Acala, Part III

Posted on Tue Sep 10th, 2019 @ 4:01am by Amare

3,371 words; about a 17 minute read

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

OLD

“…When I’m through with you, I can take your essence and assume control of your physical body on Korriban. With your power, and your face, I can betray your friends and take the Sith relics they possess for myself. I will gain the power to enslave the Nightsisters and become the new Dark Lord of the Sith…all thanks to you. Now, be a good girl, Zara, and hold very still. Resisting me further will only make the pain last longer…”

NEW

Twenty years I’ve waited for this…

A second life finally in my grasp…

Nothing but a foolish little water-breathing imbecile in my way…

As insolent as ever, Zaracoda backed off from my approach. She was desperate and afraid, as she should’ve been. I gripped the ornate hilt of my mystic sword tighter whilst curling my lips into a satisfied smile as Zara glanced at the gathered shadows of her past kills to her left and shooting a fearful glance into the gloom from whence she came to her right. She was talking to someone…but whom? Not those shadows. Certainly not me either. Another spirit hidden from view perhaps? Did she somehow tether another disembodied soul like me? How many damned spirits has this tentacled-toad attracted to her? Was it a lingering effect of our souls having been bound together for two decades, or another random act of the Force?

The Force…if it had a face, I would spit in its eyes, slap it to the ground, and crush it to death under my heel. It knows who I am, and it knows my name…Shadrak, the one-time Marquis and heir of House du’Narshce on Thustra. Most importantly, it knows my hatred for its injustices done unto me and my family. It burned my noble house to ashes; took my lordly father from me; corrupted my mother into a Nightsister; stole my baby sister’s life too early; and stripped me of my body, my dignity, and my inheritance. That inheritance now belongs to her…to this Nautolan of all things.

By attacking Zara’s essence, I was simply trying to take back what was mine. I thought the Acala was my destined means of doing so…I was wrong. Nevertheless, I swung, and she ducked, I stabbed, and she dodged to the side with an almost dancer’s like twirl—she learned her lessons from the Twi’lek betrayer quite well. It is possible she learned even more from those ex-Jedi she traveled with. I advanced, she nimbly retreated, and I loosed my wrath upon her.

“You’ve tested my patience long enough!” I shouted as I hurled my newly restored power to toss her to the floor. I pointed my sword at her back as she tried to crawl away from me, and channeled strokes of sage green electricity along the length of the blade and shot them at her. Her screams of torment were familiar and satisfying and long overdue at my hands, but after the fifth or sixth blast, when her crawling ceased, I recalled my sister’s final scream, begging me to save her when I was powerless to do so. The memory softened my resolve.

Why, Mirele…why, dear sister, do you haunt me as I haunted Zara? Why must you impede my ambition when I am so close to triumph? Don’t you see? I have a chance to possess a physical shell again. Through her, I’ll have a chance to take revenge for both of us. Granted, a female Nautolan body is not what I would consider an ideal form to take, but Mirele, surely you sense it too? The Force is with Zara like few I have known. Even all those years watching her and her adopted family on Glee Anselm, I can remember every time she was using the Force without even knowing it. In her dreams, she had imagined herself using her powers to help people or save herself from dark formless demons born from her imagination and deepest insecurities. More often than not, she failed, and her dreams floundered into nightmares, an effect of the dark taint she carried within her since her birth. Now, she was in a new nightmare, whilst her body slept on Korriban, I was mercilessly inflicting pain on her very soul. And yet…I cannot see it through. I want to destroy her…but I can’t. You won’t let me.

I turned away from Zara, disgusted with my hesitation. I gazed down at my strange magical weapon in my hand and wondered what good was it if I couldn’t use it to smite my rival. Is she my rival? Do I truly hate her, or is it simply ambition? I was robbed of my life too soon. I deserve another chance, but…at Zara’s expense? Is it even worth all this trouble?

I’ve known her for a long time, consciously loathed her weakness and naive acts of kindness and respect, but deep down…it was touching to see a world…a family so stable, so…pure. The Wolphs were generous with Zara—perhaps too much so— bordering on spoiling her, but she had a bastard of a brother, Capo, who didn’t care that Zara was a girl, or much smaller than he was. He wasn’t evil or cruel, but he tormented and bruised her just enough to keep the little twit in check, and I recall having approved of his tough big brother methods. I believe he was most honest with his feelings towards the girl. Zara wasn’t a Wolph, after all; she was an outsider’s child thrust upon them whom they gratefully accepted having always wanted a daughter in their family. While the heads of household had the baby girl they desired, Capo was a distrusting racist, and could never see past the colour of Zara’s skin. The Wolphs were green, and Zara was blue. He also knew the truth of her parentage: Zara was the daughter of a Jedi Knight who selfishly chose that title and its responsibilities over the more important job of being a mother. I despise my own mother, head of a vile Nightsister coterie that she is, but I could not hate her nearly as much as I’d imagine Zara would (and should) if she ever learned the truth. Perhaps after I take her body and kill Thane and Bomoor, I will seek out Zenarrah Sozo, smile at her with Zara’s lips, throw those blue alien arms around her, put on the show of a Nautolan girl happy to be reunited with her long lost mother, and then plunge a lightsaber through her guts in that same joyous moment. She deserves no less.

It was in that pondering of trivialities that I heard Zara’s panting and groans of pain cease followed by some shuffling. I ignored it, trapped in my reverie, unwisely believing there was no threat from her. A sudden metallic shearing sound, as if a drawn blade grinding along the length of its scabbard was heard, and then I heard a low gasp of shock. I turned to glance over my shoulder, and I saw another Acala nearly identical to my own in Zara’s hands. She was locked in a thrusting pose with the sword as if having made the attempt to stab me in the back. The tip of the blade had stopped short of my lower back by mere millimeters. I went to turn and face her, but she lifted the blade up to my neck. Instinctively, I reclined my head back with the edge so close to beheading me, and I could with great astonishment that she indeed had the killer instinct; she was applying the strength in her muscles to commit to murder, but like my own weapon, the Acala refused to obey her.

“It seems you’re at a disadvantage, my dear,” I said as I lowered my head with a satisfied smile on my face, the motion forcing Zara’s blade to back away as my neck moved closer to it. In one quick motion, I brought up my Acala to meet her’s, slapping magic metal to metal, a vibrating twang of power rippling through the air around us, knocking her off balance as I again summon the power that has been restored to me, preparing to use my lightning to finish her off for good. However, it wasn’t meant to be so.

Rather than the slaying lance meeting the essence of the adopted Wolph, it instead met the blade of a lightsaber. Its owner who materialized in front of me was none other than yet another Nautolan female whose sudden appearance carried an incredible aura of power the likes I had never seen before. Not even the dark side presence on that Caanan moon, Vaa, was this heavy or…imperious.

“Enough!” she hissed at me.

I barely had time to catch the interloper’s cross face as a blue hand rose up, constricted my throat with the power of the Force, and tossed me over twenty feet back with great ease. I hit the ground hard, sliding several feet further back. It made no sense how that creature took me by surprise, or where she had come from, and to have such power!

“It should make no sense for you to feel anything at all, and yet here you are,” the dark Nautolan said.

What? How did she—?

“Oh please, spare me your disbelief,” she cut in. “I know your every thought, Shadrak. You can drop the silly narration in your head. You’re not as important to my story as you might think. You’re here because I wish it, and she is here because your pride overextended itself yet again. As a nobleman, you should know when to boast, and when to hold your tongue.”

“Th-thank you, madam,” Coda said gratefully to the more powerful member of her species. “Wait…weren’t you trying to kill me a few minutes ago?”

“Be silent, Zara,” the dark Nautolan said, pointing her blazing blood orange lightsaber threateningly at Coda, “or I’ll feed you to my friend.” She turned and pointed the weapon up in the direction of the deep chasm that was behind where the throng of unmoving shadows stood. “D’Taak!!!” she screamed out.

From far below, there was a loud wailing roar, as heavy flapping buffets of powerful wings pulsed and rippled as the beast slowly rose from the pitch black of the seemingly bottomless pit. Coda had recognized it almost immediately.

“No…no! This can’t be! Zenibalas?!” Coda cried. “I-I watched it die on Lorrd. I drained its essence!”

“Did I not command you to shut your mouth?” the older Nautolan reminded her with seething wrath. As she had with Shadrak, Coda found herself choking on her insolence several feet in the air, then was whirled around the blue sorceress that looked and sounded strangely like her and was brought face-to-face with the desert nightmare she had barely survived once before.

“Nhmph! Gah! No! P-please!” Coda cried through stifled breaths.

“What shall we do with her, D’Taak?” the Nautolan sorceress slyly asked the giant dragon-like monster whilst keeping the Force grip just loose enough to barely allow Coda to breathe. “Are you hungry, my pet?”

D’Taak roared its answer directly at Coda’s face. Strangely to her, Coda only felt a rush of the usual stale underground air; there was no breath of any kind coming from the beast.

“Shadrak?” the sorceress called to him.

“Huh? What do you want from me? How is it that you control such an…abomination?”

“I’m asking the questions here,” the sorceress reminded him sternly. “I want to hear your…wisdom on what we should do with Zara here. After all, you’ve known her for a long time. You know her perhaps better than anyone.”

“I…” Shadrak hesitated as he rose to his feet. “…well, I just want her gone. That is why I brought her consciousness here. I have no use for her anymore. Do as you wish.”

“Of course you would say such a thing,” the sorceress said with narrowed eyes. She then waved her hand back and pulled Coda away from D’Taak. Coda then vanished into thin air before she could fall to the ground. “That is why I shall not grant you what you seek.”

“Where did she go?” Shadrak wondered, and then sensed what happened. “No…you sent her mind back to her body on Korriban. Why did you do that?!”

“Your mother was right,” the sorceress said as she disabled her lightsaber. “You can be such an idiot sometimes. I’ve returned her to where and when she belongs. Neither of you have any business here, especially you. This place is mine, and its secrets are for me alone to procure.”

With her other hand, she reached out into the dark passage from where she had chased Coda earlier, and in seconds came a walking staff made of the hard-as-metal wood known as Brylark. The top of the staff was hollow, and when it arrived on the sorceress’ hand, she plunged her lightsaber hilt into the hole revealing the curved grip was of the exact same wood. Together, the grip and the staff had the clever appearance of being one unbroken object. The only peculiarity was that the grip had a hole near the pommel, and a metal ring hung from it for the option of clipping it to her red obi at her waist.

Shadrak was skeptical at first, but he narrowed his eyes at the Nautolan woman and put the pieces together. “…Coda? Is that…you? How is this possible? You were just—”

“The one I sent back to face her destiny is…was me, obviously,” the spellcaster interjected almost incredulously. She started her way towards Shadrak, a barely noticeable limp in her stride with the staff being used to steady herself. “How can you be so dense? I know my skin colour isn’t what it once was, and my eyes are red now, but I know my voice hasn’t changed much at all.”

“It does sound a bit…deeper,” Shadrak commented right before he found himself being dragged forward, his boot heels grinding along the stone floor, and came to a stop with one hand on the scruff of his shirt collar.

“Kneel before me,” the Nautolan demanded to his face in a low and deeply vexed voice, and then threw him to the ground at her feet. D’Taak, still hovering nearby, roared at the Sephi warlock to drive home the point; it quickly had the intended effect.

“The one you knew as Coda has been destroyed,” the sorceress explained with satisfaction of Shadrak bending the knee to her. “All there is left is…Amare.”

“Amare?” Shadrak repeated with confusion as he looked up at her. He added, muttering to himself, “Hmm, not the most inspired dark-sider name I’ve heard.”

Amare ignored his grumbling. “D’Taak, you may go now.”

In seconds, what had been a gargantuan winged serpent was now a large plume of dissolving dust and twinkling particles.

“An illusion!” Shadrak noted with awe. “I could not even tell that it was such. You were able to conceal its true nature!”

“I gained much from you,” Amare said, turning to walk to the edge of the chasm.

“You did?” Shadrak said with surprise, and perhaps a small bit of pride. “Is that…gratitude coming from you?”

“Your astral connection to me all those years evolved my natural abilities of concealment using the Force,” Amare explained. “It had other effects on me as well. Some useful, others…very unpleasant. But you’re correct, you did hear my gratitude. That is why you will do your part in advancing my cause. You may rise, Marquis du’Narshce. I have a proposal for you, from one member of the nobility to another.”

Shadrak almost scoffed that Amare, a commoner nobody from Glee Anselm would even dare consider herself a noblewoman, but his instinct to hurl an insult at her was stayed with the fear of being at a significant power disadvantage.

“You’ve clearly grown beyond my abilities, Co—erm, Amare,” he remarked. “I have no physical body, and our tether has been broken. I’m useless to you or anyone.”

“Says the wraith that helped me survive my flight to freedom on that last night on Nar Shaddaa,” Amare reminded him. “Suppose I could restore you to life, and in your original body no less. What would you say to that?”

Had it been any other person, he would have laughed in their face for the sheer absurdity of the question, but Amare was most definitely out of the ordinary. He could sense an inferno of rage barely contained deep within her mind. The Nautolan was on the verge of unleashing a terrible cyclone of dark side chaos and destruction. If this Amare was indeed Coda’s future, there was no telling what she might have learned in the intervening years. He felt a tinge of fear come over him, wondering if little naïve Zaracoda of all creatures had become the new Dark Lord of the Sith.

“You’re Sith, aren’t you?” he ventured to ask.

“So, you don’t want to be restored then?” Amare asked, losing her patience with his pointless question.

“Wait! Of course I do!” Shadrak quickly countered. “But what you’re offering takes far more than Dathomiri magic. I’ve successfully woven many dark rituals long before you were born. I summoned and commanded legions of the undead against other Nightsister clans on my mother’s behalf. In all that time, I knew that my spells and the spirit ichor were never enough to completely restore a soul and its deceased body back to the living. That level of power requires such a mastery of the dark side which only a true Sith Lord could wield.”

Amare lowered her head slightly, her scowl growing fierce as crackles and sparks of turquoise electricity danced and coiled around her right hand.

“Okay! Alright!” Shadrak said with his hands up in surrender. “Don’t shoot. I’ll do as you demand.”

Amare nodded, and the prepared Sith lightning vanished from sight. “Good. I am sending you back to your proper place and time on Krysaor. You shall remain there in the temple and await the arrival of the ones who shall give to you what I have promised. Do not seek them out; they will find you. When that happens, you will know what to do, and destiny shall take shape.”

Before Shadrak could respond, Amare waved her hand in a dismissive motion, and the warlock vanished just as Coda did before.

Once more she stepped close to the chasm’s edge and gazed down into the deep silent void. She thought back to that time when she was on that Korriban adventure, back when Thane was still Thane, and Bomoor was still a confused Ithorian foolishly walking the thin red line between light and dark, tipping more and more towards the latter. For all she had grown since then, she missed those times. She missed the journey, the struggles, the revelations, the coping, the hard losses, and…the bonding. It all seemed so much simpler then.

And then it dawned on her, a lesson she discovered from a Jedi holocron: “The future is ever-changing, always in flux.”

In that moment of recognition, she willfully stepped over the edge and fell into the gloom…

…Somewhere, far away from Irrikut, in another place and time, Amare awoke within the bright glowing blue fluid-filled shell of her own making. She was alone within the embrace of her mystical chrysalis, her vision of one possible future having come to its end.

Elsewhere, in an even earlier time on Korriban...

"NO!!!" Zaracoda screamed as if suddenly bursting awake from a horrible nightmare.


END and TBC in Chapter V: Unbound, “The Outside”

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