The moment I saw Vila's opponent begin to lean forward, I felt the pressure coming down on her. It wasn't physical at all; it was exerted through the Force. It may have been invisible, but it was real nonetheless. The air around them distorted for a second, and I knew that the bastards were trying to invade her mind. Vila might not have realized it yet, too focused on their duel, but I could feel it... I could feel it more than anyone else.
And I won't let it happen... It must not succeed.
I sat straighter in the shuttle, my eyes closing, sucking in a breath, and reaching deep... as deep as I could. I was trying to break through. To touch the Force, not the corrupted variant that permeated this accursed system. No... I can't rely on that... So, my aim was to reach out and reconnect with the real Force, the all-encompassing living Force, that is not under Rakatan rule.
I didn't know if it was possible... but I had no other idea. Even if the Rakatans had twisted it through the thousands of years being stuck here, the Force lies inside all things. It is not just the part of the Rakatan manipulation, nor their terraforming ritual, nor the dark emotions they had left behind... It is so much more than that... That is why I was looking for the real Force... Even if it meant letting myself fall into it.
And the moment I made that decision... something clicked.
I lost all sense of the passage of time. It was... Painful. But not for long. It was like breaking through ice with my bare fists, slamming against it until it splintered, and then I sank into the ocean beneath it... When I felt the Force rushing into me, it felt shocking, cold, and endless.
Then I felt myself burn.
For a moment... I felt afraid. But...
A sudden feeling exploded in my mind. It was not violent, but it was searing with the warmth of an infinitely massive sea of life force. It tore away the Rakatan whispers, the doubts they were constantly trying to amplify in us, along with the weight of suffering that they had been throwing at me since that damned vision.
I didn't know what would happen next... but...
I poured everything I had into the connection, not through anger or fear, but through a sudden clarity and understanding. Whatever would come for me next, I was okay with it. I had let the Force guide what came next, be it my powers, my senses, or my... fate. I gave myself to it completely, without reservation.
And then, just like that... the pain stopped.
::.NO! GET OUT!.::
The message wasn't words but a loud shout through the Force. It was a pulse of pure Dark Side Force shout, heading outward from them and crashing into my consciousness... I felt the hit, and although I felt no pain, my consciousness shuddered, and I almost yielded to its command. But, holding onto my memories with my Master and Vila, I managed to keep afloat and redirect most of their effort to snuff me out.
The effect was immediate because half of it was snuffed out by the Force itself, and what remained was looped back into their own minds.
Vila's opponent jerked violently, like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly yanked by a third person. The red blades in his hands wavered, his movements staggering and losing their weird rhythm. The bastard's stance stumbled, its legs kicking out at nothing, its arms twitching in confusion, and it defended instead of attacking, misreading Vila's moves. She noticed it at once... Of course, she did. Her instincts were too sharp not to, and it was all she needed.
She pressed forward in a flurry of swings, her sabers blurring through the air like a double arc of orange lightning. There was no hesitation or questioning of herself, just pure resolution.
A slash took the man's right arm while another took the left at the elbow, disarming him. Still, Vila wasn't done yet... The follow-through moves from her cleaved down the center of his chest, and then, in one final spinning sweep, she severed both legs and spun into a finishing strike that bisected the torso diagonally from shoulder to hip.
Complete annihilation as his body fell into twitching pieces, smoking where Vila's blades cauterized his flesh. For a moment, it looked as if he was about to try and reconnect himself and start fighting again... but not even the Rakatans could do something like that.
Vila landed in a crouch, breathing hard, sweat dripping down her lekku and cheeks as she watched, waiting for the 'thing' to keep moving or try to fight back... But... No. It was over. Even I could feel it. Without a working body, there was nothing to keep the Rakatan consciousness anchored in our physical reality, and it retreated. She won... We won. I heard how her sabers hissed off...
But I didn't see it happen. In all honesty... It was the last thing I heard as I felt myself being swept away. I wasn't on the shuttle anymore. I was nowhere... It wasn't frightening, though. It was... Peaceful. It really was.
When the backlash hit me, it was like being flung into hyperspace with no ship, no guidance, and no protection. My body felt like it had disintegrated, and there was only my consciousness as I spiraled through empty space... white, then black, then white again. But, as I said... it was peaceful. It was... normal. And I let it envelop me.
...
....
...
Ben Skywalker staggered all of a sudden. His heel dragged for just a second across the deck plating of the Star Destroyer, his footwork interrupted by a spike in the Force, reaching him in an instant.
"Kael..."
He didn't say it out loud, but it echoed in his thoughts like a sudden gut punch. Something had just happened... Something bad. The Force around Kael had burst into action, becoming a bright beacon, one that he had seen way too many times in the Yuuzhan Vong years... and then, it was gone. Kael had turned completely silent... He couldn't feel him. For a moment, he turned his head toward the corridor, toward the shuttle, and then gritted his teeth and refocused.
He was no longer a boy. He was a proper Knight, and he had a job to do.
A blur of motion snapped him back into the moment just at the right time. One of the possessed Revani acolytes came down on him with two sabers, their forms corrupted by the Rakatan consciousness, making him move just the same alien way as Vila's opponent did. Ben parried low and then high, moving his solo blade, catching each strike in a perfectly executed guard move, making it look like he was wielding two lightsabers instead of one. He was showcasing the form that, so far, only his father mastered... Aetheris. The Way of the Starbird... The one that Luke Skywalker himself developed.
Feeling that Kael had suddenly disappeared, he no longer held back anything. The floor cracked beneath him from the impact of his next step as his body became surrounded by the Force, ripped out from the Rakatans, and then he pushed back with a shockwave of their own Force powers, following the swing of his blue blade. The possessed acolyte didn't even know what hit him. He was thrown through the ship's bulkhead, crashing through steel and vanishing in a burst of sparks and blood as his body disintegrated by the impact. The hole that was left on the Star Destroyer was quickly sealed by an energy field, not that the whistling of air escaping into the vacuum of space would bother Ben.
Not in his current state.
Form Eight's main advantage was the blending of physical combat and Force powers, making it nearly impossible for an opponent to anticipate the wielder's next move, even if they try to feel it out. Weaker opponents' senses could be overwhelmed by the user's own Force powers, infused into every strike, into their own being. It was a true unity between the Jedi and the Force.
But it also had its drawbacks. The form's heavy reliance on the Force could and would exhaust even experienced Jedi if used too much. But Ben wasn't in the mood to go calmly about the issue anymore. He wanted it to be contained and contained now. Maybe the excessive Dark Side manipulation he felt in this system made him this brash... Especially that he was accessing it directly now... but he knew how to deal with that.
Vestara came around the corner just then, her blade a crimson blur, carving one of her own disciples' legs out from under him. She didn't hesitate at all; despite being someone from her own people, there was no saving them anymore. With another move, she reversed her grip and plunged the saber into his chest, pinning him to the wall until he went wholly limp, burned from the inside out.
Kyle Katarn followed next, becoming a human battering ram. His blue lightsaber carved an arc that separated two enemies from their weapons at once and, a half-second later, from their arms. His movements were not flashy but refined by decades of experience, expending just enough energy so that every move he made would be a killing blow. As he disarmed his opponents after a long fight, getting used to their weird moves, his other hand thrust forward, sending a third hurtling down the corridor with a Force Push that cratered the floor itself.
"Something's wrong," Ben snapped, trying to sense the location of the rest of the controlled acolytes and any others they may have consumed. "Kael's Force signature just vanished!"
"He was probably injured," Vestara growled, going after the incapacitated Revani student who was thrown down by Kyle. "Vila's with him, so don't worry. We have bigger trouble to deal with!"
"Sadly, she is right," Kyle added, and Ben nodded as he closed his eyes, tuning out the chaos.
"Right..." He whispered... "Then let me deal with them."
He reached out the same way Kael did, reconnecting with the actual Force. With so much greater certainty and experience, he pulled it inward, not channeling it through the by-now constant fear and fury the Rakatan mind exerted on the ship itself but carving a hole into their control.
He noticed the issue the moment they arrived at the system, and by now, he knew what they were dealing with. The vision he received from the Force? It was not only a warning but also the guidance that he was here to do precisely this: To end their thousands of years of suffering. At the moment, he was drawing on the Force through memories and through his experiences.
And as his senses expanded, he found them.
First were the twisted minds, thousands of them screaming, laughing, whispering. It was a complete mess. Yet, he didn't fear it, and shielding himself, Ben stepped into that swirling tide of minds. Sensing his approach, it tried to consume him or rip his being apart.
"No." He thought as he locked onto the ones hiding in the eye of the storm.
He reached into the tide of madness and began using himself as a conduit. The moment the Rakatans realized what he was doing, their minds recoiled in fear and anger. Ben was now connected to the Force outside of this system, and through him, those thousands of lost souls were finding a way out. An escape... Relief had come. They began flooding Ben, but they weren't hurting him the slightest. They were just passing through him to rejoin the Force on the outside. They didn't dare harm him... no. They thanked him as they passed through him, finally freed.
The moment their amalgamation lost control over what fueled their powers, panic set in, trying to break Ben's concentration. Still, just as they wanted to assault him, a second consciousness barged in, reflecting their efforts. Without looking or probing, Ben knew who it was... Only Vestara could connect with him on this level. Nobody else...
It was over. With their bodies dead and now the fuel towards their wretched existence being ripped away, what awaited them was a worse fate than death. Soon, they would be nothing but ghosts, stuck in this one system, in their forever prison, no longer being able to affect anything in the material world or through the Force... They were doomed to exist in a perpetual, colorless state from which they could only watch and never interact with anything ever again.