Jedi No More

Posted on Fri Aug 19th, 2022 @ 1:31am by Rusasha Djehuti-Lahan & Amare

2,649 words; about a 13 minute read

Chapter: Chapter VI: The Last Bastion
Location: Corellian YB-series Light Freighter; Jedi secret hangar, Coruscant
Timeline: Follows "Oath of Enmity"

OLD

Their lightsabers locked, and Ru could feel remarkable strength behind the single blade assaulting her, about as distinctively green as her own. The light of the green blades revealed a sole hand on what looked to be nothing more than a shoto, a weapon meant to be used defensively, not for actual attack. Ru, with both hands on her saber's hilt, was struggling against her attacker's single hand, and was gradually being overpowered. As the bind of the crossed blades began to push closer and closer to Ru's face, her weakness forced her down to one knee just as the visage of her attacker leaned into view. To Ru's horror, she bore witness to a sneering Nautolan's face bathed in chartreuse plasma light flanked by two tentacles dangling from her head. The large eyes emblematic of the species were undeniably alight in a dim glow of scarlet red whilst reflecting the green lightsabers like a pair of watery mirrors.

"Jedi..." the assassin hissed in a soft feminine voice and diabolical tone filled with pure unbridled enmity, "...you die!"

NEW

Rusasha had never faced such intense aggression involving lightsabers in her life. The Nautolan female was surprisingly strong, gradually pressing Ru’s two-handed lightsaber block down with only one hand on a short-blade shoto. The plasma swords sparked and crackled loudly and generated an almost blinding font of flickering orange-white at their mutual point of contact. As the young Cathar woman felt herself on the cusp of losing the struggle, her blue aggressor revealed her heretofore hidden left hand which she then clenched into a tight fist. Ru had suspected the Nautolan was going to brazenly attempt to punch her in the face, but instead the fist was in fact a gesture of summoning grotesque dark power. It became engulfed with an unholy scarlet energy that resembled the flames of a torch. However, rather than radiating heat, it instead “burned” with an impure fuel made of fear, rage, and despair, both from that of its user and its intended victim.

Rusasha’s eyes grew wide with terror as they reflected what was the manifestation of the sum of all Jedi fears: the dark side of the Force.

“Before I end you,” the Nautolan exclaimed, her voice barely audible enough to be heard over the noise of the lightsaber lock, “know that you are the first of your Order to be slain by Amare, Dark Lady of the Sith!”

Sith?!, Rusasha thought as her fear was compounded with shock and confusion.

As Amare moved her flame-engulfed hand to begin draining Rusasha’s essence, the latter felt her soul slip into a terrible pit of darkness, alone, tortured, and feeling utterly forgotten. She began to experience a waking dream that seemed to make reality grind to a complete halt and trap her within her internalized isolation. It was as if she had been cast into a dungeon of her own making with no food, water, or hope. This part of her felt cold, alone, humiliated, and almost entirely dead. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear those locked lightsabers crackling, but what was closer to her were the voices all around her that persecuted her very existence.

”Let it go, Rusha…you’re probably just not fit to be a Jedi like us…”

“No…” Rusasha cried into the dark abyss churning beyond her spiritual prison cell, “…it’s not true.”

“Yes it is. Face it, some of us are born with talent, and others are not. Maybe you should consider yourself one of the latter and find a more routine and peaceful place in the AgriCorps…”

“I thought you were my friend!” Ru shot back with a hard smack of her fist on the cell bars. “How could you say such things to me? After everything we’ve done for each other?!”

“You couldn’t save them, padawan,” came another voice, “Your attachment to them became your weakness and you let those good Jedi lose their lives to save yourself. Isn’t that right…?”

“I tried to save them, Master Quellus!” She shouted into the empty gloom with another pounding on the metal bars. “I was outnumbered and alone. I couldn’t protect my friends without getting myself killed. I would rather they were safe and alive than me…”

“Know this, Rusasha…were it not for my trust and faith in your father's wisdom and Loren’s generous support, you would never have become a Knight this day. I believe the Force will soon guide Rynseh to understanding this and he will deal with you appropriately as any good father should with bad progeny.”

Rusasha slammed both fists against the bars with a scream and sobs, her rage building towards a state of madness.

“Were it not for you...” came the final voice, that of her father, Rynseh, “…your mother would be alive today. I sometimes pray to the Force that I may be granted the power to trade your life away to bring her back, and would that power be mine to wield, I would use it without hesitation…”

Rusasha stumbled back away from the bars, locked in pain, regret, and...

...Caanus. No longer in the prison, she saw that strange world all around her again, only this time it was a nightmare. Every home was razed to the ground and every edifice was demolished. The skies were no longer a rich eye-pleasing purple, but rather a stormy haze of grayish blue and black, and cream white light was shining from above as if the star of Thaal itself was made of glowing bonemeal. When she turned behind her, she bore witness to vast multitudes of Caanan corpses littered and torn limb from limb in bloody heaps of flesh at the open gates to Vuul Manor. Citizens, soldiers, and even Skaals alike were treated with equal barbarism, some ripe with maggot-filled rot as their flesh served as easy food for the scavengers. Almost as disturbing were shattered pieces of those strange green crystals she found in Vuul’s dungeons scattered all about, the very evidence linking Vuul to possible nefarious deeds that had mysteriously gone missing by the time she had returned to Coruscant.

Ahead, Rusasha saw a figure in a black cloak, but the face could not be seen from under the hood. When it saw that it had Ru’s attention, it turned and walked away back into the residence, but not before casually dropping a severed head in its wake; the head of Vuul himself. It was then that Ru heard a weak moan of pain from a familiar voice nearby. She found him and fell to her knees at his side.

“Haschel?” she asked her Ranat friend. “What happened here?” She was astonished to see that while she recognized his usual face, he was now dressed in torn purple robes, as if he were a Jedi, and there was even a shoto-sized lightsaber on the ground that had rolled off his open bloodied hand. His robe had displayed some kind of heraldry on it; a small crest she did not recognize. “Oh no...you’re wounded! Let me help you.”

“M-magic kitty...m-master...” Haschel breathed softly, each word spoken with tiny bits of blood-tinged spittle. “Haschel...hero?”

“Yes,” Rusasha said through a sob with tears flowing from her eyes, striving to show him a smile, proud that he appeared to have fought the good fight. She was astonished and befuddled as to why he called her “master”. She had felt something different about him after they first met, but was it possible that the Force was strong in him all along? “Yes, my friend. You are a hero.”

“This...this...is...good...” Haschel said as his life in this nightmarish realm came to a bitter close. The Cathar closed the Ranat’s eyes, placed a hand on his shoulder as a gesture of respect, clenched her eyes shut and put her other hand to her face to give in to her weeping despair.

“Fufufufu...”

Ru lowered her hand, took in several breaths, and slowly turned to see the one mocking her in hushed laughter.

“You really are weak, aren’t you?” It was the one in the dark robes again, only this time, a pair of blue lekku were showing and the neckline was unbuttoned down to just above the bust line where a bit of feminine cleavage could be seen. The voice, however, was even more recognizable and distinct than the creature’s physical appearance.

“Amare,” Rusasha responded with antipathy in her tone and narrowed eyes still wet with tears as she rose to her feet.

“I am her, and so much more,” the dark one affirmed as she removed her hood to reveal her soft and youthful Nautolan face. Her eyes were aglow with roiling embers of inner orange-red light, and her forehead was adorned with a gold electrum circlet that dipped slightly into a “V” shape in the middle, as if she were a royal princess of Glee Anselm, “I can even be you if you would let me. I could show you the possibilities of existence the likes of which you could never imagine.”

“Who are you really, and what have you done to these people, and this place?” Rusasha furiously demanded to know, her instincts alarming her enough to suspect that it wasn't the Amare she was fighting on the Corellian freighter.

“I have done nothing but watch as creatures have abused and took for granted all that I have given them,” Amare answered. “All that I have given...you.”

“What is this nonsense?!” Rusasha shouted in frustration. “Given what to them. To me? Do not mock me, evil one!”

“I tried to save them, master!” the dark one replied in a perfect replica of Rusasha’s voice. “I couldn’t protect my friends without getting myself killed, master!” Amare then burst into a fit of laughter in her own voice.

Rusasha responded with her fists balling up at her sides. Amare saw this and ceased her jovial mockery.

“Oh yes, good...that is the way,” she said approvingly. “Do not suppress your feelings. You are a woman of deep and powerful emotions. Many males throughout the galaxy would look upon you and say that you’re just another weak girl throwing a fit after being teased by a big bad bully, but I say that is the basis of true strength. Look up into the sky. Somewhere out there is you in a dead scoundrel’s starship, about to meet your own end, mere seconds away from failing so completely before you even had a chance to taste your true potential.”

One of Rusasha’s pointed ears twitched and she could hear the lightsabers again far in the distance.

“What have you done to Caanus?” she pressed the darkness before her.

“Nothing...unless that which I grant is used in such a way,” Amare replied calmly as she began to move towards Ru. “Consider your little Ranat friend there. Vermin to society, barely more than a furry beast, like yourself, but among all his wasteful kind, he is the only Ranat in all the galaxy with the potential to evolve beyond what he is. I gave him his spark because I knew he would meet you. Did you know he watched you from the crowd as Vuul’s men escorted you back to your ship? He followed you all the way there, scared and concerned...for you, even at the risk of his own life. Do you know why?”

“I...didn’t know,” Rusasha replied, ashamed she didn’t realize Haschel cared so deeply for her. “I saved his life. I earned his trust.”

“He had affection for you,” Amare clarified. “A warm and honest bond was forming between you two. Like a sister and brother...or perhaps even a master and her apprentice. You inspired and transformed him in such subtle ways. Your bond made him loyal to a fault, and had you trusted your feelings, you could have discovered his talents and taught him the ways of the Force. But instead, you did what I would have done: you used him, and you left him behind to return to his old life of wallowing in his squalor.”

“No! It was not my intention to—”

“You did what you had to do, Rusasha,” Amare assured her with a voice of empathy. “Survival is the great test of life.” She strode past Ru towards the corpses and gestured out to them. “The Sith have returned as a response to that test, not merely to conquer, but to survive so that they may save others from this. As they endure their birthing pains and trials, the new Sith will mature and rise to find themselves changed...evolved. Is that not what you want? To prove that you can be so much more? Not to your ungrateful father or Master Sotah or any of the Jedi...but to yourself?”

Amare stalked around Rusasha as she spoke, and when she came back into view, she had morphed into the very likeness of Rusasha herself, only her eyes were not green, but shining in gold and red, and her hair was longer, slicked back, and black as a raven.

“Like Haschel, so too can you evolve and become so much more,” the dark Ru said almost seductively in Ru’s own voice. “That is, unless you still think you’re a Jedi.”

Rusasha herself was not startled by the new mirrored appearance of herself, but was in fact in awe of those golden eyes, almost enamoured by them. It was a profound temptation of her own ego at play, an indulgence she had never before considered. It was, however, quite true that she was at her weakest, and she desperately needed help.

“I...I have been banished from the Order,” Rusasha said dejectedly, looking down and away from the temptress. “But I am no Sith, nor do I ever want to be.”

“The Sith have already been chosen, Rusha,” the mirror Cathar said using the affectionate nickname she reserved only for her closest and most intimate friends. “A master and an apprentice. You face the latter, but we can defeat her together, or at least buy you the time you need to survive the encounter.” The mirror entity took gentle hold of Ru's hands, held them as if they were close friends that knew each all their lives. “Use my knowledge, Rusha, I beg you. Know that there are other ways to grow in the Force without being Sith or Jedi, but to find them, you must first answer one question.”

“And what is that?” Rusasha asked wearily.

“Are you a Jedi no more?” the dark Rusasha asked with gleeful anticipation.

With anxious hesitation, Rusasha answered with a slow nod what she knew was the undeniable truth, “Jedi...no more,” Rusasha affirmed as the false vision of Caanus and the deeply pleased gold-eyed image of herself faded from view, and she was back in that dark prison of her own making. It was then that she heard the words again from above...

“...Know that you are the first of your Order to be slain by Amare, Dark Lady of the Sith!”

“The Sith...” Ru muttered to herself. She looked up at the bars, and a wave of determination came over her. “I don’t care what she is. I will not let myself fall. Not like this. Not now!” She reached out with both hands, then spread them apart and bent the metal bars to the left and right to open her way out. It was time to break free of her Jedi chains and regrets and fight like hell.

TBC in "Clash of Our Souls"

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