The Jeddak's Tomb

[Alkor Centaris]

Villa Obscurum
Harnaidan, Muunilinst.
95 ABY​

"There is merit in all wisdom," croaked an ancient voice through the dusty halls. "Both that of the Jedi and that of the Sith hold ounces of truth, though it lies sunken beneath stagnant ideals and codified zealotry." Musky fragrances rose from braziers as they ignited, seemingly without provocation. They illuminated the shadows a dim orange.

"It is in the teachings of the Sith that we first find a glimpse into the past of our order." The tall creature, more monster than man, cast a jaundiced gaze toward his pupils, some eager, others uncertain. His blackened lips twisted in a wicked smile. "Those who seek power, knowledge, and freedom through the study of the Force have been condemned and villified by the Jedi and their beloved democracies for millenia."

"Master Plaga," one student spoke up. "Did the Dark Jedi not step away from the Jedi Order in a relatively non-violent manner?" The girl tilted her head inquisitively. "Why did the Jedi quarrel against them for a mere difference of opinion?"

The behemoth rose to his full height and turned his back on the group, and his hands moved over the fire in a rhythmic manner. "Patience, child," he rasped quietly. "Stave off your preconceived notions about what happened, and embrace truth through learning."

"Is it not rightful that we hate the Jedi?" another learner, a boy, questioned. "Is it not the nature of our kind-"

"Hate, for its own sake, is folly." He turned back to the small group with two handfuls of flame dancing in his palm like pets. They licked gredily at flesh and warped it, but he paid the pain no heed. "All of the things that occur naturally are a gateway. Understanding them is the means by which you open the doors and traverse the halls of the cosmos."

"To simply hate the Jedi is a narrow path with a single end. Either you lay dead, or your enemy- but once you come to that point, there is nothing else to gain." The embers rose quietly in his grasp, and he twisted his wrists to offer them freedom. In turn, they fanned out and spiraled through the air like winged serpents. "This deification of emotion, this singular path is the failure of the Sith."

The Master clenched his fists and quelled the flames in an inspiring display of command. They disappeared in a plume of smoke and ash. All the students exchanged thoughtful glances, and picked up the pace behind him.

They stopped short at the sound of heated plasma as it collided. The telltale thrum of lightsabers greeted them as they turned the corner, and two men- clad only in their trousers and wielding only lightsabers- exchanged glancing blows.

"Brothers," the Master murmured to the two as they locked blades and fell away again. To the learners, he offered introductions. "These are Masters de Fortia and Centaris." He gestured to one and the other in turn, then looked back to the group. "Both of them fully aware of you, and yet, somewhere else entirely."

The cybernetic arm bashed into Alkor's chest for the third time, and he grunted as the impact sent him sliding back. The pain lanced through his shoulder and down into his abdomen, but he pushed it from his mind. "You're slowing down," the other man remarked.

Alkor shook his arm out and maintained a sturdy stance. The crimson blade in his hand tilted a bit more toward Lahash. "Just gauging the strength of the blow," Alkor commented. "You're pulling the weight at the last second. That should have broken a rib."

The Jeddak smirked. "Now who's not taking whom seriously?"

Alkor rushed forward with a downward slash, easily parried by the deft movements of his opponent. They exchanged blows and sparks fell away, and de Fortia finally took a step back. "You've come a long way from Corellia, boy," he praised. "You were just a scumbag back then, but you might just be a warrior now."

The Dark Jedi put his blade away and Alkor did the same.

"Every Jen'jidai has walked a different path to this point," Plaga told the learners. "Some were conquering kings, others are murderers. Despite their differences, it is strength that binds them together as Brothers. It is respect."

Alkor walked past Plaga without looking to the man. "Another magnificent speech, Master Plaga," he muttered. "You always did have a flair for the dramatic."

A snicker rippled through the group, but a dangerous glare silenced them. Sweat beaded on Alkor's back as he made his way through the hall, glistening in the dim lighting. If he had lived that way forever, Alkor would not have questioned it.

But things rarely go as planned...

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Harnaidan, Present Day​

All signs that there had ever been rebellion in these streets were virtually gone. The Banking Clan held power on Muunilinst that no galactic superpower anywhere else boasted. It was said that all credits that flowed in the galaxy stopped in its vaults at some point, and judging by the resplendence of the spires in the midday sun, Alkor could believe there was truth to those words.

He stood silently atop the observatory platform, watching as waves painted reddish orange by the volcanic ash crested along the rocks at the city's edge. It was a place where greed begat beauty, and all peoples stopped in awe of what the Muun had built.

There were none, from what he gleaned, who remembered a time when the Muun had been cowed before a dominant sect of Force Adepts. If there were, they kept the information to themselves, and strayed far away from those who asked after it.

Alkor rested his arms on the crossbar that separated him from a lethal drop, not intimidated by the distance at all. "If only you could all see this now," he mused. "In spite of all your best efforts, and the way you lusted after power, and even with all you did to assure that the legacy would last forever-"

Alkor stopped short as a blistery wind whipped across his face. It felt almost like a slap. He grinned. "-there is no one left to sing your praises or grieve the loss of you."

Yet here you stand, Alkor Centaris.

The voice did not surprise him. Echoes in the Force in places that once held power were not uncommon. Manifestations of the fallen were less frequent, but their voices- that was something else altogether. He strained his thoughts to place it, and after a moment, he spoke up.

"Lahash," he uttered.

"Alkor." The white maned murderer locked eyes with the Corellian, and smirked. His image manifested by the will of Alkor overlapping his own. "There is no one else here who could commune with a Jen'jidai."

"It must be hard, being forgotten." Alkor studied the man, one who in life would have beaten him bloody for the insult. They were the same in that way. They had always been different.

"You return to where it began," the Jeddak observed. "What is it you seek to gain?"

Alkor turned away and gripped the rail tightly. The wind shifted, and the waves battered against the shoals. "Strength," he said finally, lifting his broken arm and the crushgaunt with it for the other man to see. "I want to assure I am never defeated again," he confessed. "I want to be the strongest of all."

"The title King died with me," Lahash laughed. "And it will never pass to you."

Alkor sighed, and turned his back on his fallen brother. He leaned against the shaky support, and stared skyward. "I never could beat you," he reminisced. "Not for lack of effort."

"But you are alive, where I am not." The Adumari man folded his arms. "Perhaps there is a way for you to create your own legacy, and unlike your foolish master tried to do, I can give you real strength."

"I'm through making deals with devils, Lahash," Alkor spat.

"Oh," the Jeddak smiled. "I always admired one thing about you, boy," he revealed. "Strength does not come from the Force. Where the others decried your distaste as weakness, I understood your plight. The darkness corrupts. It gradually bends us and breaks us, and in the end, it consumes all."

"I do not fear the dark," Alkor hissed through gritting teeth.

"But you understand the truth of it. It's power is borrowed, and comes at a cost. The more you tap it, the more of yourself you lose."

Alkor nodded.

"True strength," the Jen'jidai whispered, "is measured by the man, not his ability to tap the Force."

"Yes," Alkor replied.

The wind stopped.

"Then show me your resolve," Lahash spoke as he stepped past Alkor and onto the rooftop. In his hands, two red blades- one short, one long- hissed to life. "Show me your strength."

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Their blades clashed in a flurry of sparks, the single white weapon flitting between precise snaps of crimson and warding them away deftly. "You keep pace better than what I remember," de Fortia remarked as the younger Jen'jidai circled to keep out of death's maw. "And you read attacks better. It's like fighting a different man than the boy back on Togoria."

Alkor recalled the intense pain where Lahash had carved deep into his flesh and taught him the first of many lessons. Sweat beaded on his brow as he continued the practiced movements atop the spire, superheated plasma coaelscing mere meters from his body. As much as he had grown, the infamous Jeddak was the same master of combat he had always been.

"Even back then, you lacked focus," the man reflected. "It was like you were aware of everything, and yet, of nothing at all."

The Adumari man rushed forward with his shoulder dipped low- the Mandalorian Iron apprendage that made him a menace in close quarters. Lahash growled in surprise as it clanged against something equally dense. "I remember this trick," Alkor crooned fondly. "You didn't like my mouth," he remembered, "you said my disrespect might get me killed among the Jen'jidai."

Alkor gripped the prosthetic tightly, and it resisted, wriggling and crwaking as the crushgaunt labored to put a dent in it. Lahash swiped at Alkor with his left saber, and the Corellian's hand raced to reinforce his own block.

The Jeddak pulled away with minimal damage to his arm, but a reminder that he had- if even for a second- underestimated his opponent. "That's a new trick," he commented offhand.

"Nerve gas," Alkor commented. "Lost all feeling in the arm. Everyone gets one fatal mistake- this was mine."

"So you learned something along the way." Both blades rose again as Alkor backed away and squared up with his opponent. "It's a start."

Alkor shrugged.

Their bodies moved entirely on instinct as the predators tore at each other, each eager to draw first blood. It was like watching a deathmatch in the Gladiatorial pits on Geonosis.

"Remember when you used to tell me that talk during combat was a waste?" Alkor grinned.

"There's that attitude I hate," Lahash spat. "I remember why I wanted to tear your face off."

"So do it," Alkor challenged. His eyes were hotter than hell as he watched a man he had always looked up to stare down at him from a pedestal he thought he would never reach.

It didn't seem so far away anymore.

"Gladly," the Jeddak snarled, and he surged toward Alkor at breakneck speed.

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Frenzied blows punished Alkor as he strained to defend against the unstoppable force. His footing held shakily as he took a step backward and slid toward the edge of the rooftop. He felt the vastness of open air against his heel and grunted.

"You're letting yourself be pushed onto the defensive," Lahash chided. "Are you afraid?"

The Corellian blinked. Was he afraid?

Over the course of a decade, he had fought in training bouts with Lahash countless times. He had been injured, in pain, and even suffered; but the fact remained, Alkor was not dead.

It occurred to him, out of the Jen'jidai, Lahash was the man he respected above all others. He dismissed the cruelties of the Jeddak and the hateful words of their other brethren as he sought the strength that this man alone possessed- no other warrior drove his obsession with power, with being the strongest.

Beyond Lahash de Fortia, there was nothing.

The challenge had kept Alkor alive, the dream that he would surpass this monster among men and stand alone atop the mountain. What happened when he was there? What would drive Alkor then?

What was his purpose? Why did he exist at all? All those killings, those years of training, and having his humanity stripped away- what was it for?

The existence of the phantom before him now beggared a greater question.

"I am afraid," Alkor admitted for the first time in his life.

"Good," the fiend answered. "You've finally stopped lying to yourself."

Alkor pushed off the toes of his back foot and struck back. The white blade flashed across Lahash's chest narrowly, barely blocked by the shoto in his right hand. The Jeddak twisted his body to keep Alkor in front of him as he passed to the left, and he brought the lengthier blade crashing down for the Corellian's shoulder.

The white lightsaber turned a full circle as it moved to clash with Lahash's weapon, denying it's bite close enough that Alkor felt the burning, boiling, and cracking of flesh beneath his robes. It stank.

He poured his effort into the block, pushing back against the more powerful man as he displayed strength of body Alkor could not match. His lips curled upward in a sneer. "Kneel, boy," he hissed. "Know that you are beaten."

His eyes widened as a sickening crack split his ears. Alkor stared defiantly into the eyes of his aggressor as the punch hit its mark, and Beskar cracked bone. Lahash spat blood as he stumbled back, reeling from the blow.

"I am afraid," Alkor repeated, "but fear is my weapon."

The Jeddak stood upright, cracking his neck and rolling out his shoulders as he stared down at the upstart. "What can a spineless murderer from the slums of Corellia hope to do against a man who rallied an Empire to his name?" His eyes burned with amusement as he watched Alkor take those first steps into the fire.

"My past is no different from yours," Alkor replied, blade arched toward his foe. He let out a ragged breath, his mind focused and his body ready. "It is behind me."