The Last Vigil
CORUSCANT
JEDI TEMPLE
CORUSCANT | NEW JEDI TEMPLE | TEMPLE STEPS
The thunder above did not come from the clouds.
It came from the sky itself being torn apart.
The Valor and its sisters burned into the atmosphere like avenging angels, trailing behind them the smoke of war and the screams of orbital descent. Beneath their wings came the tide — drop pods shrieking through smoke, the Indomitus Legion disgorged like the teeth of a mechanical leviathan, crashing into stone and steel with an elegance born only from practiced annihilation.
The Temple had withstood empires.
It would have to withstand a legion.
Caltin Vanagor stood at the apex of the Temple steps — not because he wanted to be the symbol, but because someone had to be.
The first of the landing pods struck like thunder, and at his side,
Jonyna Si
carved the storm itself into the heavens with her twin blades. A hurricane of power and pain spun around her — the echo of battles past, of children sent away, of tomorrows she refused to let die.
You feel it too? Caltin asked, not taking his eyes off the black phalanx descending below.
Jonyna didn’t answer, she didn’t need to. Another bolt of divine lightning answered for her, lancing through the engines of an oncoming dropship and turning it into a fireball that scattered bodies like ash.
He then looked at her as she was dragging her blades along the stone and quipped
Deja Vu, but this time, we write the ending.
Above them,
Valery Noble
’s voice rang through the Force — not commanding, but guiding. A steady hand at the wheel of chaos. A calm breath in a galaxy aflame.
~
Masters Vanagor and Si… Trouble’s coming your way. Keep each other safe.~
Caltin exhaled. Just once. Slow.
Then the black tide came.
The Stormtroopers hit first — nothing subtle, just sheer volume and volume and volume. Blasterfire painted the steps red, green, white-hot. Stone cracked, marble shattered. Dozens fell in the first wave alone.
But the Jedi did not stand alone.
The steps trembled with the thump of mechanized advance. From the flank,
Taam Moghul
emerged like a myth reborn, cutting through the swarm like a starved predator. His claws met durasteel and his roar broke formations. He moved like the storm, wild and deliberate, a soldier unafraid of death — because death had met him once, and left humbled.
From the mist of the other side, a different kind of fury arrived.
Thurion Heavenshield
— the Lion of Midvinter — marched at the tip of a steel tide. Towering Einherjar in gleaming armor advanced like myth reborn, their energy shields locking into a living wall. The sky lit with the fires of the old ways, and Thurion’s war cry was not for glory.
It was for home.
“We are the line that shall not falter! Ours is the steel that shall not break! They shall not pass! SHIELDWALL!”
The crash of their charge shook the Temple foundations. The Indomitus Legion met the Einherjar with wrath, but for every inch they gained, blood watered the steps.
And then—He arrived.
Descending through the chaos came a figure wrapped in crimson and ruin.
Warmaster Indomitus, Imperius of Zakuul, strode with deliberate ruin. His armor was too ornate to be utilitarian, his cape too regal to belong on a battlefield — but he belonged here all the same. Arma Saud in one hand — a blaster born of nightmares — and in the other, the Lightsaber of Darth Malgus, igniting not with the sound of ignition but with the scream of memory.
This wasn’t a duel.
This was an execution.
He didn’t speak.
But Caltin did.
I recognize that weapon. You carry Malgus’ blade like it means something. Like it gives you the right. He didn’t wait for an answer.
That saber wasn’t forged with conviction. It was built on ashes. On betrayal. Just like the Empire you serve.
Caltin ignited Conservator, the blue flame burning so bright it bled white at the edges. They collided.
It was not clean.
Caltin did not dodge every strike. His shield splintered under Malgus’ saber. His ribs cracked under a precise blow from the Warmaster’s elbow. Their battle moved through smoke and broken columns, through falling comrades and rising ghosts.
Jonyna fought just feet away, spinning lightning and steel in tandem. At one point, she may have called to him, she may not have, but he didn’t answer — because the Force demanded all of him now, and all of his focus.
There was a scream of energy, and Caltin caught a bolt with Tutaminis, the energy nearly breaking his stance. He redirected it into the nearest Legionnaire, and then drove his shoulder into Indomitus’ chest, hoping to send both of them crashing into a fallen statue.
Don’t look at me like that. Like I’m not going to stop your advance. I don’t have to. I’ll slow it down enough, Caltin exclaimed, bracing his saber with both hands.
Long enough for someone better than me to end it.
And then the two titans charged again — into a world aflame.
Around them, heroes held.
Thurion, roaring as he cut down a black knight and helped a wounded soldier stand.Taam, flanked by fire, dragged a squad of rookies behind cover with one arm and threw a detonator with the other.
Jonyna, was busy turning five Legionnaires into dust. Valery, still above, poured calm and unity through the Force — not leading the fight, but lifting it.
And at the heart of it all?
Caltin Vanagor.
Still standing.
Still fighting.
Because if he didn’t —
He wouldn’t be able to look at himself in the mirror.
They say Jedi do not feel hate.
They’re wrong.
They say Jedi do not fear pain.
They lie.
The battle for the Temple Steps had become a maelstrom — lightning above, blood below, and chaos at every level between. The Indomitus Legion surged again, reinforced by jetpack troopers diving in from the flanks, laying down withering suppressive fire. Energy bolts cut the air like spears of wrath. Shields shattered. Men and women screamed as they fell. The stone beneath them groaned under the weight of war.
Caltin Vanagor had locked sabers with a Legionnaire wielding a serrated red shoto when it happened.
Not from the front.
Not even from the enemy he was facing.
It came from above.
A crashing, smoking drop pod — one of theirs, no less — had spiraled off-course and detonated on the steps, throwing molten shrapnel in every direction. One chunk, jagged and glowing hot, buried itself into his left side, just under the ribcage.
He staggered.
Grunted.
Fell to a knee. The Force tried to warn him — too late. He reached down. Blood on his fingers. His shield arm went numb.
“Vanagor’s hit!” someone yelled. “He’s down!”
He didn’t even see where Indomitus was to notice maybe a glance. Caltin could barely hear. The world had narrowed. Not quiet — silent… And then…
He stood.
It was not clean. It was not Jedi.
It was instinct.
He reached down, grabbed Conservator with both hands — even as the wound seared every nerve — and roared. Not in pain. In fury. In refusal.
The nearest trooper was disarmed in one strike. The next — cleaved from collar to hip. The one behind that? Thrown bodily into a gunship’s intake.
He didn’t fight harder to prove anything.
He fought because if this hill fell, so did hope.
“Master Vanagor—” another Knight’s voice cut through the haze. “You’re bleeding—”
Let it bleed.
“You need medical—”
I need that line held!
Then he charged again.
The old lion, wounded.
Cornered.
And unforgiving.
They weren’t Jedi right now.
They were walls.
They were memories refusing to die.
One of the black-cloaked knights of the Indomitus Legion stepped forward, lightsaber spinning in brutal arcs, confident that this goliath of a Jedi was ripe for the kill. Caltin didn’t parry.
He caught the blade with his bare hand. Tutaminis surged through him like a lightning rod. His palm burned, his eyes flared. He didn’t even cry out — just held it there, pulled the knight in close, and whispered:
Wrong mountain.
Then he headbutted the attacker so hard, the man’s helmet split in two — and the saber dropped to the steps.
He didn’t take it.
He didn’t need it.
He had Conservator.
And he still had time.
At the top of the hill, bloodied and gasping, Caltin Vanagor stood over a rising mound of fallen.
The wound at his side burned. His shield dangled from broken straps. His left arm no longer worked right.
But his stance?
Unshaken.
You want the Temple Indomitus?! he growled through gritted teeth.
Then earn it!!!
