The Weaving Force: Chapter 60 (Patreon)

Chapter 60:

Komari Vosa

Her men circled the High Council member, even as he was getting surrounded, Plo-Koon did not move, standing still as a statue in the center of the room.

It should have been another sign of the Order's ineptitude, their stupidity.

Instead it set Komari's teeth on edge- the instinct at the back of her mind telling her this wasn't the same as the other Masters. He wasn't the same as them.

They had not been in control of their fights. She was.

Now it very much felt like the roles were reversed as she stared the Kel Dor down, his presence in the force utterly indiscernible in its strength like a river flowing underground.

"You should have brought more security for yourself." She goaded, hoping to get a rise out of the alien, but was given neither words nor expression by the Jedi Master.

The first of her captains struck, lunging at the Council member's exposed back with a thrust of his vibro-blade, only for Plo Koon to sidestep, curling back with an elbow that smashed into the Bando'Gora captain's sternum, the blue blade flashed, intercepting another attacker at his side, forcing the strike up and over Plo's head to intercept a third coming from his front before the Jedi Master moved.

He slipped out of the encirclement, like water passing around and over boulders, some of her men drawing blasters to fire only for the Jedi Master's speed to increase suddenly and Komari's eyes widened before her arms moved, blades snapping to life as suddenly she found herself under attack!

The Kel Dor shifted, placing her back to her own men, using her as a living shield from their blasters as his blade flashed, so fast and so powerful she felt as though she was fending off three fighters, not just one!

She dug in her heel, trying to reverse the momentum, trying to parry with a single saber when she felt she had the measure of him, only for Plo's strength to seemingly double from nowhere, knocking the blade right out of her hand and forcing her to abandon the offensive strike with her second saber as she reeled back, pulling away and just barely avoiding the tip of that deadly saber as it passed a mere inch away from her face.

As her saber clattered to the floor she tried to reach out to it with the Force only for Plo to stomp down on it physically with his foot, smoothly kicking it back behind him as he pressed his sudden advantage.

She fought with one blade, her eyes wide, panic rising, instinct and reflexes keeping her alive as the relentless onslaught felt like she was trying to fight off an ocean.

Then her men finally surged forward, each striking from a different angle only for Plo to parry them both before she could even blink, redirecting one blade and dodging past the second to keep striking at her!

She kept backing away, kept fleeing, his blade crashing against hers, over and over again. Her wrists were beginning to hurt, the sheer power behind every blow feeling impossible for someone of his size, nevermind that it seemed to be growing. Desperate, she reached again for the second blade, now far behind him, with the Force and found him too distracted or too focused to stop her, yanking the blade off the ground and pulling it towards his exposed back, tip first.

The weapon was barely a meter away when she felt her grip literally shoved off of it.

Its control fell smoothly into Plo's own, and Komari felt her eyes widen as the blade twisted mid flight. Plo turned, catching the curved hilt in his free hand, his body now spinning as the blue blade sliced off one of her captain's legs at the knee, where his armor was weakest – impossibly precise at the speeds he was moving. The red blade rose, batting aside the other captain's attempted follow up swing before the blue one came right behind the red, and decapitated him outright.

Then her last remaining sword was blocking its own twin, Plo's blue blade smoothly and seamlessly deflecting blaster fire from his flanks as he bore down on her with relentless pressure.

"I am here, and the Force came with me." The Jedi finally spoke, sheer brute strength pushing her swords ever closer to her flesh. "I need no other security than that."

(X)(X)(X)

Vizsla

The Jedi surged out of their barricade. Blades raised high, a battlecry on their lips and surging from their chests.

It was like the legends. The stories of the long lost crusades where Mandalorian and Jedi fought with unbridled zeal and fury that only the unburdened joys of battle could bring.

It should have been a glorious thing- and yet all he could feel was a mounting pressure, a dread building and building at the back of his mind that made him want to tremble in fear and run away as the Invincible Jedi marched closer through smoke and ruins.

“TAKE THIS SCHUTTA DOWN!”

He wasn’t sure who said it; who it was that mastered the fear he knew, somehow knew they were all feeling.

But whoever it was didn’t matter: the shout made them all break free of their trembling fear and finally move.

Rifles primed, blasters charged before a deluge of bolts burst out of each weapon at full auto down the length of the road towards the charging wall of Lightsabers and furious faces.

The Jedi deflected, sabers flashing, strides breaking. Some fell, others kept pushing forward.

His eyes however, were fixed squarely on her, so were most of the people behind him.

It was a living wall of plasma fire, no way she had the speed to deflect everything; it was impossible.

Apparently she agreed.

With a roar and a stomp she shook the very earth itself. A gesture of her hand tore apart the asphalt and duracrete, yanking a slab of solid stone up to be her shield as their bolts pelted the stonework like multi-colored rain.

They didn’t get much warning before that slab of duracrete and asphalt rushed towards them like a speeding bullet train.

“MOVE!” This time, it was his voice that shouted, jetpack activating to provide the speed he needed to dodge with a desperate lunge to the side. Jenna hesitated; by the time her Jetpack activated, it was too late.

Beskar was durable, nearly indestructible, but the body under it wasn’t.

The slab smashed into Jenna as she crossed her arms over herself and the sheer force of the crash snapped her legs like dry sticks, the Beskar holding up as her body broke like cheap kindling. The scream died in her throat as she tumbled and fell, dying. if not dead. The slab then shattered, the Invincible Jedi emerging from the debris with saber already mid swing, teeth bared and eyes alight.

The saber strike caught Nolan in the forearms, his limbs desperately moving to block the blow only for the Beskar itself to nearly fold like cheap tin before he was sent flying back, crashing into one of the Corellian buildings.

Then the wall of Jedi finally reached them and everything became a frantic, frenzied melee.

Vibroblades sang, boots scraped on gravel, lightsabers hissed and spat and in the center the woman took down Mandalorians with every swing of that blade, every punch from her fist!

He pushed himself to his feet, feeling his body singing with pain.

He fired off his heavy blaster, the bolt sailing for her head before that saber rose, batting it aside as her eyes snapped towards him.

He heard Dolmen behind him, howling into a comms unit.

“Come in now! Now! Got a heavy freak of some kind. Bring the ordinance: 7.22.876, Grid-nine four.”

There was a screeching howl overhead. A ship, one of their ships, not a fucking droid, came swooping down from the skies above, two proton torpedoes released from their moorings and descending on trails of fire.

He saw the woman reach out, one missile shuddering in the sky, trembling before it exploded in a fireball directly over his head, the shockwave knocking him and many others to their knees.

The second Missile kept going.

He watched, not daring to risk taking his eyes off her for more than a moment before the missile struck.

The blast was powerful, more so than even the thermal detonator droid from before. The ground itself rippled like liquid, cracks and crags breaking upwards as physics demanded a release of the sudden force and pressure.

Mandalorians and Jedi screamed, some dying at the edges of the blast while others were thrown end over end through the air.

He never saw movement. How could he through fire and smoke and soot and a thick cloud of debris?

All he knew was in the moment after the strike, his eyes snapped upwards as he heard the screech of metal being rent asunder. The Mandalorian ship that had fired down on her from on high suddenly found itself without a wing, the rest of the vessel careening off in an uncontrollable tumble in the sky as its wing stayed behind, clutched in a fist, that threw the slab of star grade metal downwards like a spinning death disc.

He ducked, keeping his head down with instinctive reflex even though the spinning slab of metal was far above him.

He followed it with his eyes only to see it carve through an AAT battle tank like a vibroknife through flesh, the remnants carving a trench into the earth as the woman raised her blade high, diving down as the line of Jedi pushed forward.

(X)(X)(X)

C’baoth

This body’s eyes were failing, only catching mere blurs of shape. Even before Hebert vanished into the gathering swarm of insects, he could barely track her.

His senses through the Force should have been more than enough, but these insects, her swarm… they shared her Force signature. Shards of ice on the wind, something as vast as a glacier and deep as an ocean behind it all.

He was fighting a ghost in a blizzard.

Even so, the Force warned him, told him where she was coming from. He pivoted to his right, the green blade of his victim blocking her gold one, sparks crackling along the edges of the sabers and she was already moving again. This close, even these eyes could see her; Makashi, mixed with Djem-so. She was faster than him, but he was stronger than her, especially in a body that did not need to concern itself with tearing muscles or pain.

He drove her back, pushing her to the edge of the rooftop, ready to shove her off entirely. The fall likely wouldn’t kill a real Jedi, but she was hardly a real Jedi.

She dug in her heel, shifting her weight to grind her boots to a stop on the gravel rooftop. Then her hand pushed.

He bolstered his shields. This body was still fresh, not like Qu’Rahn, and he was closer. This would not be a repeat of Skywalker where barely a trickle of his power could leak through, Hebert’s power would break over him like water breaking on a rock.

Only to realize, she wasn’t aiming at him.

The ground beneath his feet collapsed, the entire roof giving way under him as he fell, startled, losing his strength and leverage, and finding the roles reversed as she plunged after him, her muscles bolstered with the Force as she pushed and shoved his blade downward with all her weight and power behind it.

His back hit the floor below, one of her boots pressing down on his chest, his own blade nearly close enough to burn his throat, hers so close to his head the helmet began to glow with the heat.

His arm reached out, a Force pull on a piece of masonry catapulting the shattered stonework into her side, only for her to back away, the attack missing by what must’ve been mere millimeters as the swarm fell around them and she vanished from sight as she shut off her blade.

But he could still see her eyes!

He lunged, pushing himself to his feet fast as he swung for her exposed neck, only to pass through nothing but air and chitinous insects, two tiny specs of flame guttering out where her eyes were.

He heard the hiss of the lightsaber at his back, feeling his own eyes widen in surprise before he forced the corpse to jerk sideways, half leaning as he swung wildly behind his back.

She was already moving, already fading back into the cold murk that blinded him. He followed, too slow.

The insects clawed and bit, gnawed and spat venom into the flesh.

It didn’t matter, it was a corpse. Literally a sack of dead flesh they couldn’t weaken or incapacitate as she no doubt intended.

He felt the storm shift and move, writhing around him and there, a slip, a breach.

He lunged for the opening, seeing through the murk of these dead eyes her.

His blade plunged forward, and her blade lit up, intercepting his only to be battered aside by the unnatural strength of the corpse itself, striking for her throat.

He missed, by what must’ve been a hair.

He struck again, even more surely, more truly- but again he missed, a preternatural dodge that was uncanny in its exactitude.

On the third strike- light.

The insects parted from what he realized was a window behind her, blinding his already meager eyes even further with sudden brilliance as he felt something grasp hold of the corpses sword arm, twisting and pulling and then he was thrown through the penthouse window, glass shattering around his body as he tumbled and fell.

He tried to right himself, only to feel the strike of her telekinesis punch him down, far past terminal velocity.

He shot straight downwards like a rocket. Even as he tried to shake off her grip, he felt a million other tiny hands grab hold of him, a thousand little strings he couldn’t fend off at once in the plunge.

He slammed into the earth; and the corpse broke.

Its bones shattered, what little liquid blood remained in its blood vessels burst the very same with the surge of pressure, like Skywalker before her, he nearly felt himself be expelled through pure physical force from the vessel.

He sensed her lunging after him, diving from the same height he fell from, her telekinesis driving down to deliver another catastrophic blow.

He made the corpse move, broken bones shifting beneath flesh, muscles working to keep him intact as he manipulated the Force to bolster its physical composition, as the invisible Force blow smashed into the asphalt, punching a crater into the earth.

He felt her land, hiding still within the ever present shroud of insects.

“You can still move.” She hissed in that abominable swarm voice of hers.

“Do not act as though you have the power to be the end of me.” He snorted. “You’re a mistake. An abomination in the force that should have been smothered in the crib; Dallon as well.”

He felt… heat.

The icy swarm dissipated, bleeding away as his fog filled eyes, saw flames beginning to burn across the very air around her.

Force Pyromancy.

Her blade rose, shining off of the yellow lenses of her mask, dancing in the light of the fires rising around them.

(X)(X)(X)

Plo Koon

A third of the assassins had been cut down, Komari’s red blade running him through at the chest, but Plo had to abandon the weapon there, avoiding his arm getting severed by centimeters, the edges of his robe carbonizing at the blade’s passing through it.

In the same motion he fully turned, exposing his back to the woman who physically scrambled for her blade with her free hand as Plo Koon caught a sword strike by grasping an attacker’s wrist mid swing, while deflecting a hail of blaster bolts from a second attacker into the oncoming third, making the man stagger and reel as he was pelted with superheated plasma.

He pulled, yanking the assassin whose wrist he was still holding, forcing the man to overextend until that vibroblade in his hand was crackling against Komari’s saber, intercepting the recovered blade as Plo Koon used his own sword to parry the first, bodily throwing the assassin onto her, sending the two of them tumbling down in a tangle of limbs, blades and armor, as he rounded on the two behind him again.

The shooter raised his rifle, now with a clear shot before Plo grabbed hold of him, his every limb growing stiff as stone before he yanked the man upwards, slamming him hard enough into the ceiling to crack the duracrete.

The bladesman roared, charging one more time, before those same shattered shards of duracrete came sailing into his back like thrown knives.

His body stiffened, muscles jerking, blade still held high. He gave a halting step, then a second before he fell dead at Plo-Koon’s feet.

The warning came in the Force, almost too late.

He spun around, single blade crashing against Vosa’s two red ones, the woman’s presence, hidden expertly on her approach suddenly unleashed, a beast of near frothing rage and fear.

He stared into her eyes, burning yellow orbs that shined with crazed madness as she pressed down with all her might on his lone blue blade, trying to overpower him through raw, brute strength driven by emotion.

He pulled one hand away from the blade, fingers crackling with yellow lightning.

Komari’s eyes widened.

Then, gold forks and snaps of electricity slammed into her.

She was sent sailing back, howling in what Plo-koon recognized as pure agony, her body writhing, contorting. Her arms and hands twitching so badly she nearly cut herself on her own weapons.

For a moment, as he first allowed the Force to surge through him, opening himself to the power of the Electric Judgement, he felt calm, almost serene.

Then his mind, open to the Force around him, brushed against her mind.

Terror.

It wasn’t the pain that gripped her.

It was raw, unbridled, mind consuming terror.

It was the terror of an abused animal at the sight and feel of the lash. It was the terror of the slave, beaten by its master.

Plo felt an immediate reflexive horror fill his very being, suffusing his body. He couldn’t have stopped himself from ceasing his attack if he’d even bothered to try. The crackles of electricity died away and he almost called out to the terrified girl.

Komari’s answer was a ghastly, inhuman shriek.

The scream and the power of her answering Force shove, so raw, so primal dug up somewhere deep inside of her, lashed out with so much power it punched through his personal defenses like a knife through a soap bubble.

He stumbled back, and then was thrown off his feet, tumbling end over end; her two assassins were similarly thrown across the room away from her as he slammed into and through the far wall in a mess of crumbling stonework and dazed confusion.

As he gathered his mind, and pushed himself back to his feet, beyond the sounds of battle and screams still taking place around the whole of the temple, all he could hear was the sound of the assassins footsteps, sprinting away, blades forgotten where they lay on the floor.

(X)(X)(X)

Sev’rance Tann

She watched through probe droid feeds and battle droid chest cameras as the ‘Invincible Jedi plowed through their army like it was plowing snow. Mandalorians falling back in disarray, droids and tanks incapable of stopping her.

She was almost single handedly carving a trench through her forces for the Green Jedi to escape their encirclement.

Gone was her amused smile, or even the curious frown. Tann did not like to lose, nor did she intend to here.

Ship Mistress-” Her engineer called. “Turbolasers are at thirty seven percent capacity- but they can be fired once more on your command.”

“Thank you.” She nodded towards the gunnery crew in the pits. “Lock onto those coordinates- and you may fire when ready.” She said calmly.

Thirty-seven percent or not, she doubted the invincible Jedi could survive being reduced to carbonized atoms in an instant.

“Ma’am.” The Nemoidian hesitated. “Projections say we will lose three droid battalions if we fire.”

“That’s the good thing about droids, Nemoidian.” She answered. “They’re easier to replace than Jedi, regardless of how many you lose.”

(X)(X)(X)

Garm Pellaeon

He followed her.

They all… followed her.

Not because they could win. Not because she could save them, there were too many… he knew that. They all knew that, but they followed her anyway.

Perhaps some felt they didn’t have a choice. Perhaps they felt it was a chance. Their only chance. Perhaps some simply wanted to die with blade in hand taking down as many droids and Mandalorians as they could.

As they charged into the fray, with the woman at the head of the rush, they crashed into the solid wall of steel and beskar. Mandalorians joining them in frenzied melee, B-1 droids getting hacked apart or tossed aside, their heavier siblings, the B-2s laying down heavy fire with their weapons.

Flames raged, blasters fired, blades rose, Jedi fell. He could smell the smoke and melting metal. He could hear the screams, feel the pain. The force writhed in agony around him, around all of them.

And still they followed.

He watched her, as they all must’ve been, feeling his heart swell, the pain of his body ebbing away, the fear bleeding out of him. Pushed back, like a physical thing repelled by the sight of her.

As he watched, the Force whispered something, a subtle urging in his mind, barely grasped but insistent.

And he realized…

She was in danger.

Somehow, some way, the force was whispering that to him. A warning building in his mind as she kept pressing forward, kept driving the enemy back, tearing through tanks, and heavier classes of droids like tin cans as they came to intercept her.

He didn’t know how, he didn’t understand. She was invincible. He’d seen it with his own eyes. How she shrugged off weaponry that would have killed – that had killed – dozens of Jedi, even hundreds by now.

But the warning would not abate. And he realized then that in the dirt, and the soot and the blood that covered her, some of it was hers. Small, infinitesimal. Scratches and barely there imperfections that wept red droplets that stained her white robes, nearly lost in everything else.

But the Force highlighted these things to him. Made him realize, and see.

She was not invulnerable… not fully.

It was not invincibility’s courage that kept her here.

Fate’s breath tickled at the back of his neck, the hairs standing on end.

He surged forward, knowing with impossible certainty he needed to be closer, needed to get to her.

He barely noticed his fellows rushing alongside him, ahead of him, behind him. All was lost in the frenzy to reach her, even as she soared into the skies above, blade held high, shining like the brightest star against the bleakest sky.

The warning built in his mind. The Force urged him onward and he listened, hacking and clawing and punching his way through the shattering droid army and Mandalorian thugs around him.

The clouds parted.

The bright, searing red beam was a new sun in the sky, an orbital bombardment that froze all in fear, even the droids turning in either curiosity, or confirmation.

He saw her shine.

The change wasn’t subtle. To his eyes, nothing was altered, but to the Force… It was like a star being born right before his eyes.

He wasn’t sure what he did, only that he could see it in the force in that moment, a vision of clarity and clairvoyance gifted to him, in this instant.

A sheen, gossamer thin, unwound itself from around her body, stretching, undulating, it moved up, unfolding like a sheet, a shield above them.

The orbital blast crashed into it, detonating above the city skyline as the shield cracked and shattered like shards of silver glass, rainbow light dancing off of every beautiful cold piece.

He felt the shockwave from here, even so far below, it sent him tumbling down to the ground, windows shattered, buildings crumbled, droids collapsed and hover tanks were slammed into the duracrete beneath them as their anti-grav was overwhelmed and failed entirely.

For a moment, the battle ceased, no one was able to move, let alone fight even as he tried to pick himself up.

He realized then, in that instant- the danger. The Force’s warning no longer a whisper, but a voice, an urging.

As he followed his instincts and tore his eyes from her in the sky above-

There.

It was nothing. A single B-1 battle droid, with the most unassuming of blasters was taking aim at her.

This was the danger.

This was the thing that would kill her.

That sheet, that shield of starlight and beauty that had saved them- that was her invulnerability. Her shield.

And it was gone.

Maybe not forever.

But this was the danger.

And he knew instantly that he was the only one that knew. Not his fellow Knights. Not the Masters. The Force had placed him here. Not them. The only one that realized that their undying star was about to be felled.

The droid was far away. More than a dozen lines of battle droids between him and his enemy.

He didn't hesitate.

He shifted his grip on the saber, holding it tip downwards as he reared back his arm and threw.

It sailed straight as an arrow.

The B-1 droid turned, realizing it was in danger, too late.

The blade skewered it through its elongated head, the body falling like a puppet with its strings cut.

He smiled.

Even as he didn't have a blade, or the training to survive the half dozen droids in front of him that opened fire in the next instant... even as he felt pain burn through his chest and body from the blaster bolts and his vision darkened, even as he knew... she would never even know his name...

He still... smiled.

‘There is no death… only…’

(X)(X)(X)

C’baoth

He had never faced a practitioner of Force Pyromancy. He did not believe the technique could be used offensively. Too complex for a human mind. Clearly, the unnatural abomination that was her abilities made her something other than human.

Even so, he knew the theory behind it. Manipulation of oxygen molecules to form a spark.

So, he did the obvious. He pushed all the oxygen away from the puppet, a sphere of inviolability to her stolen power.

What did a corpse care if it couldn’t breathe?

Even so, in the very Force itself C’baoth had to admit to himself, and only to himself… he felt as though he were being burnt alive already.

The heat was suffocating, unbearable. If he were there in person he would have long since succumbed to the flames that now rose high enough that they were pillars of solid fire, devouring the city block around them. Rising high, impossibly high into the skies of Corellia itself.

Even so, he fought her, blade crashing upon blade. His favored Shii-cho contending against her bastardized hybrid form, all of his focus, all of his strength was now expended upon himself. Maintaining the vacuum around him, in keeping this puppet moving even as shards of bone tore it apart from the inside.

All he could contend with her now, was blade skills.

And still even in the absence of her shielding swarm… she was keeping up.

It was infuriating. It was disgusting.

This power wasn’t hers. It was unearned, stolen from those who should be her betters as she flaunted it like a thief flaunts a prized jewel.

That the Jedi had let her in, that some even celebrated her like that doddering old fool, Yoda…

He drove forward, his saber once more cracking against hers, but this time he pressed the attack, tearing even more muscles across this failing puppet as he battered her blade aside and attempted once more to finally end her as she was left wide open.

The blast of fire that went off practically in his face was like a shaped charge, blasting him backwards, formed precisely in the space between his vacuum and her body, sheer force blasting him back.

C’baoth roared in frustration. The puppet echoing his actions. He ground his teeth together, glaring at the yellow eyed filth that marched forward with slow, unfaltering steps.

Then, he felt something.

A shift in the Force. Something large and shining with brilliance manifesting somewhere.

He felt alarm, her alarm. A spike of raw fear cold as true ice penetrating her heart.

She turned, all but exposing her back to him as the skies parted.

A red blast, lancing down from the heavens above cut through the very air, atmospheric distortions visible to the naked eye, as the orbital bombardment fell, and burst before it hit the ground.

He felt the shockwave from here, buildings near the site collapsing in on themselves through the concussive force, others knocked off their foundation, the wave of concussive energy was visible through dust and smoke and soot, crashing over them like a wave and nearly smothering this inferno of flames.

Silence fell over the city.

And then the fighting continued.

C’baoth contemplated attacking now, while her back was turned, but he saw in the light of the fire how her body trembled, how her fists clenched. The roar of the flames was nothing compared to the heat of emotion he could feel rising from her.

“I don’t have time to waste with you…”

Something… fathomless… moved across the stars.

And like the tide of an ocean the Force swelled around the girl, rising and pushing until his mind was cast out of the puppet, catapulted back into his own body with a gasp of air, his body drenched in sweat and his heart pounding under his ribs.

—

Taylor

Vicky was there. My Vicky! She was there, that blast had been targeting her. I knew it with certainty.

This fight, this whole fucking battle had to end right now.

I’d make it end.

I opened my mind.

There was no gentle trickle of consciousness this time. No slow meditation as it had been on Kashyyyk.

But she’d been practicing. Preparing.

So had I.

When I saw her now, it was not in the form of a humanoid glimmer of starlight and stardust; instead… as a bird… an owl.

I beheld thousands of wings. A million eyes.

My mind hurt.

But I could see her… and she could see me.

It was enough… for right now.

“Help me.” I asked, struggling to form the words.

The first word came slowly. But it did come.

“I”

She bowed her head, and I felt her voice through my very being, down to the marrow of my bones

“Understand.”

—

Sev’rance Tann

“What the hell happened!” She demanded.

“Unknown.” The analyst cried “ Detonation occurred well above the city. No significant damage to target.”

“Obviously not!” She bit out. “Did the magnetic field destabilize mid flight?”

“Unknown. Analyzing.”

Sev’rance Tann snarled. “Get my guns FIXED!” She roared. “I WANT THIS JEDI DEA-”

She stopped, a sudden terror filling her very being as she felt the galaxy tremble around her

—

Stass Allie

Stass felt her very soul grow cold- even as she tried to shield the few Padawans and younglings in the tunnels with her as she felt… whatever this was pass over them

Again, she remembered her cousin Adi Gallia’s warning all those years ago.

I fear a monster has come to our Temple, Allie.

It sleeps, content and far away, for now.

But…

If it ever wakes up. It will not only be the Jedi at risk.

That Monster… It must never wake up again.

—

Taylor.

I felt my body, my mind- breaking.

It was all I could do to keep myself together, all I could do to keep me, that core of me I swore never to lose again.

She was trying. But it was not perfect. Perhaps it never would be perfect.

But for now, it was enough.

My awareness expanded, insects falling into my range miles away, my awareness in the Force itself expanding across unfathomable distances even as she shrunk it down so my limited, human mind wouldn’t utterly shatter under the strain.

I felt as though a furnace were locked in my chest- burning me from the inside out.

This wouldn’t last. I wouldn’t last.

I looked back to the body, now on the ground, still twitching, still moving. But no longer under Jorus’ control.

Then… something else… someone else.

Its presence was… horrible. Cold and burning all at once. Empty, Voidlike and yet filled with black amusement. Joy at the pain it could feel around it.

The corpse picked itself up.

Its eyes burned yellow as it looked at me.

And it smiled.

“Well now.” It leered, smiling. I couldn’t see his face, not through the remains of its mask. But I knew it was smiling; and its voice made something in my stomach clench, sickening me in the force itself.

“I somehow suspect yours is a career I should have watched with great interest.” It laughed.

The Sith Master.

The fires roared as the swarm danced around her; untouched by the flames. The noise a living writing inescapable thing,

“I don’t have time to waste with you” She repeated voice, already beginning to lose the tone and texture that was her Becoming flat and emotionless. Drowning in the rising tide that was her. Khepri.

Even so her voice carried something when she spoke.

Not an oath.

Not a threat.

Not a malediction… or a curse.

“I’ll shatter your mind and burn you, bone, blood and soul.”

The Monster… laughed.

(X)(X)(X)

Phew. We're almost done friends.

Next chapter SHOULD be the end of the battle of Corelllia and then we deal with the tally of the dead and the fallout.

As usual, link to the discord:
https://discord.gg/SFBEnyGP

And link to the TV tropes, which needs some love if anyone has an account to do that :)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/TheWeavingForce

I'd like to take a moment to thank you all for the wonderful support that's built this patreon and I'm happy to have been able to get this out to you in time for thanksgiving. On that note I'd like to give a big thank you to 0th Law who worked his ass off and chewed through all the pages to edit them and get them up to snuff. Praise be :D

Hope you all enjoy the holiday if you celebrate it. Take care everyone.