t feel… right.
Andronikos swore in Rodian – at least, she thought it was Rodian, none of her friends ever used those words – as she squeezed her way past the wreckage and into the no-longer-domed chamber. “What a mess. This is what Sith do when they’re mad?”
She was picking her way over shattered transparisteel and fallen statues towards the still body in the middle of the room. “Yup. But I think there’s something more than that.” There was only one body, and the red hair gave it away as his; where was Thanaton’s? She couldn’t sense him. Was he dead, or did he get away?
“Too… many ghosts?” Talos offered as they followed her. “He was stronger than Thanaton, but it was too much for someone of his relative youth and inexperience to handle?”
“He always seemed so in control,” she said mournfully, kneeling beside him. He was breathing… barely, but something still didn’t feel right about him. What had that explosion shattered in his soul? He was lying in a crater impacted into the durasteel flooring, getting soaked from the rain coming in through the broken window overhead, his robes slashed all to bits – but not burned, so Thanaton hadn’t attacked him with his lightsaber. There were burn marks dotted across the walls, most of them still smoking; lightning strikes?
“Heads up, we got company,” Andronikos said grimly, drawing his blaster.
She spun, diving back in front of the two blaster-wielding humans as Khem lumbered forward with his broadsword. Soldiers, led by a short, cybernetically-enhanced human Sith, rushed into the wrecked room, already shooting. “You there! Trespassers! Assassins!”
“I’ll jam their communications!” Talos said. Good thinking, she wouldn’t have remembered that.
She really wanted to fight this Sith! She was the best duellist in her class, and she’d only been getting better travelling with Murlesson! But she was the only one with blaster bolt-deflecting powers, and there was no cover for anyone else besides tiny pieces of statue, so she was going to have to settle into Soresu and do it quickly and well. “Khem, I can’t…”
<I will devour this little fool,> Khem announced, engaging the Sith in combat with a roar. Well, that was a weight off her mind, and now she could focus on being the shield for her friends while they took out the others. Maybe she could even bounce a few bolts back towards their enemies, but there were so many she had her hands full just protecting!
She didn’t have Murlesson’s head for planning and coming up with clever things in the middle of combat. If only he were awake… But she couldn’t just rely on him for everything! For once, he needed her, really needed her, and she would take care of him with all she had. He respected her strengths, so she would respect herself too.
The Sith’s face turned shocked, then enraged. “You- Jedi! So he truly was a traitor, far worse than even Darth Thanaton believed!”
She didn’t have the concentration to retort. She knew she was far-too-clearly showing her true colours, but she didn’t have the capacity to fight at her full strength and hide her aura, given she barely had an idea how to hide her aura to begin with! Something that bugged Murlesson; he was always giving her a hard time about it. But she was bad at hiding things, bad at hiding herself.
All that was secondary right now. There were too many blaster bolts aiming at her, and she was having trouble getting all of them. She only had two arms, two lightsabers! She had to flip out of the way of some, and that meant Andronikos and Talos had to duck behind a fallen statue – that wasn’t cover, unless you were practically lying down! But they were at least giving enough covering fire that the attacking soldiers were forced to take their own cover in the ruined doorway.
There is no chaos, there is harmony. She was relaxing into the Force, feeling it flow through her, becoming its instrument of protection. It was the same feeling as when she’d protected Murlesson’s cult, as when she’d protected Murlesson on that Zeltronian space station, as when she’d protected Talos on Hoth.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, felt Darkness approaching, and the Sith who had been fighting Khem, small and quick and wielding a double-bladed saber, came darting around Khem and towards her. She could not fight him and deflect lasers at the same time! There wasn’t a good cross between Soresu and Djem So! And Ataru, her best form, was straight out in this situation! “There is no chaos, there is harmony,” she breathed, quelling the panic inside, catching her attacker’s saber on both of hers. Thank the Force Murlesson fought with a double-bladed lightsaber, so she had some experience, even if this guy was better technically.
He was so much better than Murlesson, technically speaking, she started wondering if he was better than her. No way! She wasn’t going to let him down now!
“What business does a Jedi have with a Sith?” hissed her opponent. Khem charged back into the fray, and he still wasn’t slowing down, taking them both on at once. “You will never leave to take back word to your filthy Republic.”
“None of your business!” she retorted, trying to shift over to Ataru anyway and praying that she wouldn’t get shot in the meantime. Hoping Andronikos and Talos could shield her now, knowing it wasn’t nearly as effective as a lightsaber.
“Your feelings for him are strong. So close to falling…”
“Nope!” Falling for Murlesson, yeah sure. Falling to the Dark Side, he could forget it! Finally, she managed to lunge forwards, put him on the back foot for a half second.
“You lie to yourself at your own peril,” hissed the Sith, Force-pushing Khem away and locking blades with her, driving her back a step with sheer intensity.
“You’re not my teacher, you can’t lecture me!” Ashara said, resisting the pressure with her feet braced on the warped floor. Okay, great, now stop rising to his bait. Anything he could possibly say, you already know. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. The Force filled her, bright, tinged with gold and blue, and she broke the saber lock, pushing forward with renewed determination. This was dangerous, so dangerous for so many reasons, and she didn’t think of any of them as she twirled her sabers, swinging one after the other. His reflexes were better than a normal human’s, with his cybernetic implants and all, but the Force was with her just as much as it was with him.
Khem had recovered, and was attacking this guy in the back again; the Sith sidestepped to keep them both in view. She was picking up speed now, determined to overwhelm even his cybernetic reflexes; left saber, right saber, right saber again; he was barely keeping up with both of them now, Darkness growing in him with an angry growl-
She lunged again with her off-saber, an unconventional move that Master Ocera had been fond of when he was teaching her advanced techniques – she connected, driving her saber through his chest, no further than full extension. No time to see how badly he was hurt, she withdrew and immediately attacked again – there wasn’t any predicting what a partially injured Sith could do with his last strength and she didn’t want to lose a hand from being careless.
But she didn’t have to, because Khem swung and took off his head.
<You both talk too much,> Khem growled, immediately turning away and charging at the soldiers. He took some bolts as they shifted their aim to him… ouch, that was going to take some heavy kolto to fix up.
She was right behind him, ready to take out whoever was left so they could escape unmolested. Oh my gosh, I just killed an actual Sith. I don’t suck at real combat! With help, of course.
It was only a minute; two of the soldiers tried to run, and Khem ran faster. She winced at the bone-snapping noises and sheathed her lightsabers, hurrying back into the big chamber. “Quick, let’s get him out of here before more come,” she cried. Even if Talos had managed to jam their communications, one of them might have run for help while they weren’t looking. “There isn’t anything we could use as a stretcher, is there?”
“Can’t you carry him with your mind?” Andronikos said, wiggling his fingers at her in a parody of Force mnemonics.
She made an unhappy face. “I am the worst at telekinesis. I can’t even move little rocks, let alone big ones. I mean, I can… I can try.” There was no try, but she would fail to do, based on past performances… Negativity was the prelude to failure, of self-fulfilling prophecies, but she really couldn’t promise anything! She reached out her hand, straining, trying so hard to manipulate the Force to move instead of feel, to wrap around him and move him into the air, and he barely twitched.
But he did twitch. Was she getting better?
“Huh, guess you’re right,” Andronikos said. “He makes it look so easy, sometimes it’s easy to forget not all you mystical warrior weirdos are the same. Well, c’mon, Drellik, we’ll take care of it.”
“Right, yes. Shall I get his legs?”
His sense in the Force was still smouldering, and that she didn’t know how to deal with either. They couldn’t leave with him feeling like this, every Sith they passed would notice as they left.
<Are you done waiting for reinforcements to arrive?> Khem growled, finishing his examination of his wounds. He didn’t seem to be in noticeable pain, but he must have been. <These are Thanaton’s chambers, but that won’t stop the Dark Council from investigating a disturbance this great. Especially when he goes to whine to them.> She didn’t catch all of that, but enough that she understood Khem didn’t want to fight the Dark Council. She could get on board with that.
“He has a point,” Andronikos said, grunting as he hauled under Murlesson’s armpits. Her friend’s red head lolled limp on his chest. If only she had some skill in manipulating the metaphysical… Sometimes, she was pretty sure, when Murlesson didn’t want to be noticed by other Force users, he made his aura really small and diffuse – how he could do that with so much power crammed up inside him, she didn’t know – but also he did it for the people around him, like her, somehow, maybe not even consciously.
“Just a moment,” she said, and touched his face, using her physical touch as a mnemonic to try and blanket her suggestion over his bleeding black mess of an aura. And to her surprise, it worked. The Force quieted around him, still dark, still intense and wrong, but no longer a giant oozing spot. It wouldn’t be permanent, but it would let them get out of there, while she was touching him.
Maybe she just needed to try touching things to direct the Force to help her. She closed her eyes and asked it to lift the unconscious man she touched, and slowly, he began to float upwards, taking some of the weight from both Andronikos and Talos.
She buried the twinge of frustration – why hadn’t Master Ryen suggested trying that before? Had it been so important that she do things exactly like the other Padawans right from the start? – and nodded to the others. “Seems I can help more after all.”
“Wonderful!” Talos said. “That’s a big help.”
“Now let’s go before we get swarmed by every Sith in the building,” Andronikos said.
They walked out, and though the corridors were full of alarmed-looking guards and grim-looking Sith, no one stopped or questioned them before they made it to the taxi speeder stand. The Force was with them in a big way, after the way things had gone just a short while ago.
Geez, Murlesson didn’t belong on either side, how long was it going to take people to notice? It was kind of sad. Too Dark for the Republic in general, and hanging out with her was clearly making him suspect in the Empire among basically everyone besides Aristheron. Who was a cool guy, she hoped he did well. But maybe things would be easier for Murlesson if she wasn’t there…
But she’d helped, hadn’t she? He wouldn’t have made it out if she hadn’t been there, and that wasn’t ego talking. So she should stay out of the way when political stuff was happening so no one noticed the Sith Lord had a Jedi girlfriend and started jumping to silly conclusions that could get him hurt. She wasn’t leaving his side for anything else than that.
Awareness filtered back in fits and starts. The first thing he became aware of was agony. His whole body was on fire with an ache that would have made him gasp and moan if he had the energy to move.
The next thing was the whispering, like some people were having a distant discussion about him and were enjoying it way too much.
Other things came in: his heartbeats, thudding away far too loudly in his ears; his breath, shallow and raspy; the softness under his hands and body that told him he was in his bed; the presences nearby, of his whole crew, in his room, watching him. They’re watching you, boy, isn’t that nice? What loyal pets you made.
He groaned painfully, using all his effort, it felt like, to crack open his eyes. Which brought a new level of migraine and he shut them again with another grunt. The whispering got louder. Can’t handle the light, hahaha. Pathetic. He needs to stay away from my granddaughter. Or turn her properly, wouldn’t that be better, Kalatosh? Mmmm, yes.
Revel was stooping over him, he could sense. “Kid! Back in the land of the living. Easy now.”
“Everything’s all right,” Ashara said soothingly, and he felt her hand on his. “We’re on the Viper, and we’re in hyperspace, heading for Alderaan. I’ll explain later. Just rest, okay? We’ll take care of everything.”
“You overextended yourself,” Zash’s voice warbled from further away. “The ghosts’ power was too much for your body to adapt to so quickly. And that’s not to mention the little chats you’ve been having in your sleep. Let me guess, the ghosts?”
He whispered desperately. “They won’t be quiet. They were quiet before. Why won’t they be quiet!?” Hahaha, how he begs.
“Whatever the cause, you look dire,” Drellik said sympathetically. “And Thanaton will take advantage unless we find a cure quickly.”
“Give me some time to do more research,” Zash said. “Ashara has been helping me. Holocrons are impossible these days.”
He made some incomprehensible muttering noise and faded away again in murky pain.