Acala, Part I

Posted on Mon Jul 8th, 2019 @ 1:57am by Amare
Edited on on Mon Jul 8th, 2019 @ 1:44pm

1,800 words; about a 9 minute read

Chapter: Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Irrikut (?)
Timeline: Follows "Under the Hammer", but before "The Outside"

OLD

"Never have I set eyes upon the same face twice, since the betrayal of my kin," Hazzarah continued, contemplatively, his gaze cast down upon the unconscious forms of the three aliens stood before him, their visages immaculate compared to their battered physical forms. "Na-hah ur su ka-haat. Su ka haru aat."

With no further comment from any of them, Hazzarah slammed his hands together in an almighty clap, and the world dissolved.

NEW

All became black, and the universe fell silent save for a lone faint whisper drifting far above in the night…

“Mother is here…”

The words echoed and trickled down to but a faint gust of wind leaving nothing but emptiness and soundlessness. A birth and a death. The fall of one, the rise of another…

“Is this what you want, girl?”

It was Thane…no, it was much more than that.

“Is this what you think it means to be a Sith?!”

Zaracoda awoke with a gasp, jostled awake by him.

“Thane…?” Coda called out. She was still on her knees just as she was when King Hazzarah revealed the Heart of Typhojem, only now she could see nothing at all. She thought her natural low-light vision would help her adapt, but wherever the Sith had sent her, it was entirely devoid of light. The simulated white floor from the Mind Prison had been replaced with the reality of ground that was uneven, cold, and damp. It felt familiar, and there was something about the air around her. It was nostalgic, it was…

“Irrikut,” the Nautolan whispered to herself. “How can this be? It’s not possible.” A cold feeling of dread, as if something was sneaking up to her, threatened to completely dominate her senses. She cried out, “Master? Bomoor? Are you out there? Can anyone hear me?! Please don’t leave me alone again. I can’t live with being alone ever again…”

“You are never alone…”

A loud whisper beckoned to her from behind. Coda’s hands went to her sides for her lightsabers, but she felt nothing clipped to her belt. She reached around and checked the circumference of the girdle, but it became apparent to her that she was unarmed.

“Wh-who are you?” she asked backing away from the direction from whence the voice came.

“A truthteller,” the whisper became a woman’s voice, a voice which was identical to Coda’s, yet a touch deeper, and more mature. “We met once before.”

Coda paused, and déjà vu came over her. She recognized the person as being the dark one from the hidden cave she found months ago during her first sojourn on Irrikut. “…We are…Zara?” she said as a question seeking confirmation, but the dark lady held her tongue, as if awaiting the remainder of her identity. “And…we’re two faces of the same coin. A past, and a--”

“Future,” the dark one affirmed with pleasure in her voice. “Good. You still remember, but that is just the beginning.”

“Are you…real?” Coda asked, halting her backwards pace. “I don’t mean to insult, but I was on Korriban just now, and—”

“I know,” the dark one cut in just as a blood-orange lightsaber blade shrieked to life to the side angled at the ground. It illuminated the craggy pock-marked cavern floor, its faint sheet of moisture glistening under the newborn source of fatal light.

Struck with renewed fear, Coda could see the right black boot of the weapon’s owner. The lightsaber’s metallic hilt could barely be seen, but at its center was a visible narrow square-shaped window that revealed the Force crystal within which powered the blade.

“I know everything about you,” the dark lady continued as she took a slow, calculated half-step forward. “That is why I am here. I was the voice in the desert that guided you when Serus left you to rot. I was the one that offered you a choice when you felt betrayed by Nakomo. I was the one who kept you alive when your so-called ‘master’ threw you about the Massassi temple like a child abusing one of his playthings. And it was my influence that kept that last heart beating long enough for you to reach Archonus' blood pool. You, who would call yourself Sith, are unworthy of the title, the legacy, and the power.”

An all-too-familiar scarlet flame roared into existence from the shadowy woman’s left hand, its fire as bright and intense as the molten fire in a steel foundry. It became quite clear whom Coda was facing as the dark one’s Nautolan features were unmasked. She could now see the ashen blue face that was her’s, only a bit older; the dark outfit, shoulders and collar bones bare and smooth and muscular under the light, a red obi belt wrapped around her thin waist; her back mantled with a billowing red cape made of a material that appeared expensive and delicate. Within seconds, as the flames kicked up higher, they graduated from red, to orange, to near-white, and then took on a roiling blue-green hue.

Coda attempted to answer with power in kind, but there was nothing emitting from her own left hand, not even the slightest glimmer of a spark. She thrusted with her right hand to attempt a telekinetic push, but she was as powerless as she was when under the influence of the ysalamiri on the Red Raptor. She resumed backing off.

“Stay away from me!” Coda raised her voice at her darker half. “I know who you are, Amare! I will never give in to you or the dark side.”

“Good, resist me then,” Amare shot back with a devilish smile as she quickened her approach. “Or run. That is the choice I offer you now.” She raised her blade to strike.

Coda leaped back, narrowly avoiding the first overhead slash, then jumped back further away from the follow-up thrust which managed to very lightly singe the side of her left arm as she turned to full retreat.

She cried in pain and reached across to grip the wound with her right hand as she hastily sprinted as fast as her legs would allow. She must have been faster than she thought because the heavy pursuing footfalls behind her quickly faded in just a handful of seconds. Nevertheless, through the coal black gloom, she kept pressing forward, knowing that anywhere was preferable than in the presence of a side of her that she had grown to loathe in such ways words could not describe. She stumbled, took a hard fall to her knees, and scrambled to regain her traction. Forward…she just needed to keep heading—

Down…

What was a steady and mostly flat passage had instantly dropped to a slope down which she tumbled and rolled end over end. Sharp kernels of jagged rock slashed and sundered slender shreds of blue flesh, head tendrils whipping about as each bounce threatened to break the small frame of her body. When she reached the bottom, she rolled and settled to a stop face-face. She could smell blood under her face, and the putrid aroma of other nasal searing chemicals. She groaned under the intense burden of pain, and looked up in time to see the beacon of raging teal fire and the grim near-red beam of the lightsaber blade.

Coda forced herself to get back to her feet, but she yelped out from the sharp sting of pain that lanced through her from somewhere in her left ankle. It wasn’t broken, but she couldn’t put much weight on it without drawing further agony.

High above, Amare extinguished her intimidating blaze, and leaped from the ledge of the slope, arms spread out at her sides, lightsaber primed for an aerial strike. Coda could hardly believe it, but Amare was somehow gliding down at an unnatural rate of descent, as if the Force had given her invisible wings with which to control her own falling momentum and angle of approach.

“No! Stop this!” Coda shouted through heavy breaths as she turned and started limping away, barely seconds before Amare cleaved the air behind her.

“You can’t hide from yourself forever!” Amare called out to her. “Think of what we could accomplish as one united being! We fought as one when Archonus attacked us on Korriban. Don’t you remember the feeling of power you felt there? Goddess, we were so strong then! The azoth is more than just some strange liquid you absorbed from an old tomb; it is the foundation that will shape our future. My future!”

“I’ll never join you!” Coda defiantly shouted back over her shoulder as she limped and stumbled onwards as her eyes were filtering in signs of light that gradually made her path clearer. “I’d sooner shoot myself in the head than trust a word you say!”

“I have no need of your trust,” Amare remarked cooly. “I only require your submission. Give yourself to the dark side. Only then will you understand your true purpose.”

In an instant, the air behind Coda shifted and cracked almost akin to a bullwhip sending a blast of telekinetic force at her back, knocking her off her feet, and tumbling further onwards more than twenty feet as she came to a motionless stop on her back.

Far above, there was a column of illumination from a break in the cavern ceiling creating a bright penumbra of light that cut a fine wound of dawn into the perpetual dark. Such was the light that from where Coda lay, she could see what looked like human-shaped silhouettes, the whole of their appearance black as soot and smoky like embers. They all stood motionless over her, no visible faces, or distinguishing features, each bent forward to gaze down upon her. Coda tried to push away from them, and they gave no chase as she scrambled to get back onto her feet.

Just as she had expected Amare to have caught up with her, she instead found a long glowing metallic edge held up next to the side of her neck. There was faint, barely perceptible ringing from the blade, as if it were whining from being held back from tasting fresh warm flesh.

“Hey, kiddo,” said the deep voice of a man behind her. Slowly and cautiously, Coda turned and saw his face—his real face—for the first time, but by the sound of his voice, she knew exactly whom it was.

“Shadrak?!”

“How wonderful it is to see you again. Miss me?” His laughter was diabolical as he raised the sword for a killing blow.

TBC

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