A Leap of Faith
A Leap of Faith is not defined by when you are in the air. Not defined by the landing or the steps leading up to the edge of sanity and reason. A Leap of Faith is determined as the very last speckle of doubt leaves the soul and it finally becomes light enough to Soar. Azurechrome, a place that drew a lost soul in and returned them to their Path.
[The following narrative event occurred in an event run on Discord by Athena and Announcer, and is officially a part of the charaters’ canon.
The goal is to climax and close of the Dawnflowre Journey story, and I transcribed it into a better form for a final post here. Enjoy!
TL;DR: Kthira and Puru travel to Azurechrome. There, they find ancient ruins, and encounter Puru’s old dark jedi master Elinda - now a dark jedi on par with a Sith Lord. They face her - the darkness of Puru’s past and a warning of Kthira’s possible future - and defeat her, nearly at the cost of their lives.]
Chapter 1.
The hyperspace jump had been a long one. Activating the Hyperdrive without actual navigation and star-charts would be tantamount to suicide in all others cases but this one - eventually they arrived to the planet Azurechrome.
Kthira had held onto her seat both when the Silver arrow entered and when it left hyperspace. Yet, it wasn’t the statistically suicidal odds of hyperdriving into the core of a red giant or the pulsar of a neutron star that made her apprehensive. For some reason, it was the absolute certainty that they would arrive on Azurechrome which still - for an indelible reason - gnawed at her.
The initial landing area was easy to choose: the location Puru had previously set up – on a past visit to this peculiar planet - as a camp. For the first day or so of their stay on the mysterious jungle planet with the beautiful azure sky, Kthira remained awfully quiet. They chatted quietly, meditated together, spent time in quiet in the camp and by the Silver Arrow.
Eventually, Puru knew it was time to get moving. From the camp, she let the Force guide them to a place she had not even seen before. It guided them through the lush and thick jungle of the planet. Through at times impassable underbrush and vegetations. Through stuffy and humid paths carved through the thickets by the native wildlife.
Eventually, the Force had them where they were meant to go. The crossing were made with speederbikes they’d brought – one for each. It was slow going, at times, as they crossed especially thick portions of the jungle.
As they emerged from the edge of the thick jungle, into a vast, open area, it laid there before them: ruins of an ancient civilization. Vestiges of something Puru had never yet seen on Azurechrome.
She thought there had been no prior civilizations on the planet, and Kthira vocally echoed the twi’lek’s thoughts as she stared at the ominously crumbling buildings in the near horizon. “"Love, I thought you’d said this rock was uninhabited.”
In confounded silence, they crossed the grassland fields, speederbikes humming and hovering at their slowest speed, eyes surveying the debris and ruins of whatever ancient, indecipherable civilization had once established this settlement on the planet. Their memories – of concrete and steel – peppered the outskirts of the city as they neared it. The once-defensible walls had long-since crumbled, and finding gaps in them to push through and emerge into the lightless streets was trivially easy.
The ruins weren’t quite alien. Whatever species or civilization had inhabited them perhaps was even near-human. The architecture fit. Amenities, ruined vehicles, furniture tumbled from high buildings onto the streets below, all hinted at familiar anatomies and cultures. Even the function of some of the buildings – one resembled what might have been a hotel for spacers, one perhaps was even a café or a restaurant. The streets ran and turned and winded in familiar patterns, too.
The familiarity was almost eerie, considering that this world was seemingly so unknown. The silence was absolute, save for their breathing, their thoughts and the humming of their bikes.
As the pair moved through the ruins, a cloaked figure turns a ruined street corner several meters ahead of them. It seemed as though it emerged from the building’s shadows, or as if it was shadow itself. It was a woman, cloaked. They could sense the dread and the agony of the zone she crossed - a want and a passion that could not be fulfilled by any means as the Dark Side has naught the means to grant the piece of heart missing from the woman’s being.
Kthira’s feet braked her speederbike to a halt as she felt that chill - those familiar, shudder-inducing icy tendrils of the depths of the dark side. They weren’t new to her. Brief memories of Malachor flashed, of the Nagai who’d briefly been her master in the dark. It wasn’t that the cold touch of the dark side frightened her - it was the intensity that foretold it was someone’s presence. Someone powerful.
Slowly, she dismounted, as did Puru, and stepped forward from the bikes.
And slowly the woman’s head rose, revealing the grey, drained face of one who’d drunk deep from the river of darkness. Her gaze was gentle at first, before a hand rose to them. With a blink, she closed some of the gap between her and the pair… an intense dark pressure rising around the area.
“Do you remember me?” She spoke. “Can you remember me? Would you remember me….? The time we spent together?"
The figure’s words made Kthira pause. Her jaw locked, teeth gritted. She looked to Puru. With a start, she turned back to the woman when the gap was so suddenly closed - her double-bladed foil’s hilt was in her hand already, still deactivated.
Puru recognized the presence immediately, she had known it well even as an apprentice. But now when she was so much stronger in the Force, it made her stomach turn in knots. But her training would not allow her to reel. She would stand fast, like she did in her Trial of Spirit.
"I knew this day would come … " Puru spoke with a slight heaviness to her voice.
The woman looked down, the air filling with tension. “…You have the scent of the light upon you. I gave you the chance to have all the power you need, and this is what you left it behind for? All the affection and care I gave to you, deposited…”
“The only affection and care you gave me came in the shape of your fists and viper’s tongue.” Puru spoke calmly as her eyes did not leave the dark jedi. Her own saber remained on her belt for now, she knew that woman well, knew she would try to unbalance her and make her feel weak and vulnerable again.
“I forgive you.” She spoke softly after taking a small breath. “I know you too must have suffered what you put me through, perhaps even worse than it. I know it lead you astray and you have had your sense of affection and love corrupted by the Dark Side.”
She spoke with a voice of sympathy as her lekku twitched and flexed slightly. "But you did not succeed in leading me down the same path then, and you will not do it now.”
“You forgive me? Forgive me for loving you? Giving you the needs to survive? Food, water, a home?!”
The shut-off speederbikes behind Kthira and Puru quivered a slight.
"I had hoped you would stayed by my side. To share in the life with me. It’s …so lonely. Everything I touch and love dies. And yet, you live. The Force has brought you back to me! We can be a family again!”
“Hrm.” Kthira’s eyes narrowed - she felt the edge of a confrontation in the woman’s voice, in her obsession. Her fingers curled and tightened around the hilt of her foil, but did not activate it yet.
Full crimson eyes narrowed and drifted toward Puru, and then back to the woman. She must have felt the dark in Kthira - certainly stronger than the ‘scent’ of the light - and yet, there she was, steadfast by Puru’s side.
“You know well there is no love, no family, in the steps you take.” She said under a hissing tone. "Not when you’re so obviously out of control.”
Puru remained silent as Kit spoke, as she knew Kit would. This was her confrontation, but through the Force, she felt it was more than about her own past. This was a future vision of what could happen if Kit would one day fall too deeply to the ever siren’s call of the Dark Side.
She let out a soft breath and glanced to Kit with reassurance on her lips and in her teal eyes. “She speaks the truth, Elinda, you barely had any control over yourself then and now you have less. I can help you, but we can not be a family, we never were.”
She spoke with a soft voice once more, hands still off from her saber. "It is never too late to return from that pit of darkness.”
The woman stared at them quietly a moment. A finger rises – a single -finger and one of their speederbikes was flung over their heads, past them and behind the woman.
"…It is I who must pull you back from the brink. You lay on a path of peace and rot. Being beholden to your notions of light will only blind you in the end. Let me release you from it…”
Puru didn’t as much as flinch or look at the Speeder, though she did take note of it. It wasn’t aimed at her and it would not hit them. Though a part of her almost reflexively used the Force to deflect it either way. Almost.
Kthira’s jaw locked tighter. She drew in a deeper breath through her nose, and released it.
It was hopeless, and she saw it. She could see the derangement in the woman’s eyes, the desperation, the way life had so darkly been swept away from her visage, drained by too much of the dark side, which had left a cold barrenness instead. A chill ran down Kit’s spine at the idea. Was this why this journey had made her so apprehensive? Was this it? Her own vision?
The hand holding her staff foil itched to switch it on - she knew there’d be no choice - but she did not do it, not yet. Her eyes turned to Puru. There was more she wanted to say, and yet… she wasn’t the one who was supposed to say it
“You know there is nothing down in that brink. Only more misery and suffering. If I would follow you there, we would both be unhappy.” Puru spoke with the same soft lilt and sympathy in her eyes. “Your salvation can only come from within you, and I will help you if you allow me. If you ‘truly’ wish to be with me, then come back into the Light, Elinda.” Puru spoke and held out her hand, palm up.
The woman considered Puru’s lifted hand and the twi’lek’s words seemed to soften the figure’s shoulders.
A quiet minute passed before, the figure looked down… and the buildings nearby started to shiver, some shuddered more heavily as slights of old steel and cement slapped and pecked on the ground around then.
"…I must free you from this bond. I must free you from the chains of light that restrict you to a wall of torture. Then we can be together again…like a family.”
“Stop this.” Kthira growled, her edged with threat, with rising anger and adrenaline as she readied to act. She brought the hilt of her saber behind her, lowered her stance.
She heard the cement and metal clattering against the ground around them. Her free hand closed into a half-fist, and sparks of electricity danced between her fingers, ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice.
Her voice rose louder as the sounds of raining debris began to drown them out. “There is nothing but emptiness in what you seek and you know it! It doesn’t have to control you.”
Her own words brought a small, half-subconscious chill down her spine, as she understood that they could be just as much meant as a warning for herself
Puru’s voice cut through the raining cacophony of cement and metal, yet her tone hadn’t risen. “I am sorry it has to be this way. If it is the will of the Force, you will surely kill me. Perhaps you will see how you are mistaken then.” Puru said with genuine regret in her voice before she took the curved cylinder from her belt in a steady, slow motion.*
“I am a Jedi, Elinda. The Force will Guide me.” The saber ignited with a resolute blue, contrasted in her teal eyes as she took up the Makashi stance and steeled herself before this challenge. As her Master had taught her. As she had practiced every day for a moment like this along her Path
Ominously, the woman drew no saber, but instead she air began to spiral around them. Swirls of wind and gusts of dust formed a small maelstrom around the three of them, and the dark figure – Elinda – hovered off the ground with a great burst of Dark Pressure. And in a flah…she produced three copies of her own self, after images as her bodied swayed back and forward.
The hands of the three Elindas rose… and it began.
Screaming, the after images split into the ruins in various directions, a burning scorch mark left on the ground that they dashed off on.
Chapter 2
Kthira acted first. Eyes on one of the three images dashing off, she outstretched a hand, unleashing a torrent of lightning at it, but hitting nothing but concrete as it turned a corner and disappeared into the city.
She seems to have grown a bit stronger since last, it has been a few years after all … " Puru commented almost with a bit of dry humor before she smiled to Kit.
“Don’t need to tell me. I can feel how strong she is in the dark side. I’ve never seen anything like this…"
The Chiss frowned. "We can’t split up. We won’t stand a chance then. I’ll follow you.”
"I know, let’s see what she has in store of us… "
The two of them turned to a jog westward, after one of the images. Quickly, they came upon a squat, wide Building.
As they entered it, there was a scent of rot, of age, of the nature that had reclaimed what once truly belonged to the planet. There was a sudden echo of giggles and chuckles that overlapped, echoing in their minds as much as in reality. The furniture and office tables of the front lobby all quivered like a chill of cold on Hultar. Their breaths left a sensation of chilled air.
As they walked forward, the old reception desk’s terminal popped into sparks and the pieces scattered about. One piece of electronics landed infront of the pair, almost tauntingly.
Kit stopped in her tracks, watching it skid to a halt at their feet. A smirk crossed her lips, then a frown. Puru shut her saber off, and closed her eyes, focusing on their surroundings and trying to sense where her former master was.
*Meanwhile, ever the pragmatic, Kthira produced a glowstick from her pouches, cracked it lit and threw it down the hall in front of them. The green glow highlighted a series office doors with hanging numbers, glimpses of long-rotten, dripping water from the fire. Landing at the end of the hall, the crisp glow of the stick alluded to a stairwell going upwards.
Puru sensed her master…everywhere.
In the stillness of the moment, Kthira pondered for a few seconds. She looked to Puru, and then at the darkness ahead of them, dimly lit by the glowstick. There was a rise of anger inside the Chiss woman as she began to understand who it was that they were fighting and, more importantly, what she had done to Puru in the past.
“She’s smart.” Kthira said, with some of her textbook snark. Perhaps, this time, it was meant to ease their nerves a little, and her anger. “We won’t be able to pin her down through the Force, I think.”
Gripping tighter the long hilt of her foil, she looked to Puru. “You know her best of all, love. Try to think as she would.”
As they spoke, a shadow crossed the opening at the end of the hall… ominously teasing.
“I certainly can’t sense her proper, she’s drowning it all out.” Puru noted in affirmation to Kit’s words and began walking into the hall with her lightsaber ready and ignited.
Kthira followed close behind, keeping her gaze and her attention more on their sides, and behind them, peering to the insides of the offices as the passed by the doors, trusting Puru to keep an eye on their front. In her mind, an idea formed, but… not yet.
As they got to the narrowed hallway of the office doors, a deafening screech of metal made them whirl around. One of the office doors ripped open and slammed into the wall beside it, almost tearing itself off its hindges… a cough of dust came out of the room, along with some birds who hurried out, just flapping past them.
Alight with the instinct to fight, Kthira rose her green saberstaff foil and crouched. It was only a moment of self-control that kept her from turning the poor birds into fried meals, as she closed her free hand to dismiss the sparks of lightning there.
“She wants to demoralize us and tire us out with these tricks.” Puru said as she slowly proceeded towards the passage that had been ripped open. "She wants to prove a point her way, and make us feel like we are too weak to fight against her.”
“She could try to be a little more original.” Kthira said, scoffing softly as she simply let the fire and the fighting instincts wash through her. It would fuel her, not tire her out. A particularly stark contrast to how Puru dealt with it by maintaining her typical inner peace.
Still… perhaps now was a good time for that idea. The woman had to be listening to them, after all.
“She acts like a scorned lover. Probably not the first time it happened, either.” She spoke with a subtly wicked tilt to her tone, an edge meant to twist a knife of jealousy deep into Elinda, as she followed Puru into the room with the now-broken door."Perhaps if she’d done better…”
Two could play at the little game of taunts.
Puru suddenly paused at Kit’s words, as her lips spread in an amused smile before she turned around and de-ignited her saber. “You make a fair point, my love, she does seem rather envious of that which she does not have. That which we have. She only has herself to blame for choosing that lonesome existence.”
The pink shorter twi’lek approached the taller chiss and tugged her down before locking lips, and allowing them to stay locked in a slow but affectionate kiss. If Elinda thought she’d draw them in and unbalance them, two could use that tactic.
All at once, the hallway began to shake violently. The office doors were all ripped off their hinges by some unseen force and bounced violently around the hall. A scattered torrent of glass and destroyed bits of metal and tech emerged from the ripped-open offices. A darkness suddenly descended on each end of the hall: two scattered clouds of debris – metal and concrete – came rushing in towards Puru and Kthira from both ends.
Above them, a wailing scream echoed.
The surge of the Force around them broke Kthira’s momentary ‘reverie’. Crimson eyes flared open. The scream! It came from the second floor! She registered it, before breaking the kiss and spinning to face the sudden onrush of oncoming debris! Her foil flashed green again, cutting down pieces of debris as she stretched a hand out toward the rain of metal-and-cement on her side of the hall, using all her strength in the Force Push it back to stillness.
Puru gracefully spun in the opposite direction, reaching out in a wide arc with both hands as she likewise focused on deflecting the debris with the Force. But she moved her arms upward!
Using the momentum given by Elinda, who sent the torrente of debris to them, she pushed upwards with the Force to smash it all into the floor above them. Chunks of metal and concrete began smashing into the floor above, turning it into a crumbling cascade.
“Oh. That’s a smart and suicidal idea!” Kthira called out in surprise when she looked up and saw the ceiling begin to crumble. Of course! The damn building was half-rotting. Was it actually smart to disturb its structural integrity further?
There was another loud crack, and a fissure began to form along the ceiling from end to end of the hall. Another crack it widened, and down upon them came a rain of chairs tables, furniture and rotten old datapads.
Kthira’s foil wasn’t possibly high-powered enough to cut through so much. She swung her arms up using the Force to deflect the oncoming rain, while Puru, smaller, faster, and with real lightsabers, began slicing at everything that fell over them.
Suddenly, a dark figure emerged from above, falling along with the debris. But Elinda wasn’t falling. She was hovering. With rage on her visage, she summoned an immensely powerful push through the Force.
Kthira and Puru were sent tumbling back down the hall with dangerous momentum, but out of the dying rain of debris, at least.
Kthira grunted out in anger when her feet left the floor. Her focus remained, broken by a moment and another grunt as she slammed painfully shoulder-first into a corner of the wall. She spun in mid-air, but managed to recover enough control over her body to land on one hand and a knee.
She looked up just in time to see Puru flying close to her, grunting as she twisted and landed on her feet as well.
“Keep her on the defense, love,” Puru said just before the saber came on again and she used Force Speed to close the distance to the dark jedi- though not in a direct line but in a curve to the left to create an opening for the chiss
Kit’s instincts urged her to do the same - to rush forward and engage in the face-to-face combat her instincts so adored - but her tactical brain won over her baser urges. Puru could keep Elinda on her toes.
As Puru charged toward the image of Elinda with all her speed, dark jedi emitted a scream of absolute rage and ringing sorrow. The air in front of her rushed forward in a sudden gale of a Force Scream, which ripped scratched along the walls and devastated some scattered debris.
At the same time, Kit had rushed behind Puru and to the side - staff foil ready. She’d veered right, but instead of rushing in to engage Elinda. Just as the Force Scream came, Kthira lashed out at Elinda with lightning. Her own scream of rage – anger manifested by a need to protect Puru – echoed along with the crackle of lightning as she caught Elinda at a blind spot with her blast.
Puru did not break stride, even as the Scream hit her. Her body was slashed and cut by the dark energy, yet still she managed to close in the distance and lunged forward – her lightsaber stabbed throw the dark image of Elinda as it was electrified by Kthira’s lightning.
In another moment, the dark jedi’s projection slowly began to fade away in wispy plumes of black smoke.
Kthira barely paid attention to it, as she rushed the distance between her and Puru, panting and wide-eyed, fearful of how Puru took Elinda’s assault. “Eui, are you hurt?!”
But only the jedi’s clothes were a little ruined and a few cuts ran across her arms and chest. She hissed in pain, but no wound was severe. “I’ll be fine… I think. She’s done worse to me before. I think she is actually holding back.”
She took out a small device and sprayed coagulating liquid onto her wounds to at least make them stop bleeding and help them close up. The battle was still ahead. “What about you?”
“I jammed my shoulder on a door, but that’ll just leave a bruise.” Kthira shook her head, gritting her teeth. Just seeing Puru with the cuts across her arms and chest was enough to make her shudder and then swallow down a moment of rising anger . She vented it out as a sigh through her nose, and reached out a hand to gently help smear the liquid across Puru’s wounds. “Come on - there’s two more of her to kill, it seems. But… why is she holding back?”
In return, Puru closed the distance and planted a small kiss on the Chiss woman’s shoulder. “To make it better,” She said with one of those rare playful lilts – the glimpses of the Puru who laid underneath the Jedi - before she put the device away and began walking.
"Two more … and I do not know. If I had to guess, perhaps she intends to capture me if she can. If she really is holding back, we’ll have to be careful.”
Chapter 3
The little kiss on her shoulder and - much more - the playful lilt on Puru’s voice was enough to settle and simmer her anger down for the moment. “Thank you, love.” She then turned to follow her, her staff foil switching off. “We’ll have to be careful - but if she’s holding back, we can use it against her.”
And she frowned, looking east. “Did you bring a scanner? If only we could get a holo layout of this place.”
“I’m an engineer, love, when do I ever not have a scanner?” The small twi’lek chuckled as she fished it out of her belt and activated it, keeping a watchful eye around as it began to do its work. A faint blue light extended in a wide arc, while it made sci-fi noises. Puru walked forward, guided by the scanner. “I am glad you are here with me.”
“Aha. Fair.” She nodded quietly, her attention on their surroundings as she followed Puru and listened to the device’s bleeps, sweeps and creep noises. “I’d never be anywhere else, love.”
The holoprojected map of the immediate area was rough, but it was enough. The low-powered scanners would not suffice to give them a complete and detailed map of the ruined city, but it was enough to highlight the closest twists and turns, the nearest streets. It was even able to pinpoint close buildings whose structural integrity was far too compromised to be safe for entry, and also streets that were blocked off by fallen debris.
With that, they navigated their way east, following their senses in the Force to trace down the source of the dark pressure they felt. The source which, they knew, was one of Elinda’s images.
Rounding a corner, they came to what seemed to be a ruined old blend of a hotel, a cafeteria and an apartment building. Likely it had once been meant to hosue both spacers and colonists in one main structure.
As they entered the it, their holomap quickly scanned a rudimentar layout.
The stench in the lobby was nearly unbearable - remains of local wildlife littered the place, long-since rotten to the bone. The once-pristine and glamorous lobby had once been used as some beasts’ nest, or was still used occasionally as some predators’ feeding ground.
If they weren’t careful, this would certainly become Elina’s feeding ground.
Still, there was a more natural feeling to this, as the vegetation had creeped in and reclaimed much of it, almost entirely hiding the vestiges of its once-glamorous past. Yet, a beautiful spiral staircase at the center of it led upwards. Their map noted that above them was a cafateria of sorts.
Puru and Kthira stopped at the entrance to the staircase.
The twi’lek was little enthused by the prospect of going up its steps. Kthira was already allowing the fiery rush of an anticipated battle wash over her. Saberstaff foil in hand, she frowned deeply at the steps. The reason for their apprehension was simple: climbing up the stairs was a nightmare situation – no room to move, absolutely unsteading footing, open from all sides. They knew Elinda would attack them there, and defense would be harsh.
And yet nothing happened.
Was it some trick? Did Elinda simply miss the opportunity for a potentially fatal attack? Or did she well intend for each tension-filled step along the staircase to be a provocation? To erode their will as she’d tried to do in the hallway of the previous building?
Regardless, both Puru and Kthira were tight with tension as they reached the top, to face another problematic situation. The wide and open cafeteria would be a troublesome place. It was too open – there was no cover, the footing was just as uncertain with so much littered debris – debris would could easily be turned into flying weapons.
Still, Puru took a deep breath, and went along forward, Kthira closely in tow. “Steady, love. I’m here too.” Kthira quietly murmured; she turned her attention inward for a moment: to the nascent bond between them, trying to tug on it to lend Puru the strength she could. She was no stranger to the dark side, and did not have the past experiences with Elinda that Puru did – she allowed her feelings for the twi’lek to suffuse their nascent bond, called on them to steady the twi’lek’s mind.
Puru smiled as she felt the tug on their Bond, especially as she’d focused so much of her attention on concentrating to try and sense Elinda through the Force. “Thank you, love.” She murmured, allowing the feelings flow into her as much as she called on the Force.
A sudden storm of debris rose in the cafeteria again. Forks and knives and splintered glass. Metal trays rising and beginning to spin in furious rotational speeds. Broken tables launched into the air.
“Grab something big, we’ll block it!” Puru called, and proceeded to quickly find one of the large cafeteria tables or any debris large enough to hinder the large whirlwind of metal by levitating it with the Force.
“She’s really starting to annoy me.” Kit growled. It was true. She hated being caught in such an ambush situation. It drew on certain hateful memories she had. Using that anger, she stretched her hands out to the walls of the room – they were crumbling and old enough that she was able to wrench a sheet of metal from the walls.
Together, they pulled in their defenses – the table and the metal sheet – just in time to block this new onrush of debris and metal.
The sounds were deafening as all of it rained and crashed against their makeshift shields. By the time it ended, they had been worn and battered down to broken slabs.
Still, it was mostly enough. Puru, being smaller, came out unscathed, breathing out a sigh of relief as the sounds of the metal rain died down. Kthira was not so lucky, and steamed and hissed with anger as she threw aside the remains of her metal shield – her arms, legs and shoulders had light cuts all over, and a slightly deeper one bled lightly where a flying knife had cut her across the cheek.
Suddenly, the table and the sheet set at their feet were flung aside. They slammed deafeningly into the far wall. Before them, Elinda suddenly stood – another image of her.
"Come back to me… let your companion go and we can be a family again. We can be complete! We don’t have to be alone anymore…”
“Insistent, isn’t she?” Kthira quipped in a low, growling tone, running her fingers along the cut on her cheek.
“You are the one who is alone,” Puru said resolutely. “You cling to your twisted memories of what we were as you cling to the dark side of the Force. You are letting it control you. Let go … if you truly feel anything for me. Let go and let me help you.” The twi’lek urged as she still tried to convince her old master back into the light.
Beside her, with a sudden, low hiss, Kthira vented her rising anger, letting out some steam through a hissing breath. Letting Puru speak, she quietly paced off to the side. A slow, steady circling meant to position herself at an angle to Elinda, hilt of her foil held in hand, legs slightly bent, ready to pounce.
“It’s no use, love. She’s gone off the deep end.” Lightning danced between a half-closed hand, ready to strike, as before, as soon as Puru went on the offensive.
That plan disappeared as quickly as the sparks between her fingers faded when she felt the Force suddenly pressing in around her! Her feet lifted off the floor, and an oppressive, inexorable pressure clamped around her neck, choking her breath.
“Nngghk!”
Elinda stood where she still was, one hand outstretched towards Kthira.
"Do you see how bonds are so sensitive? Didn’t you think about our bond before you ran away? Like a mother screaming for her child out in the cold night, do you feel her pain? DO YOU?!”
Elinda was simply more powerful than Kthira was. She’d had the initiative, the surprise, the ambush, she was more powerful in the dark side and they were, in a way, in her web. Kthira’s legs kicked in desperation, as she held a hand to her throat, struggling to maintain her breath. She coughed, wheezed, her eyes turned bloodshot as the constricting pressure around her throat tightened and tightened! She used the Force to push and push back against Elinda, but the dark jedi held fast.
Her distress flooded into the bond with Puru.
Puru acted in an instant – she held her calm, she maintained her concentration even through the distress flooding into the bond and mixing with her own fears for Kthira. She held out hands toward Elinda, and closed her eyes. The Force gathered around the dark jedi’s image, who already had most of her Focus and power turned to Kthira.
“I did feel it, I felt it every day since I ran away. All until my trial as a Jedi, where I understood that you have made your choices as I have made mine. That I would have to stand by and live by them.” She decided to trust that very bond with Kthira – both hands closed into a fist and opened again in a ripping motion through the air. “My bond- our bond, makes us stronger!”
Suddenly, Elinda’s projection twisted, screamed and then crushed into a ball before bursting into smoke, ripped and torn by a Force Breach.
Kthira stumbled down to the ground, her legs waving, barely keeping her up. Deep, hacking coughs came immediately. She hunched over, hands around her throat, wheezing. Puru ran toward her, fussing over the Chiss until she was able to draw in a long, coughing gasp for air, eyes watering in relief. “Argh! I… hate that.”
Then they felt it: a sudden gust of wind, that was not wind, was not physical. The Force suddenly blew past them. It died down, only for a massive surge of dark energy to make itself felt, reverberating back toward them, from the north.
“Did you feel that?” Kit clenched her jaw, and looked to Puru.
“Mm … I very much did. I think,” She began with a small frown. “The next one is going to be tough … we need a plan.”
[DISCLAIMER: This is not a thread necro! After having spent months away from the server, I realized that we ended up never formatting the very last bit of this story and getting it ready for a finalizing post.
So, here it is! If anyone read the story so far and enjoyed it, apologies for having left it unfinished >.<]
Final Chapter
With Puru close, she felt an almost natural soothing. Perhaps it was their Bond, or simply her feelings for the twi’lek. It mingled with her body’s feeling of relief as her breath returned, and adrenaline died down after having been almost Force Choked to death by Elinda. “We do,” she said, straightening up and drawing a breath. “If – split into three as she was – she could still get the drop on us…”
Her frown deeped, and the Chiss turned her full-red eyes to Puru. “And I get the feeling this time she won’t just vanish in a puff of smoke as soon as we so much as hit her. But…” she paused for a moment, and said, “… I think this time we’ll be able to really sense her – there’s no way she can hide that much power. You know her best, love. What do we do?”
Puru considered for a few long moments as they slowly made their way out of the crumbling building. “I have never seen her use this degree of power before… my idea is that I’ll act as bait. I’ll approach and try to make her think I yield to her…” she paused, as both she and Kit found their footing back down along the decrepit spiral staircase. “You use the opening to distract her, and either of us can use that to land a strike on her.”
Kthiras’s crimson eyes narrowed and drifted over the corners of the lobby as they reached the bottom of the stairs. She shook her head. “No… no. We do it the other way around. I can bait her. She likely has every reason to feel nothing but jealousy and hate of me. Trust me… I can exploit that, unbalance her.” She looked aside to Puru, and they began crossing the long lobby as they saw everything there truly remained quiet. “And you… I felt it that day at the Caves when you came with me, for my bonding with that Alice being. You can hide your presence in the Force, can’t you?”
Puru’s steps echoed beside the Chiss’ as she spoke , “I can subdue my presence as if I am barely Force-sensitive, sure… but I am not Sandra.”
She paused in the middle of the lobby, turning to the twi’lek . “The problem is… that means you’ll be the one landing the killing blow, perhaps…” she firmed her lips. “Could you do it?”
Puru wrinkled her nose slightly, and looked away . “I will… or I will die. We’ll both die.”
Kthira firmed her lips at the twi’lek’s hesitation, and reached out a hand for her side. “Then we go with the original plan. You distract her, and I’ll try to do it.”
Puru shook her head more firmly, vehemently . “No. I need to do this. It’s the Path I chose, and if I can strike true against her, then my saber will never falter against the Sith. You’re right…” she then said more softly, stroking her fingers along the Chiss’ cheek. “… the Path that I walk is that of the Jedi, but it’s not without a little bit of darkness and hard decisions. I will strike her down if you can give me an opening.”
In her mind, Puru echoed the mantra of the Jedi Shadow to herself .
This, too, was a trial . This whole ordeal suddenly sprung upon them was. A trial of the past. A trial of a part of her own self come to haunt her. For Puru, the entire Path was full of them – becoming a Knight did not mean the trials were over. They’d only just begun.
For Kthira, this trial reminded her of a road she’d trodden before. She’d drunk deeply of the Dark Side. She still walked in it, even if she sought to control it and not let it control her. Yet, now, facing someone still so steeped in it – and seemingly so powerful – tugged at her in ways she already found herself instinctively resisting… and instinctively wanting to give in. Facing Elinda – someone who had seemingly gone insane and thrust herself even more deeply into the dark after she lost one she seemingly loved – brought… memories. Memories she had to lock and file away for the moment.
Kthira pressed her lips thinly as she saw the tension in the twi’lek . The struggle. The hard decision. She reached a hand up to Puru’s palm on her cheek, and leaned into press her forehead against the twi’lek’s. “I’ll always be here, love. Here to make sure you never become that person. You’re not.”
Still, a moment hanged in the air . As if something important had been left unsaid – perhaps something that should not be said out loud.
“Shall we?”
“I am ready,” Puru said, her words feeling lighter with the resolve she’d built inside her.
A loud, deafening crack filled the air, followed by the groaning of steel bending and warping, screaming like a titanic best.
They looked up. The lobby’s ceiling had split open and was staring to cave in on them.
“Well, of course!” The Chiss loudly complained in the split moment before she turned for a mad dash towards the entrance, with Puru snorting in amusement as she shared the Chiss’ thoughts and ran for the entrance, the Force bolstering their speed.
A massive slab of duracrete slammed down where they’d stood a moment prior. Chunks of more duracrete fell beside and in front of them, alongside sharpened spikes of bent and broken steel.
They sprung out of the lobby’s entrance, barely getting enough distance across the plaza outside, before the entire building caved inwards and filled the street in a thick mist of soot and duracrete dust.
“That was such a cheap shot!” Puru huffed softly, shielding her eyes.
“So uncivilized.” Kthira said, mirroring the sentiment amid a brief fit of coughing caused by the dust.
“Let’s go,” the twi’lek quickly said, then, starting northwards, to where they’d felt Elinda’s surge of energy.
It wasn’t long before she followed the echoes in the Force toward a final building. Deceptively, it seemed to be just a simple, if large, café. Or perhaps something which the ancient people of those ruins in a similar, social manner. Remnants of ancient metal tables and chairs – too ruined to hint at the anatomy or size of the inhabitants – were arranged inside it and outside, with broken glass scattered everywhere over the frames of what once were tall windows. Metal utensils – warped and rusted – were strewn all over, along with old drinking vessels.
As they stepped inside the café, that scattered mess rose at random to strike them. Cups flew toward them, but shattered into the wall. Old knives and blades launched toward them, but missed just shy of their bodies as they dodged. It felt… deceptively easy. An intimidation tactic that wouldn’t work on them for the third time.
Deeper inside, the lights flickered on and off, somehow, without electrical power to feed them. By what power? Another question, as a single, old credit chit slid across the floor, making a screeching sound.
“ Enough, Elinda,” Puru called into the café. “You can’t scare me with these petty tricks any longer. I’m not a little girl anymore. Come out and face me properly.” And it was true. These displays no longer meant anything to her. Her decision had been made. Her resolution was made. She was ready for what she’d have to do… assuming Elinda did not defeat them both.
Beside her, Kthira’s face was cut by a deep frown. On their way inside, she knew they were going to face Elinda in her full power. She’d felt said power… which was what made the seemingly ineffectual little display of cups and knives so unsettling. She knew she’d have to call upon everything she had, and so she did. She mustered all her Will, her inner strength, but also all of her anger she felt for the woman, for everything she’d done to Puru in the past. She let it simmer inside in a cold boil… she would need it if they were to draw Elinda out and face her.
“ I think she’s growing afraid…” Kthira quipped, it was time. “Either that, or we’re really just dealing with a jealous, insecure little ghost here, love.” Kit japed, with a catlike, perhaps infuriating grin on her face… but inwardly, a cold frown focusing her entire attention into the darkened depths of the building.
She then felt a subtle prickling against her skin, and the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end with static electricity filling the air. That was all the warning they had.
The rock-shattering scream that echoed from said depths momentarily preceded the smell of ozone in the air, as the metal floor-tiles were launched into the ceiling by eruptions of lightning that exploded from the ground.
They barely had a moment to activate and raise their weapons as the lightning lashed toward them.
“Afraid?! AFRAID?! I will redefine the meaning of that word on your tongue! If this is the way you wish to be, the way WITHOUT ME, then I’ll welcome you to pain that you’ll remember me so!”
Puru was ready for quite a few many things – but not that. Not lightning shooting randomly from the ground, with Elinda not even anywhere to be seen! She rose her sabers to absorb as much as she could, but cried out in pain as the sheet mass of it overcame her defenses, and sparks of lightning bit and scorched her body.
Kthira raised her training foilstaff and called on the Force to absorb all of what she could into it and her hands, to form a protective shield around her to absorb all she could. It was not enough. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt the pain of Force Lightning, and it never got any easier to bear.
Beside her, the twi’lek cried out louder, and slid one foot behind her, trying to strengthen her stance against the blast.
Kit had tried to bear the onslaught with sheer will and what power she could muster through the Force, eyes closed as she growled inwardly in agony and anger. Until she heard Puru’s voice rise in pain. In an instant, she launched herself forward. “No!”
Her choice was made without a thought: her screams of agony filled the ruins of the café as she moved forward, hunched as if fighting a hurricane’s winds. She used her foil and the Force to draw all of it toward her as she stepped between Puru and the lashes of lightning. Even if she’d take the brunt of it all, even at the risk of her shielding not being enough, at the risk of boundless pain, she’d do everything to spare the twi’lek of it.
It was the thought that echoed through the screams in her mind… before her body was suddenly raised with feet off the floor by a sudden Force, and she was flung aside into the wall like a ragdoll, screaming.
“Do you SEE?” Elinda’s voice echoed from the darkness. “Do you see that only through us, can our family truly be? Can you not see how BRIGHT my affection for you BURNS?!”
Kthira slammed against the wall and fell bodily to the floor, whimpering and twitching in pain as arcs of leftover electricity sparked through her limbs.
Puru staggered, alarm ringing out through her mind and body as she saw Kthira being flung aside. Her eyes flashed in shock as she saw her lover whimpering and curled on the floor – barely alive. It was… almost too much.
She felt it then, that pang of hatred - anger, violence. The Dark Side beckoning her to tap into its volatile and brutal power. She remembered those lessons, remembered feeling this way before - and all because of HER.
She was ready to act on it, so ready to just let herself be drowned in its bitter-sweet madness. "No… " she said quietly, before raising her voice. “No… this is not affection. This is only your ignorant, dark-twisted mind hiding the light from you.”
Puru staggered to her feet, heaving. She closed her eyes for a moment and drew her body straight. Opening them again, she shut one of her sabers off, held the other in front of her two-handed, spread legs apart and took up the stance of Shii-cho.
Why?
Why that one? She knew more effective Stances than that.
And asking herself that question is what she full on expected her master to do. Mock her for doing something so seemingly stupid.
But that is what made her ready. The simplicity and strength of the Form allowed her to focus. To focus her entire resolve in the light, to pour her feelings, her trust and love for Kthira, into a single act.
Her resolve blazed like the low, Rylothian sun; like the blade of her saber, orange and bright, as she held it straight and forward in front of her.
Slowly, she released a hand from her saber grip and held it out. She focused everything into one single, powerful Pull. She would let her old ‘Master’ taste her saber for the first and last time.
That is when she would be ready - ready to pour all over feelings of the light side, and trust and love for Kthira into a single, powerful Pull. And then she would let her Master taste her saber for the first and last time. Her resolve blazing like the low Rylothian sun; orange and brigh
A figure emerged pulled from the darkness deep inside the building. A humanoid form of shadows, pain and rage. The echoes of her Scream replaced the air around them as she was pulled flying towards Puru. The thin walls of the front of the building bent and then burst outwards with the force of the scream sent toward the two of them. What windows still remained shattered in a single, simultaneous explosion.
The full turbulence of the scream hit Puru like a storm, catching the fallen Kit at the edge of it. It was Elinda’s impassioned, pained denial boiled into a single Force Scream. Her pain sliced and lashed at Puru’s body, tearing injuries and gashes.
But she stood firm. Stood with her saber held straight and out, still in Form I. As the pain and the injures slice her, she closed her eyes, pushing it away and focusing on nothing but that moment. On what she had to do. On all that she could do – all that a Jedi could do – Trust. That which shall be, will be. Trust in the force.
Not knowing. Not guessing. Only trusting, she – eyes still closed – took a long step froward and lunged with her saber, stabbing forward.
The blade pierced her former Master, as the scream and the turbulence and the storm died into a cold silence. Their eyes met, inches away from each other, illuminated by the orange glow of the saber stabbed through Elinda’s body. She did not this time evaporate into smoke and shadows. A quiet gasp echoed through the darkness. The fatal blow had been landed… on the both of them.
As Elinda had fallen upon Puru’s saber, into her fate, her hand had lashed aside and forward at the twi’lek, deeply piercing Puru’s side with a long, vicious dagger.
It was in that quiet moment that the pair were the most real. The quiet and serenity of the moment then came, as everything ell into place in slow motions. The air of the Force granting them but a moment to gaze with finality upon each other for the burdens that had moved in their lives.
Puru looked into her former Master’s eyes with sympathy… and a conviction. A conviction to walk her Path as sincere to herself as she could… and to take a life when it was necessary. In that moment, she found a measure of peace.
Elinda’s arm rose and ran over Puru’s in a gentle caress… before falling lifeless to her side. Perhaps a final gesture of affection, before the saber holding her up switched off and the woman crumpled lifeless to the floor.
The stillness broke with a quiet whisper. “Go with the Force… Elinda,” was all Puru managed, before her own injuries overwhelmed her and she collapsed onto the floor… unmoving.
The Jedi Code held: “There is no death, there is only the Force”.
In a corner, Kthira’s body stirred. The agony and the aftershocks of the lightning strike she’d absorbed nearly rendered her unconscious. She’d been only dimly aware of the scene that had unfolded before her. Her body had been too wracked and charred with lightning to allow her to Focus. Her nervous system still too overloaded with electricity to function, to move, with every nerve ending still sore and aching with aftershocks of pain.
With blurry, blackened sight she’d dimly seen Puru’s shape standing in the glow of her saber. Seen another shape – Elinda – pulled into it. Seen the stillness.
The only thing that still held her awareness conscious enough was the strength of their Bond. It had been the only thing she’d been able to clearly perceive. It let her perceive the whirlwind of emotions within Puru. Her use of the Force. The conviction rising inside her.
It was also it which let her feel the sudden stabs of pain echo through to her when the stillness passed… sparking when Puru’s body crumpled to the floor.
The wave of panic rising in her was enough to charge her out of her shock-induced stupor.
“Aagh!” Her eyes shot open. Eelse, even pain, ceased to exist for Kthira. “N-no… no no no no!” She wasn’t a Jedi. She held no belief in not attaching herself. In not feeling her passions and emotions. Yet what overcame her wasn’t… desperation, not quite. It was fear, pain at seeing Puru so grievously injured and… possibly gone.
“No… n-not now.” But it was love that made her act. That made her body forget it’s lightning-wracked state and heave up. She brought herself up to hand and knees and crawled towards Puru’s collapsed form. Debris and ruin from the building, and the flung cluttery, was thrown aside as she scrambled at a mad, crawling dash towards the twi’lek, tears treaming down her cheeks. “No. No! I refuse!”
She crawled, anger mixing with grief in her voice. Not a tainted anger, no. More of a rebellion. A conviction to fight against circumstances for one she loved.
Kthira came to Puru’s slumped body, eyes and cheeks glittering wet. She panted, in both effort and anxiety, looking for the dagger. Looking for the injury.
“Please…” she began as soon as she saw the dagger stuck against Puru’s side, and all the bleeding gashes on her body. “Please… just this once.” She said, whimpering as she pulled the dagger out.
She knew what she had to do: call upon the Force to heal Puru. Could she? Even before her turn to the Dark Side, she’d never managed such. She’d always lacked… something essential for it. And now, she was far more plunged into the Dark Side, as she was, than in the Light. She did not know any longer if she could even have the ability to heal someone else, if she had gone too far from the Light to do it. But what choice did she have?
With tears streaming down her cheek, she settled one hand on the dagger wound, the other on Puru’s chest, and closed her eyes. She looked inside, looked to all her feelings for the twi’lek, to their bond, to her need to protect her, to save her, and called upon it - not upon her Will or her anger - but upon that small flicker of light, to try and will the Force to heal the one she loved.
The healing, from one vested in the dark, was slow… if it happened at all. But with everything that she called on, it had to be enough.
Without the light of Puru’s saber or of the lightning Elinda had unleashed, lightless interior of those duracrete-and-steel ruins slowly absorbed them. Soon enough, Kthira could see nothing. She could hear nothing but her own whimpering. She could feel nothing but Puru’s motionless body in her arms.
Near an eternity passed, before she heard a gasp… and then a groan, as Puru finally opened her eyes. “… hey,” the twi’lek quietly, tiredly, whispered, the smile on her lips unseen in the dark. The stab, the Scream and the confrontation had been painful, perhaps would’ve been her end. Yet, she had felt Kit besides her the entire time, felt her feelings through their Bond, and it kept her clinging to life.
In the dark, Kthira cried out a mixture of relief and anguish, and held her tighter, closer. “D-damn your Code… and damn not feeling attachments. I’m not letting you go!” No further words could voice her relief, and still her anguish, as she then took to laughing in exhausted, breathless happiness.
For a time that passed by without meaning, without counting, they stayed there in the dark, ruined building. They huddled into each other, and quietly let themselves recover from the ordeal. The energy called from the Force slowly mended wounds on Puru’s body, closed veins, patched and stitched wounds that would have otherwise cost her her life. With absolute exhaustion… it was enough. And together, they were enough.