The Last of Us

[Darth Empyrean]

Two Years Prior…

“Has Darth Maliphant been found?”, Seki said almost abruptly to the man who had entered her office. There was a mild concern beneath the dark facade of a Sith Lady; but there was fear to be had deeper. What could have possibly made him disappear?

“No, my Lady. Darth Maliphant’s home has been searched and nothing was left; not of his security forces, nor any of his vessels. A room in the back was searched, and various plans and copies of his alchemy projects were seen; but nothing else.”

Seki’s fingers twitched, a pain she had dealt with for years. Her gaze wandered to their blackened, charred remains and considered just what had happened; to someone she had often looked up to. Her brow furrowed, and her nose wrinkled in disgust at the lack of evidence found thus far; and she spit venom with another response.

“Find him. Search Barbatos, Blackwell; does it matter? GenoHaradan assets if you have to.”, she said with a tight grasp of her rotting fist.

The man simply nodded, turning and leaving.

Seki’s nerves were about her, and the stress of running the academy on Barbatos for the Sith in addition to finding the late governor of Bastion was wearing her thin. The last thing she could remember was the cold sweat she had awoken in, as though he was in the room with her then; yet nothing came of it. She had not spoken to him since their last ironic conversation, where he had told her a few simple words.

“We will talk soon.”

---

Present Day…

Hoth

The cold seemed to cut deep as the cloak Maliphant wore was ripped and threatened to be taken at any given moment. Somehow, the pain calmed him, and as the frigid temperatures and blizzard drove deeper into his skin he could feel a sense of calm; for no matter what it had offered, it paled in comparison to what he had experienced for the last two years; all because of that damnable staff.

It began when he had fought the Grand Master of the Jedi Order; and how ‘something’ had broken free of its bonds within him. A seal ‘The Slave’ must have cast to protect it from prying hands, and yet when it came forth it nearly destroyed all those present. If it were not for Alex's quick thinking and use of her nexus, all present were very likely to have died.

And yet, it was not the end; for when again he had used it in the catacombs of Barbatos with Darth Morrow; he had experienced it again. The damnable artifact had broken free once more, and threatened to consume him then and there; yet it failed once more. All of ‘The Slave’s restraints had been broken then however, and there was nothing left to stop what was to come.

A cruel night on Bastion, training under Sidious, it had broken free after days of exhaustive training; and it had come in force. It had broken his will, taken him into an all consuming hunger as the gluttony of the artifact ripped the life from every person within the building; only ceasing when Maliphant managed some sense of control, yet it was fleeting.

With guidance, his trusted assistants and apprentices guided him to the Acerbitas, a ship that could run without so much as a crew; and let him wander into the blackness of the galaxy. And so he did, for years his ship would wander the darkness as little more than a rumor on the lips of smugglers and freighters alike; as the mystery of Darth Maliphant was never to be solved.

In truth, those two years were spent fighting, for his life and more. The artifact sought to crush him, kill him and take control as it had from the very beginning; likely the only reason it had goded ‘The Slave’ into creating it in the first place, the power hungry fool. Maliphant was to suffer however, and in time it grew easier, wearing it down from its control time and time again with the assistance of the Telos Holocron and the rituals taught by Mother Talzin’s grimoire.

In the end, he would succeed, crushing the device and consuming what energy it had held on him. The bond had lasted far too long, and after the climactic battle of wills that sent shockwaves through the galaxy; it was done. Destroyed, Maliphant was left with little more than the very freedom of his soul, and the lack of anything holding him back any longer. That which saved him, the ancient Sith Lords of eternity, and sheer power; a feat no Sith had ever accomplished prior, and would never do so again.

Yet, he could not simply return to his old life, for in the darkness of his fight he witnessed far more than he wished; a life he had never known. Memories of a time he hardly missed; and it was only the guidance he received that would help him to understand. It was here on Hoth, where the Acerbitas sat frozen beneath the snow and blizzards, did Maliphant come to terms with who he was.

Though, he seemed to have become neither. Maliphant, cruel and manipulative to a tee, and The Slave, an insane powermonger looking for revenge against existence; leaving little more than this conjoined identity. A quiet, more accepting individual, who despite all the darkness that still festered in the Force; was more calm than either of his prior iterations.

Sidious’s Chosen Son, that which he had taught everything to, was this newly reformed Maliphant; for the name would stick. Golden eyes would flash about as the lights of the reforged Acerbitas lit at his presence, the singularity reactors running on minimum power for detection purposes as a faint, sweet female voice came over the intercom;

“Have a good walk?”, it asked in a teasing manner.

Maliphant simply glanced up, lowering his hood to reveal a more aged, mature man with a coy grin.

“I did, Cybele. Thank you, is my bath ready?”

“Piping hot, as you like.”

“Good. I have something to do first…”, he said as he wandered through the empty halls of his vast flagship. The vessel was a monster, a beast in any fleet that could take on ships twice its size; but for the moment it stood quiet, silent in the aftermath of his journey for self realization and redemption.

As he wandered into his private quarters, small robots moved about to tidy things of dust and stray papers; but it might as well have been useless. In a few hours, Maliphant would surely have destroyed his Captain’s Quarters once more; and it was simply the way he was, far too interested in studying for such things. Though today, he passed by all the tidied notes and things for a single artifact he had kept for all this time;

The Chained Tome.

He picked it up, feeling as it surfaces seemed to recoil at his touch; and a smile fell on his lips. How long had it been since he had created such a thing, and all he had learned from it? The vastness of its knowledge was growing every day he had put things into it, yet he had never seen another soul use it. Long had he forgotten who were the recipients of such a device, but it seemed oddly interesting that all of what was became so little now.

It opened then, to his touch as he cocked his head.

“Sending a message?”, Cybele asked curiously.

“I am.”

---

For those that held a copy of the Chained Tome, a single message would pass through their mind; a careful, intricate detail that would be understood with little issue;

“I’m alive. Find me, if you wish to inherit what is left of my empire.”

Who sent it would be as mysterious as the person who sent the artifact to them in the first place; yet it was clear that the person who had created such an item was brutally powerful. In an instant, all that was of the Telos Holocron, Mother Talzin’s Grimoire, and the entirety of the Dark Side’s knowledge and power would be thrust into the Tome for full understanding. Sidious, Bane, Revan, and so many more rushed forth to greet those who would enter and see what the Tome held; yet they would simply smile and laugh at those who ordained them to speak.

They were not worthy. Not yet.

[member="Darth Metus"] │ [member="Jacob Crawford"]

---

The echo of what was done would send chills to the many of the galaxy; of those sensitive enough to feel such a gracious echo of had happened, yet as to the specifics there could be no understanding. As though a darkness held in for millennia simply broke free of its shackles and tore through its containment to seek revenge; yet nothing came besides the foreshadowing darkness.

Rumors began to circulate among the circles of light and dark that the greatest cache of Sith Knowledge had been found; yet it’s location was unknown. Simply that it was open for anyone who sought to collect, but where would they begin?

 

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The Great Ocean roiled with a tumultuous anger that Cedric had not been witness to since the death of his world. Great tidal wives crashed against one another, sending masses of ethereal energy cascading about across the very stars themselves. The Jedi Master envisioned himself as a sole figure standing upon a distant island, only able to watch as the empyrean seemingly ripped itself apart at the seems.

A great and terrible darkness lingered in the eye of the storm. It was one that should have left Cedric with a feeling of dread, and indeed it would have, were it not so familiar. He had known this shadow in its earliest infancy; fought alongside it in times when he had been far more ignorant of the inner workings of the Dark Side. In that age of tolerance, he had regarded such a presence as simply a powerful friend.

Now he understood the evil at its heart.

Immediately, Cedric's thoughts went to Darth Vesper. Antherion had left a similar signature in the force as this one did, though this storm was far more violent than anything the Sith Lord might have been able to conjure. As Cedric waded into the shallows of his island, he felt an all too familiar chill creep up his spine. The hairs on his arms stood straight up, and he could not shake the sense that something deeply unnatural was clawing at the back of his mind. The Jedi Master had little doubt that such a thing as this might shatter the minds of untrained force sensitives - he would have to be careful to keep it from doing the same to him.

He willed the light of the Ashla to guard his spirit, his very form becoming suffused in dim golden light. Then, he began to walk. His feet traveled over the coiling waters as if they were flat cement - the Ashla would not let him slip into the darkest waters. He continued to walk for several minutes, then what felt like hours. As he drew nearer to the eye, the storm grew more violent. Veins of red lightning pierced the skies, and the sun was blotted out by furious black thunderclouds. The tidal waves continued to crash into one another and all around Cedric, though each time they fell upon him, the aura of golden light that suffused his body kept the depths from touching his skin.

He stood alone in the center of the storm. Here, the waters were calm, though they were just as malignant as the rest in their nature. The Jedi Master came to a halt, his brow furrowing as he beheld what looked to be an orb of living water suspended above the ocean's surface. There was a human form within that orb, a thin gangling thing that struck a cord with Cedric's memory. Eyes dark as the storm met those of burnished amber, and in that moment Cedric understood.

"Slave," the word was spoken with naked malice. The figure stared back, its lips parting as if to speak, and then all was darkness.

-----​

​

​

Cedric awoke in a cold sweat. His chest rose and fell violently, as if he had just run several miles. He bolted upright, eyes wide as he peered out into the gloom of his cabin for any sign of danger. After confirming that his life was under no immediate threat, the Jedi Master expelled a deep sigh, and slumped back into his bed.

"Ancestor," Cedric said to nothing.

The voice of his progenitor echoed back from the nothingness. "What have you seen boy?"

Cedric shook his head, "A greater threat than any other we've faced before." He said as he rose to his feet and drew his robe about his form. "An old friend has come back to the galaxy, and the Force has given me a vision - he brings nothing but death. I understand the empyrean's will - we must find him."

A pause, "Where is he?"

"That I do not know specifically, only that the echo came from the outer rim. I'll set a course. We've no time to waste."

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

The days on Hoth were often short, the sun appearing in the cold winters for only a few brief moments of reprieve from the darkness and blisteringly cold winds; yet it had not bothered Maliphant. With nothing but a tight undergarment, he let the cold wind cut across his skin in swaths; for it was pain that often kept a Sith focused when emotion was lacking. He no longer felt guilt as The Slave had, nor did he feel the envy and pressure of Maliphant before him, only an odd passion for calmness.

A serenity in the bleak blizzards of Hoth’s roaring storm.

His lightsaber roared to life as the lessons of Sidious and Revan came in bits, first moving through the standard cadence of those well versed in the blade. Snow took from his physical vision, so Maliphant simply closed his eyes and let the force see for him; the lightsaber twirling and whirling in its red streaks, steam rising from every bit of snow it would take with it. Through all of the seven forms, even through those taught later by Luke; they were child’s play, something Sidious chose to remind him of constantly.

It was not physical prowess that made a Sith great, but their ability in the force; and Maliphant understood that more than anyone. The lightsaber was crude, forsaken in his hands despite a well orchestrated performance; for it was an insult to use, to him and his masters. No, he did it simply for the enjoyment of activity, to feel something besides the darkness flowing through him, but the righteous heat of his blood and the pumps of his heart to follow.

It reminded him he was alive.

Yet, as the speed of his lightsaber quickened, and what was once the methodical positions of a master moving from form to form became a wild display of strength. The lightsaber flashed from one to many, and soon encompassed Maliphant in a proverbial red sun of energy, his form nearly completely hidden within the barrier it was. Yet all at once, the bright spot of the storm he had become, he ceased, and with an outstretched hand let loose a wave of lightning that threatened the structure of the storm itself.

It tore from his fingers, through the skies and thunder followed; and for a second, the storm ceased to move, as though recovering from the wound he had given it. Miles of the storm grew bright with the blackness of his lightning, tinged in white as the snow grew hot and faded; only for it all to begin once more in the seconds that passed. Maliphant stood there, breathing slow as he felt his fingers seem to shrink in the cold; Today’s training was done.

---

“Sith?”, the man asked with a careful wipe of his nose. He’d been a few drinks deep already, but the credit chip in his hand showed he was free to drink a few more before the day was over.

“None on this side of the galaxy, friend.”, he said with a dismissive wave.

“Best not ask too many questions ‘bout that anyway. No telling if The Sith Empire has spies out here, let me tell ya.”

With that, the man simply shook his head and turned back to his game of Paazak. There was nothing else he had to offer, and so Cedric was left clueless as to where he was to go; for all it would do him. He could feel the darkness of something far off, the Force echo’ing that which Maliphant had done in the Chained Tome, that he was no longer the child Cedric had once known. The Force told Cedric many things, and it was through it he knew more than those around him could offer.

He was in the right area, the Outer Rim certainly held whatever Maliphant had become, and the closer he was to Hoth the more he could feel his presence. Maliphant wasn’t trying to hide any longer.

[member="Cedric Grayson"]

 

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A quiet sigh escaped the Jedi Master's lips as the pazaak player denied him what he sought. He hadn't expected to get much form a random spacer, but he simply had no other options. The trail here was cold, and with the collapse of any nearby groups that might have been friendly to Cedric's cause, the Jedi Master was forced to work without infrastructure. He was no Jedi Shadow or trained investigator, but he trusted that the Force's will would guide him properly.

Left to his own devices, Cedric slipped into one of the cantina's darker corners, and reached out into the empyrean. The Great Ocean heaved as it had before, though now it seemed the tidal waves had grown even more violent in his absence. The island he had created for himself coalesced far closer to the eye of the storm than it had before. Cedric could see the orb of dark water hovering several meters above the ocean's surface without needing to move forward.

"We're closer than before," Cedric mused to himself, "Any idea where to look next?"

The ghostly form of his ancestor snapped into life out of the corner of his eye. Cedric met the bald specter's gaze, and frowned.

"Not by any natural means, no. There may be a way, however. The Blade of Ruusan."

The Jedi Master's eyes narrowed as he shifted his gaze away from his primogenitor and toward the abyss. He watched as the dark waters fell over one another, and in those waters he found his answer. "Explain."

Vicarion Grayson folded his arms behind the small of his back as he spoke, "That weapon was crafted with the sole purpose of excising the Dark Side from the galaxy. What you have felt - this, it is a travesty," the specter gestured toward the violent ocean beyond. "You and the blade have bonded. Should you put your faith in the weapon, it will guide you."

Cedric parted his lips to speak, but he suddenly found himself standing once more in the corner of the cantina. Annoyed, the Jedi Master drew his cowl over his features and absconded to his ship. Once safely aboard, he settled into the meditation room, a spartan chamber decorated with naught save for a few prized relics, and only a mat to serve as furnishment. Cedric fell to his knees, and carefully placed the hallowed lightsaber in front of himself.

Cedric felt the connection between himself and the blade as if he were sensing his own arm. The weapon was as much a part of him as any organ, and he understood it just as intimately. It had never occurred to him that the weapon might serve a purpose such as this, but it made sense. The Blade of Ruusan was crafted to slay Sith; it was only logical that it might have a means of tracking them down.

The ancient weapon rose to hover a meter above the floor. Slowly, its components began to unravel. Screws and activation switches unfurled to float in a menagerie of complex mechanical components and cold phrik. At its center hung a cyan lightsaber crystal that shone so brightly that it was almost blinding, so suffused with the Ashla that it was. When Cedric's eyes met the crystal, he was once again transported to the realm of the ethereal.

He stood alone amidst a snow drift. He was clad in naught but tight undergarments, the cold eating at his bare skin like a malignant cancer. He tasted metal in the air, and watched as the sky above was rent apart by a torrent of lightning. A single mirror stood amidst the drifts. Cedric strode up to it, and met eyes that were not his own. He recognized hateful amber that peered back at him, the long pale hair, the thin figure.

With a sharp breath, Cedric was ripped from the vision.

"Hoth," he said between gasping breaths as he braced himself against the cold floor, "He's on Hoth."

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Maliphant idled in the meditation chamber, the one place Cybele could not pry on his activities. Despite all that the ship’s AI was, and its experimental nature making it by far and large the most advanced AI in the galaxy, it could still not begin to understand the immensity of the force. An endless strength in the world of cybernetics, she was still but a robot, synthetic and cold disregarding the warmth in her tone. An exhale, and the fog of his breath was more visible than it was a second before.

How cold had it gotten? At least on par with the temperature outside, as negative sixty and plummeting, and Maliphant in little more than underwear. He almost couldn’t feel it anymore, as the ice that formed within the meditation sphere was finding a place on the walls and his skin, for he hadn’t moved in hours.

All his thoughts came to the annoyance before him; of Cedric Grayson.

The fool was a memory, an enemy of The Slave made during some bygone campaign of terror in the Outer Rim; something Maliphant cared little for now. The Jedi Master was not his target, nor even his goal; yet he grew closer by the day, far ahead of the Sith he had summoned. His jaw clenched, and the ice that formed around his lips shattered at even the slightest movement; falling to the wayside as he finally lowered his legs and stood once more.

In sheets, ice fell from him only to fall victim to further breakage when it hit the floor of the chamber; quickly to melt when the temperature rose in the coming minutes. Maliphant however opened the door with little hesitation, wandering into the Acerbitas’s mobile Sith Academy; the place he had called home for years now. It had never truly seen war in its new aggrandized state, yet all the comfort and amenities were here for many sith to enjoy.

Foolish, really.

“Cold?”, Cybele chimed in.

“No colder than you are.”, he said with a quip as he reached down to grab what loose fitting robes he had nearby, “Cybele, should any vessels come into orbit; leak energy signatures to show them where we are, but don’t make it too obvious. I want whoever appears to think they found us, not that they’re being entrapped. Understood?”

“As much as I ever do.”, she chimed in with a sing song voice.

And so she would; when Cedric Grayson’s ship came into orbit, it would begin to notice a small zero-point energy spike beneath the ice in the western hemisphere; just enough to give him a strong sensation of where exactly Maliphant had chosen to hide.

Exactly where Maliphant wanted him to find him.

[member="Cedric Grayson"]

 

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Moosic​

As Cedric peered out into the kaleidoscope of color that was hyperspace, he could not help but be haunted by a foreboding sense of conclusion. It was not a feeling he had ever experienced before, and it both chilled him to the bone, and set his heart aflame with anticipation.

Memories of a life long since lost bubbled to the fore of his mind. He recalled his early youth, when he and Lysandra had stood at the head of battle fleets that might have made the galaxy shake to its very foundations, were it that events had transpired differently. The memory of Maliphant was a vivid one. He had been a man as young as Cedric, pale hair, and eyes that bespoke of a darker nature than he had been keen to present.

At one point the Slave had run off with Lysandra, and that had served well as a lesson in jealousy and attachment for Cedric. The Jedi Master had kept his private issues with the two of them meeting to himself, and had even elected to offer the Slave a position of relative importance within the hierarchy of Ession. It had been an effort in tolerance and understanding; an effort that was wholly taken advantage of by those Cedric had been foolish enough to trust.

He'd caught Antherion and shown him the truth of his actions. Darth Vesper had repented for his evils, and had not been seen in the galaxy since. The Slave, too, would face justice. Many years had passed since their last interaction, but Cedric's memory was as long as the passage of time in itself. Maliphant remained unforgiven.

"Translating to sub-space travel in five minutes." The droid pilot droned out.

Cedric drew in a deep breath, held it, then watched as the transparisteel glass fogged up from the moisture. The cabin of the vessel was warm, yet he felt strangely cold. Confused, the Jedi meandered through the corridors of the small stealth vessel, his arms folded about his chest as he swam within the depths of the Great Ocean. The storm had calmed, the ocean's waters eerily still. A thin layer of ice caked with frost coated the surface.

At its center, as before, stood Maliphant.

Cedric felt the familiar lurch of his ship dropping into real space, but it did not pull him from the Force. As soon as he arrived, he felt the presence of his quarry magnify in triplicate. Even across the void of space, Cedric could feel Maliphant's presence as if they were standing in the same room. He suspected the Sith Lord could sense him just as vividly.

"I'm coming for you, traitor." He hissed to the void. The venom in his words was far unbecoming of a Jedi Master, but Cedric did not care. Now was not the time for compassion.

The sleek vessel darted through the void like a silver arrow toward the energy signatures that leaked from just beyond Hoth's perimeter. Whether it sped toward justice or oblivion was irrelevant: an arrow, after all, does not know what the nature of its target is, only that the target must be hit.

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

The distance churning of the zero-point reactor was rhythmic, almost soothing as various subsystems of the Acerbitas roared to life beneath the harsh snow and ice that had blanketed it from sight. Maliphant moved with grace, step by step he seemed to glide through the metallic halls towards the few exit hatches he maintained with bladework; he couldn’t risk fighting within the ship itself. It was after all his only actual path off the planet, and the greatest symbol of his strength that others could look upon and respect.

A loose end, thats all Cedric was. The Slave would lay the man’s kingdom low, and he returned to be disappointed; for it was ‘The Slave’ he would fight, but a man far greater than that. Hardly the same man at all, for this Maliphant was awakened, not beholden to the vast amount of drugs and hedonism that pilfered the outer rim, nor the wanton need to destroy to somehow retain some semblance of respect for himself.

Maliphant knew what he was capable of, but did Cedric?

The ice and snow crunched beneath his feet as the port hatch of the Acerbitas closed behind him, the thick black robes beginning to twist in the growing winds as he rose from the caverns to look upwards; watching the direction Cedric’s ship came with the slightest hint of anticipation. Was he aware what was beneath the ice, or would it be an outright surprise to be fired upon from beneath the ice?

A twisted grin grew on Maliphant maliganinent expression as the darkness of the force enshrouded him, its metaphysical energy mixing with the twirling winds of the growing storm as he spoke a single, simple command;

“Fire.”

Cybele responded graciously, as the stealth ship came closer to the buried remains of the Acerbitas, a thousand rounds of its hypervelocity cannons began to rip through the ice with a harsh acceleration. The storm grew in ferocity, but to match the ice and snow was now the wall of Jaeger and Blackwell ammunition that littered the air; as dangerous as Maliphant himself it would seem.

Sidious’s Chosen disciple crossed his arms and watched from molten golden eyes as the Stealth Ship would be fired upon, but he didn’t expect it to kill Cedric; No, the Jedi Master was far more intelligent than to be killed by a surprise attack from beneath the ice. He simply wanted him to know before it even began his situation was hopeless; a lesson that Jedi were always hard pressed to learn.

So he took his first few steps, slow and methodical as the blade he carried more often, Leviticus roared to life; yet it was quiet, disdainful. Its blade invisible, its nature silent, and it was all that would be needed to end the fight. What better way than to shame a Jedi than beat them at their own game?

[member="Cedric Grayson"]

 

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There was the barest fraction of an instant in which Cedric knew he was going to die.

In his mind's eye, he saw the depths of the Great Ocean part. It was an anomaly that he had only ever observed once before; on Dubrillon, in the battle with Vesper. He gazed down into the canyon that had been carved into the waters, and found himself staring into the heart of the abyss. His own gasp drew him from the empyrean, his eyes opening to behold a sea of color not unlike the one he had just observed within the Force.

This one was flying upward rather than parting, and doing so at such a speed that he had a few fractions of second before it rose to meet him. The Jedi Master's eyes drifted shut as he accepted the trap he had been baited into so easily. His own thirst for vengeance would be his undoing, something he had known since his earliest days.

Time moved sluggishly, as if reality itself had been trapped in jelly. His eyes drifted shut as he exhaled a deep breath, his fate accepted. If this was to be how it ended, then so be it. A sense of relief washed over him as he realized that he could finally be free of the many burdens that had weighed him down since his earliest days.

The first blasts tore through the shields of his vessel as if they had been spun from a spider's silk. He heard the creaking of metal as superheated energies seared the durasteel apart at a molecular level: heard the screaming alarm klaxons drumming in his ears as the droid pilot tried in vain to avoid the volley.

Cedric only knew peace.

And then he didn't.

The face of a woman coalesced in his mind. Cedric found himself cracking a tiny smile as he recalled the features of Aes'ona Terrani. It'd be a shame for her never to hear from him again, but she'd move on. Aes'ona did not need him.

He suddenly felt a sharp heat upon his face as the lasers pierced the inner cabin of the vessel; his body would be vaporized shortly. That heat brought to the fore another memory, one of a far less pleasant nature. He recalled a great city cast in flames, and the faces of thousands of souls crying out in terror as they were gunned down by death squads.

That image stuck in his mind as his body called upon the empyrean. The light of the force coalesced about his form, casting him in a thin film of eerie blue light. The heat vanished from his face, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself falling through open air. He had not consciously called upon the force barrier, but it had come nonetheless.

The ground rushed up to meet him as he fell trhrough the ice storm. The barrier he had erected around his body had failed seconds after the volley mad its impact, and the cold wind tore at his bare flesh like a million tiny claws. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the empyrean's energies to once again bathe his form. He called upon its aid, and it answered with the fervency of a loyal hound. Mere moments before impacting into the ice below, Cedric's descent was slowed so dramatically that his landing did little more than cause a jolt of pain through his limbs. A cloud of snow was cast up into the drifts at his impact, and he squinted to peer through its miasma.

The burning wreckage of his ship crashed violently just a few dozen meters away, the explosion momentarily deafening the Jedi Master as he rose to his feet.

The image of those thousand faces would not leave him. He had come here for a purpose, and he could not rest until it was fulfilled.

"Slave," his voice carried over the howling winds, "That wasn't a very warm welcome." He took his lightsaber in hand, but did not light it. "You'd think one would show a bit more courtesy to an old friend."

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

“You presume much, Jedi.”, Maliphant said with a dark disdain as the force carried his voice through the roaring storm that churned at their presence. Not only in the force, but the winds of Hoth screamed ever louder, every second that would pass.

“I remember you, my greatest enemy.”, a cruel grin forming on his lips as he walked forward, black robes twisting behind him. The golden eyes of the sith burned holes through the shroud of ice and snow between them, and at times seemed the only part of him that was truly visible, a predator in the darkness.

“Is that what you came here to hear? Validation for your losses, Cedric?”, Maliphant continued before stopping somewhere only a short few feet from the Jedi Master, his lightsaber’s invisible blade unknowingly lit next to him, though it offered not threatening aura, no inclination to its danger.

Maliphant made a noise that gave pity, a quick tch that left little more than a disgusted frown on his lips.

Yet, before either could speak more, his body lurched forward at a surprisingly slow pace, but enough to still be a surprise attack. The invisible blade tore through the snow, the ice, and even the force as its aura began to draw upon Cedric’s connection; the blade itself threatening to tear into him within the flash of an eye. Maliphant was terrifyingly skilled with the blade, already obvious by the mere charge he offered; but he wouldn’t force the charge.

If Cedric remained, he’d force them to separate. If he backed away himself, Maliphant would simply wait, watching the Jedi for some movement, some chance to strike. The Sith Lord was interested in his intent to kill him, but it wouldn’t matter. He already knew Hoth would be the Jedi’s grave, and coming here was little more than suicide for a man past his prime.

“Do you still hear them, Cedric? Do their ghosts cry out to you in your sleep, perhaps?”, Maliphant said with a dignified tone.

“Were they like family? Children, perhaps. Do you still feel them suckling your breast, Jedi?”

[member="Cedric Grayson"]

 

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It had been years since Cedric had heard the Slave's voice.

What had once been youthful was replaced with a hollowness Cedric had often associated with the dead. It wilted in light of what it once was; corruption given verbal form. The Jedi Master had heard such voices countless times in the past: the being that had once been the Slave was no more. What stood in its place was a pale imitation of the real thing; a cadaverous creature whose external form matched that of the malignant heart that stirred within.

When it spoke, the Jedi listened.

"You remind me of Vesper. Such cruel confidence, that false sense of superiority - he died choking on them." That much was true, in a certain sense. Vesper had in fact not been killed, but found redemption in the Light's grace. The being that was Vesper had died, replaced by something more pure.

Cedric intended for the Slave to meet such a fate in a far more literal sense.

The Sith Lord approached. Cedric remained poised, his body coiled to move the moment he caught a twitch in Maliphant's muscles. That moment came when the Sith Lord lunged forward, though his blade was seemingly unlit. Expecting a ploy, Cedric's own blade roared to life. The Blade of Ession cast the storm in a nearly blinding cyan glow, and the winter's wind parted several meters around the Jedi Master, as if it were not worthy of touching such a holy weapon.

Cedric raised it above his head and swung in a savage two-handed grip, his blade twisting to cleave Maliphant from shoulder to hip before the Sith could activate his weapon. It was unfortunate that the Jedi had never come across a ghostfire blade in person. He had heard tell of such weapons, though he'd attributed them to tales of legend and little more.

The reality of their true substance became painfully apparent as the deadly blade slipped beneath his guard, and pierced true. Cedric let out a bark of pain as the invisible blade cleaved through his phrik chestplate, the lightsaber resistant metal buckling and melting beneath the Sith's lucky blow.

Acting without thought, Cedric called upon the empyrean to shield his body. The blade's energy ceased before it pierced his flesh, and he willed that energy to expand outward, resulting in a shockwave that would send Maliphant skidding back a few paces, safely out of the way.

A curse fell from Cedric's lips as he hastily undid the locks of his breastplate. The ruined slab of metal clattered to the ice in a useless smoking heap. Maliphant very well would have killed him there were it not for the armor.

Cedric ignored that realization.

"I pity you," his voice was a low growl as he stood to his full height, two-handed blade thrumming with the power of the Force. "All your hate, all your knowledge, all your power, and all you can do with it is destroy. Even the things you create only serve to bring death: you like so many others have succumbed to weakness, and you chastise me for my strength."

"And for that, Darth Maliphant," the name was spoken with absolute disgust, "I pity you."

A hand was held out to the air, the wind itself responding to Cedric's gesture. The flying flecks of snow drew together in the air, coalescing into several small spears of pure ice. With a gesture, Cedric willed the spears to fall upon his foe.

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

“Vesper?”, Maliphant beamed as Cedric spoke.

“I’ve made mountains, changed the very landscape of the galaxy more than once, and yet you compare me to a man who relied on me for strength?”, he said with a sudden foreboding laughter.

“I created Vesper, the damned cripple. Did you know that, Jedi?”, he said with a cock of his head.

The ice that was thrown at him never made it, but it was subtle as to why. At first glance, it would seem Cedric’s aim was off; but each ice had true aim at first. The closer they came to touching Maliphant however, the more subtle their small movements left or right, twisting them just far enough to land in the snow around him, Maliphant never seeming to move at the twitch at their presence.

Instead, he took a slow, methodical steps forward as the quiet nature of his blade continued to draw on Cedric’s strength off presence alone. It was almost a polar opposite to the Blade of Ruusan, an artifact The Slave had made years prior and more a keepsake for Maliphant at this point. He never truly enjoyed the lightsaber, Sidious had taught him that many times, but it wouldn’t be becoming of him to use the Force to kill Cedric.

Not if he could help it.

“I have no doubt you struggled to end him.”, Maliphant said as he continued his approach, ever slower. “Pity. Did you pity him, by chance? Do you think I pity him now?”

The cruelty of Maliphant was evident on his face, once more the snow and cloak shrouding everything but the burning orbs of molten gold he called eyes. The lightsaber struck out once more, fluidly moving through form after form, but they were familiar cadences, a pace Maliphant set as the two began to exchange blow after blow.

At the blades had met, moment after moment, as a familiarity came before them, Maliphant changed entirely. The wind cracked as a cone of air formed around his fist in the midst of their battle; where his lightsaber bound him in one direction, his fist moved through an opening at lighting speed that would have punctured through man with the force that came with it.

Maliphant didn’t have the stature of the Sith Lords of the time, nor did he stand towering over his opponents; for he knew that physical strength was wainining in the Dark Side. What was physicality when one took no true strength from it? No, what he struck Cedric with now was not what force his arm could conjure, but the Force that surged through him. As the fist came, so too would a wave of Force Potential unlike anything Cedric had ever seen, a blink of what Maliphant had become capable of; and it would become obvious.

He had absorbed the artifacts he had created, from the forbidden to the experimental. He had reclaimed what he had created on the orders of the ancient sith in the Telos Holocron, and Cedric would be the first to witness it.

It was only after, whether the hit struck or not, that Maliphant would take a step back and frown to the Jedi Master.

“Do you ever concern yourself with ants, Jedi?”, he said with a quiet sobriety.

“How many ants have you killed? Do you even know? Do you care?”

Maliphant idled for a moment before his twisted frown flattened.

“Has the pity an ant ever had for you, concerned you in any capacity?”

[member="Cedric Grayson"]

 

[Placeholder 0128]

"I can't say I'm surprised. The abused often becomes the abuser," Cedric retorted as he watched the ice spears crash harmlessly into the snow. Maliphant had grown far more capable since their last meeting, perhaps even more powerful than the emperor himself.

It was only then, as Cedric watched the Sith Lord draw near, that he understood the true threat he faced. If Maliphant were to escape Hoth, only the Force knew what damage he might do to the wider galaxy. The Jedi Master had thought he had come here for simple revenge; the Force revealed that his purpose here was far more important. Maliphant was the darkness which he had seen in his visions countless times, and the empyrean had called him here to put an end to it.

This was his purpose.

"I did pity him. It was by the Force's grace that he was saved, I had thought such might be a possibility for you, but..." his voice trailed up as the howling winds began to shriek. It seemed as if the very storm planet itself was watching the contest, and it heaved with each blow that was struck. The Great Ocean was akin to a mealstrom now: there was no balance, only the chaos of an unstoppable force careening toward an immovable object.

He ceased to watch Maliphant with his mortal eyes, instead relying on his witch-sight to see. The tempest of snow and rain whirling about them made normal vision nearly impossible, and it would do him no good in tracking the Sith Lord's lightsaber. Cedric met the ghostsaber with his own, the Jedi Master relying on his own heavier style to match the fluid movements of the smaller Sith. In a contest of physical prowess, there was little contest. Maliphant matched him blow for blow - the Sith met each heavy blow with a fluid parry, each fall of the blade with a well timed block. Sparks cascaded around the two warriors as the twin blades met and retracted in a blur that was far too fast for the mortal eye to track.

The Jedi saw an opening and took it. His blade twisted around the ghostfire, angling in such a way as to sever Maliphant's arm from the elbow down. It probably would have done such, were it not for the wall of congealed ethereal energy that Maliphant slammed into Cedric's chest.

The Jedi Master was flung clear off his feet, his lightsaber flying from his hands as he crashed into the snow, rolling several times before coming to a halt. Pain shot throughout his body, though his life had not left him just yet. Flecks of blood fell from Cedric's lips as he slowly lifted himself from the drift, his fallen lightsaber flying upward to meet his outstretched hand.

"You're deluded," Cedric took a few steps to steady himself, "You think people are akin to ants? Sentient beings? Whatever your power over the Force, you fail to understand the basic truths of life Maliphant."

Cedric's face was one of stone. It betrayed no emotion, save for stalwart resolve. "You kill, you lie, you betray - why? Because it makes you feel special? Better than everyone else?"

There is no emotion, there is peace.

There is no death, there is the Force.

"You and I are one in the same Maliphant. We're the same person. Two sides of the same coin, the only difference is that you gave in to your darkness. I never will."

Cedric reached out deeper into the depths of empyrean than he would dare in any other situation. He felt its energies flow through his body, soothing the sharp aches and pains from Maliphant's assault and instilling within him a sense of power that was truly righteous in nature. Cedric drew upon that power, willing the very land itself to heed his bidding. Great fissures began to crack along the ice's surface, and from those fissures rose massive gouts of rock and jagged ice. They thrust in every direction all around the Sith Lord with a speed great enough to impale a landspeeder.

The very world heaved with their contest, and all of Hoth watched to see which man would be the victor.

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

“I fail to understand the basic truths of life?” Maliphant couldn’t help but muse, rolling the words as the ice, jagged and massive, flew towards him with great fervor.

Most fell to the side, as they had before; but a more directed larger chunks that came for Maliphant directly proved too well placed to simply be moved aside. With a frown, Maliphant crossed his arms and waited for it to land; and to Cedric, he would witness the boulder crush him. Maliphant disappeared beneath the ice as it slowly came to a standstill.

Though it wasn’t for long, as his silhouette slowly pushed through the ice; before finally exiting it with no markings on the ice. In fact, the very nature of his passing through it seemed to make the ice smoother, almost more beautiful and see through; yet Maliphant remained untouched. His gaze moved back to Cedric, speaking as though nothing interrupted him.

“An ant has a life. Family, a purpose, and a will to survive. Are we all so different?”, Maliphant asked solemnly as he walked back to where they were fighting.

“Yet, you kill them. Why is that, Master Jedi?”, he said with a curious inflection at the end of his words.

His blade, invisible as it was rushed forward once more; though this time it was in a style more familiar to Cedric. Djem So, heavy and ruthless strikes that each felt like they came from a man many times bigger, heavier than Maliphant; as though he were mocking the two handed style Cedric had taken, looking to match him at every instant.

“The truth is-”, he said between blade locks, “- You already know. You don’t see the ants you step on, and neither should you; their life is minimal, its affects marginal. The Force lets you see this; lets you understand that without the Force, you are no more than an animal.”, he laughed in a grossly mocking way.

In the same instant, he let a mock opening appear as though his attention had been taken; though if Cedric took it, he’d find Maliphant was a far more capable duelist than he expected. The likes of Revan, Darth Bane, and even Sidious had taken it upon themselves to impart him with the greatest techniques the galaxy ever had; and even now, he moved far slower than he was capable. Cedric was a skilled duelist in his own right, he could feel how slow Maliphant moved just by the odd ways his momentum changed, how the speed of a lightsaber strike would speed and slow mid swing multiple times before hitting - Maliphant was toying with him, but as to why couldn’t be known.

If Cedric grew to take the opening, he would find Maliphant twist at an inhuman rate with his blade quickly following to the now unarmored torso; hoping to cut Cedric’s stomach asunder and spill what Jedi blood he still held onto, with his guts quickly in tow.

“We are not the same, Cedric.”, Maliphant said as he returned to a defensive stance, “You speak of pride, of pity, that you never held the weakness I do.”

Maliphant spoke in a mocking tone, repeating Cedric’s tone surprisingly well, but he became far more somber as he stood upright once more.

“You sound more like a Sith everyday, Cedric, all this talk of weakness and pride; I can’t tell if its the density of your skull, or the fact you’re too prideful to realize you were wrong. If it were the people of Ession that mattered to you, it would have been a simple thing to save them-”, he said with a cruel grin.

“- If you abandoned that pride of yours. Its that pride that let them die, Cedric - You could have stopped me, if you were willing to sacrifice it. The Dark Side doesn’t often discriminate or bargain for its power, afterall.”

[member="Cedric Grayson"]

 

[Placeholder 0128]

It seemed silly, really, to be arguing over semantics in the midst of a contest that would almost certainly end in the death of either of them. Yet, Cedric could not find it in himself simply to ignore Maliphant's words. He had ever been the talker, something which he subconsciously noted that Maliphant was aware of and likely exploiting, and he found that he simply could not hold his tongue. There would be no redeeming the Sith Lord; Cedric was not so naive as to think an entity of his power and magnitude would simply cast that aside for the greater good. Even still, some niggling part of the Jedi Master's heart told him to try.

"An ant and a sentient being are not on the same level of existence, Maliphant," he replied, his voice carrying despite the roaring winds that would have deafened a normal person. "I do not concern myself with the ant because the ant is not aware. An unconscious being is a simple facet of nature: a consciousness is a far more complex and amazing thing. To equate the two is arrogance, nothing more."

His lips parted to speak further, but he found himself muted as the Sith Lord's blade threatened to disembowel him. Freed from the protection of his armor, Cedric fought with far more care, he kept his blade close and tight tgo his body, his movements minimal to keep himself from growing too exhausted as he bore Maliphant's unnaturally strong assault. The twin blades crackled and roared as they collided with one another, each strike coming dangerously close to cleaving each of the combatants in two, but neither seemed capable of landing a blow.

Cedric was not stupid. Maliphant was his better in terms of the Force: the Dark Side had granted him unnatural boons that plainly set him ahead of the Jedi Master. With the blade, however, things were more muddled. The contest would have ended right then in there, had Cedric been drawn into the Sith Lord's feint. Instead, Cedric made careful movements to draw back from Maliphant, ending his retreat with a brief force jump to give them a few meters of space.

He stood resolute as he listened to the dark lord's words.

"A simple thing to save them?" Cedric's brow lofted, "There was nothing that could be done, Slave," he put emphasis on the Sith Lord's former title. "My only failing was trusting that people like yourself might have some form of integrity. My weakness was not pride, it was tolerance."

Abruptly, Cedric's toggled off his lightsaber. "What is the point of all this?" He asked plainly, as if they were simply speaking over a cup of caf. "Why strive for power? All it's ever done is bring about death to those around those who seek it, and the isolation of those very same seekers. What happiness could you ever find in propping yourself up like a god?"

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

“Nothing that could be done.”, Maliphant mused.

“Cowards say such things. There is always something to be done, Cedric, to stop the pain and suffering we see everyday.”

Maliphant grit his teeth, and the muscles in his jaw tense hard as he watched Cedric with a burning passion. Golden eyes seemed to lick as much fire as they did red splotches around their molten centers, but the scillera was as white as could be. Beneath the black hood that stayed held to Maliphant’s head, silver hair whipped back and forth, a victim of the wind despite it all.

“Tolerance? Ignorance, Cedric. You would bring war to the Sith, as they would to you; and who would die?”, he said with a growing anger, a growing fire that seemed to tarnish and corrupt the ground between them. Even Cedric’s own connection to the force could feel a waning sensation, as though it were being interrupted.

“Not you. Not I, and not the Sith- Everyone without the force. You prove everything I speak of by your ignorance, by your outright denial; that it is anyone but US that cause these things.”

The Sith Lord jolted forward, out of his usual pace, and more to the full fruition of his lightsaber prowess. In the same way Darth Sidious had once taken down three of the greatest swordsmen of their era in less than a blink of an eye, Maliphant now moved with the same godly speed as his predecessor, each footstep as though they were Sidious’s own. It was quick, destructive, and each lightsaber strike seemed to turn into four, then eight.

There was no play this time, no chance of a ploy; Maliphant’s speed grew by second, eight to sixteen and so on, the amount of strikes he imposed grew by magnitudes, and even amidst this insane barrage of speed, he spoke again; but far more composed, as though all his energy was going to the blade in his hands.

“You aim too low, Cedric. I will become a god, for the sake of every man, woman, and child that yet has a chance to breathe. Your crusade would have them die for a thousand years more, you give them nothing with this lack of ambition. Killing me will save none. Killing the Sith, will save none.”

“I will end the Force, Master Jedi, and I will remake the Galaxy without gods; be they light or dark.”

[member="Cedric Grayson"]

 

[D.E.L.T.A.]

Cedric Grayson was an annoyingly hard man to find, particularly when Delta herself was used to the vast surveillance network from her Tenure with HARDLINE. His disappearance threw her for a curveball, she for the first time in her life did not know where to go, or what to do for that matter. She floated around using the assets he mysteriously left her to get by until she could find herself a purpose in her life, something to do. She didn't know anything but fighting, mercenary work would have been a perfect fit, but somehow, by some strange way, she ended up with Couruscanti Police. She used the job less as a means to acquire money, and more as a way of biding time until her one lead showed up on her radar again.

Cedric Grayson was the last man that HARDLINE had closely worked with before he vanished, and as such he was her only lead on finding him, the problem was he or anything he owned rarely showed up on any databases she had access too, so when suddenly a ship he owned filed a flight plan to Hoth, she had little reason not to get moving. She had a small, old X wing registered to her name, and the police really didn't question her occasional random disappearances. They honestly only cared that she was there when they needed her.

This brought her to Hoth, a small unremarkable little corner of the galaxy that would have probably gone unnoticed if it wasn't inexplicably one of the most important locations in galactic history; A distinction shared with a desert rock called Tatooine. Hoth is number two on the list of places your average person thought of when you listed "remote" and "lifeless." If he was out there, it was because he was looking for something that was consciously put there with the idea that it would both be difficult to access for a large portion of the population, and obvious enough to anyone who knew where people tended to hide things.

Seeing as this was probably something force related, she didn't really care much about what it was he was looking for. She just cared about finding the man himself.

Delta dropped out of hyperspace a bit closer to the planet than she would have liked, but after doing a quick scan she found two lifesigns, right in the middle of some endless snow waste, right near the massive unearthed battlecruiser which jutted out of the cracked ice like an evil spire. She would rely on speed to get to the ground, the guns on it appeared to be aimed at taking down larger vessels than her own. Hopefully she would make it down in one piece.

[member="Darth Maliphant"] [member="Cedric Grayson"]

 

[Placeholder 0128]

“Nothing that could be done.”, Maliphant mused.

“Cowards say such things. There is always something to be done, Cedric, to stop the pain and suffering we see everyday.”


The words resonated with Cedric on some level. He was aware of the excuses he had given himself for failing Ession, but that was an awareness he had dealt with since the planet's fall. The bubbling resentment that came with such memories was quickly forced down. Maliphant spoke to pick at his mind; to divide his attentions between reflection and reality and achieve victory in such chaos. Cedric would not allow such disharmony.

Eyes the color of burnished amber peered into those of storm clouds. The Jedi Master met his foe's gaze evenly, his finger teasing over the activation switch of his lightsaber in anticipation. His skin had begun to pale in the freezing winds, but the cold was the last thing on his mind.

Were it not for Cedric's connection to the Light, he would have been swallowed up in the chaos that was Maliphant's presence. The ice began to blacken and crackle, as if the water itself was somehow decaying with every word the Sith Lord spoke. Cedric saw himself as standing at the very heart of the storm that he had seen within the empyrean, only now that storm had manifested himself in reality. He was facing a darkness far and above any he'd come across before, and he had never felt more alone.

In that isolation, he found his strength. "I would bring the final war!" he shouted back over the storm, his words spoken with the passion of a man that truly believed in them. "The Force is not to blame here Maliphant. It is the Dark Side, the cancer that you so eagerly infect yourself with. What you cling to is the Force when it is diseased, and you are its progenitor. Take responsibility for your own actions: you're no victim, and the Force's will is not absolute."

The Blade of Ruusan roared to life as Maliphant charged. The Sith Lord moved with a speed Cedric had never encountered before, and it took every ounce of his being not to be skewered into meaty chunks seconds into the clash. Once more the darkness threatened to engulf him. Once more, Cedric stood on the precipice.

Maliphant's blade passed mere inches from Cedric's flesh. He was stuck on the defensive, forced to rely entirely on the empyrean for guidance as he could not physically see Maliphant's blade. His connection to the Force burned brightly, but there was an isolation to it. Cedric had little doubt that were it not for his weapon, he might have been smothered by the shadow that was Maliphant.

The Sith Lord's words were bold, his intentions outlandish, but Cedric had grown used to Sith eccentricities. Still, part of him worried that were he to fail here, Maliphant might very well accomplish what he said he would.

"You're wrong," Cedric spat as he adopted the only lightsaber form he thought might withstand the onslaught. It was one that he had been a strong practitioner for years, but only utilize in the most dire of circumstances due to its risks. He opened his mind to the empyrean, allowing Maliphant's darkness to momentarily consume his darkness. If the Light was akin to unconditional love, then the darkness that congealed around Maliphant was the death of joy. Cedric felt it surge through his body like a sea of frozen water being funneled through his veins.

It threatened to overpower him, gnawing at his very spirit as it sought to render his physical form broken. It was far greater than any attempt at channeling Cedric had attempted before, and he almost began to panic. It was only the deadly sway of Maliphant's invisible blade that brought him to a focus. He channeled chaotic energy into his limbs, redirecting it toward Maliphant in the form of his lightsaber. Cedric's retreat began to slow, and then he finally drew to a halt, his blade moving to match each of the Sith Lord's blows with the skill of a life long master.

Cedric's mind was focused to a point: Maliphant had to die here, lest the galaxy's people be doomed to a fate worse than death.

"Killing the Sith will save them all: all those men, women, and children you couldn't give a damn about." Cedric's voice was level and matter-of-fact: channeling Vaapad tended to dull one's personality, at least in his experience. "After I put you down, I'll get back to the work of wiping every one of your kind from the face of the galaxy. Then we'll finally know peace."


[member="Darth Maliphant"], [member="D.E.L.T.A."]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Cybele hummed softly as the storm raged outside the ice that encompassed her collective form, heavy and laden as reactors rolled on their barest minimum needs. Each containing massive controlled singularities that in their own right took a large portion of her processing power; but their output, even at minimum, produced enough for entire planets - far more than the Acerbitas ever needed, so far beneath the galaxy.

She missed it, as much as an AI could. She enjoyed the sensors telling her what it felt like, what planets held on them, and she at times found herself missing the hustle and bustle of a crew; from Sith and Imperial’s walking through her hallways and depths. They weren’t necessary, as she almost always double checked all their work, but it was still nice to communicate with many at once.

She missed being a flagship over Bastion.

Through digital waves, she sighed as a blip came upon her sensors. The other hadn’t, instead Maliphant himself manually telling her coordinates based on his ‘force’ senses, but this she could see. An aging X-Wing, coming from Coruscant from the looks of it; nothing too hard to understand as it came into the atmosphere.

The AI let the motors of the ship roar as ice cracked at the movement of the hypervelocity cannons, and she waited until it was close enough before the mobile hacking units she controlled began to fill the software of the ship, a digital smile of a young woman appearing anywhere they could, flashing and glitching by the second.

Controls would go dull, lifeless in the hands as a small swarm of rockets broke from the ice; moving with a frightening pace as the few sensor systems Cybele would allow to work told of the incoming doom. Second by second, they grew closer.

She wondered if the pilot had some backup?

[member="D.E.L.T.A."]

---

“The Final War.”, Maliphant said mockingly.

“You are the thousandth man to say that, and the second hundred Jedi. Revan said something like that once, as did Skywalker, and so many throughout history.”

Maliphant noticed the switch to Vaapaad, and it annoyed him. It was the style that had once taken Sidious to brink, and not for the skill of the user, but the fact that it brought a Jedi to the level of the Sith using it, on their own dangerous energies. That meant that the harder Maliphant pushed, the harder Cedric would fight; in a sense, fighting himself until he grew tired. It was reliant on creating a synergy with Maliphant, reliant on destroying him with himself, but he wouldn’t let it do such a thing.

“Do you think if the Sith died, another would not rise? Have you yourself never questioned your ‘affinity’? The Jedi turn to Sith, and the Sith die; it won’t make a difference whether you kill them all or not. The wars will continue, and you’ll cause more death, you short sighted fool.”, he said in a dangerous calmness.

The energy he gave off were waning, but under his own will as he brought all the darkness he exuded, corrupting the very ice around him to blackness, retreated back. It made Cedric weaker, made their duel more paced to Maliphant’s sake; Sidious had taught him this much. He once lost because he had never faced such a style, underestimated it, especially against its creator. Maliphant had the luxury of knowing what he was facing, so he simply controlled himself, waiting for an opening between the lightsabers flashing between them.

“You will never know peace, Cedric. You risk sacrificing the ‘Light’ everyday, and when you die your apprentices will fall just the same. For a Master, you have no knowledge of the force, or mortality - More a child with the sight of gods.”

“A shame.”, Maliphant said as he sacrificed his own promised solution the battle.

If Cedric knew Vaapaad, he couldn’t take him down with lightsaber combat in a timely manner; though he was convinced he could eventually use that darkness coursing through Cedric back on him. It was a dangerous technique in that manner, and Maliphant had more darkness than most - so instead, he’d weaken Cedric.

The Force took only a split second to react, a momentary pause Cedric could feel as though it pleaded with him for help, to stop Maliphant as he broke the very nature of its form. The Storm grew wilder, yet the roaring ceased for a single moment as a grin grew on Maliphant’s face, golden eyes glittering in the darkness -

Then all at once, the force broke free of his hand, a thousand spears of darkness reaching into the abyss of the storm. Snow ceased to fall, consumed in the growing heat of what was coming; almost as though time had frozen between the two. Yet the sound of it all would return, ten fold, a hundred times what it was as the force cried out in pain and anger, as though its very nature was corrupted at Maliphant’s presence.

The Force intertwined with the storm, grew rapidly as it tore the very reality of Hoth away from it - a storm the planet was never meant to see. Lightning flashed, the clouds rose into the atmosphere, and what surrounded them now was something far worse than Cedric had hoped to see. Everything he relied on had sided with Maliphant, and he was in the center of its bearing, crushing weight.

Maliphant seemed to disappear amidst it all, and the ice beneath vaporized as things grew even worse.

Darkness threatened to consume the Jedi, all on Maliphant’s command. Was the force truly on his side if it was so easily demanded into action in such an abysmal way, by the Demon Maliphant had become? Was it ever on Cedric’s side?

[member="Cedric Grayson"]

 

[D.E.L.T.A.]

Delta showed no fear as her controls went dark. She had come out of worse alive before, and she certainly didn't intend to die in a ship crash. While the computer systems were going haywire, she had a trick up her sleeve, mechanical engineering.

One of the first things that HARDLINE had taught her was "Computers are your tools, gears are your friends." She didn't particularly understand it at first, but she had come to keep them close to heart over the years. Computers can accomplish many things, they are what droids were made of after all, but never trust one with your life. If you need something to work, no matter what and without fail, it needs to have not a single computer involved. Computers can be turned against you by a ghost sitting systems away in his underwear, a mechanical system at least requires the saboteur to show his face.

It was for this reason she had an ejector seat built into her ship at the first available opportunity, one that operated on explosive bolts and mechanical systems. Even if the entire ship was without power, and the computers and controls locked up, the ejector seat would work. This came with its own problems, as it was theoretically still possible for the seat to fail independent of the computers, but at the very least the odds would be higher.

Delta pulled the yellow and black cable in between her legs, activating explosive bolts around the canopy. The transparent aluminum windscreen snapped back and flew off behind the ship, and but a few moments later, rocket motors beneath the seat fired with an abrupt hiss. The seat flew out of the craft, leaving her far above the snowy ground with no knowledge of the surrounding area.

She had been through worse.

She fell slowly down for a time, waiting to reach the ground via the parachute installed in the seat. The snow and cold around her bothered her little, the strange chemistry which her body ran on made it so she generated a great amount of heat. HRDs straddled the line between flesh and metal. It is a strange synthetic chemistry which she runs on, completely alien yet oddly familiar to any biologist. She would be almost indistinguishable on most scanners, yet anyone looking inside her would clearly see she was no normal human. She was glad for it now, it would prevent her from freezing in the subzero cold.

Eventually she hit the snow, rolling a few times as the seat hit the earth. It knocked the air out of her lungs and somewhat disoriented her, but she had no time to screw around, she needed to find Cedric, and she had a feeling it was somewhere near that ship.

She kicked off a plate at the bottom of the seat, pulling out the survival rifle and bag from within. She quickly pulled out the macrobinoculars and unfolded the rifle, using the sling to keep it close. Blaster rifles were much better in situations like this, you could get hundreds of rounds off without having to worry about ammunition, and in a survival situation that was essential. Though she didn't prefer them. It would have to do for now.

She could see in the distance a large supernatural disturbance, almost certainly originating from a force user. She moved her way over the deep snow and ice, so cold and frozen that it felt like solid concrete rather than anything resembling the substance elsewhere. She came upon a ridge facing towards the massive ship in the distance and went prone at the crest. She took a look towards the center of the disturbance with her macro binoculars, flicking on the infrared setting to see through the deep snow, and right there, as she expected, was two men. This was problematic, but there was not much she could do against force users, she would have to wait and see what happened.

[member="Darth Maliphant"] [member="Cedric Grayson"]

 

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At first, Cedric found it difficult to speak. Channeling the powers of one's opponent, especially one so vile as Maliphant, had a way of distracting the mind from just about anything else. He perceived reality as a blur. His own vision was obscured and far too mortal to track the movement of their lightsabers. The Jedi Master simply moved on instinct, his blade twisting and turning to deflect the ghostfyre blade's every move. This wouldn't kill Maliphant, but it might tire him: might buy Cedric a few precious seconds to figure out what to do.

Maliphant was far more capable than he had ever been when Cedric knew him. It would not be far-fetched to say that Cedric had only come across one other being with such a dominance over the force, and that creature had not been of mortal making. Perhaps Maliphant was not any longer either.

"You mistake understanding for a lack of vision," Cedric's voice had taken on that same calmness that infested Maliphant's. Whether that was intentional or a result of the connection via Vapaad was anyone's guess. "I have read the great histories just as you, and I partly agree with you, but knowing and understanding this knowledge has opened my eyes. My ancestors lacked the conviction to destroy the Dark Side completely - I do not."

For a fraction of a moment. Cedric felt the power coursing through him wane. It was just enough to be noticeable, but it brought light to a terrible truth. Maliphant understood the fabled and obscure form, and he knew how to counter it. It brought Cedric a wave of panic - there wasn't much left in his toolkit that he knew could stop the Sith Lord, save for one singular skill. Placing all his eggs in one basket was not wise, but it very well may be all he had left.

The Jedi Master felt his words catch in his throat as the Force itself screamed out at him. Cedric drew back from Maliphant on reflex, his brow furrowing as a pain he had only ever felt once before shook him to his very core. The Great Ocean had ceased to be an ocean of life giving waters. What had once been liquid energy had turned to molten lava, and he stood alone upon a single rocky outcropping that jutted out only a foot or so above the flames. Slowly, the magma began to rise.

When Cedric shifted his perspective to reality, he saw naught but darkness. The snow itself had ceased to fall, and a burning heat that was the very antithesis to Hoth bit at Cedric's exposed flesh. Whirling clouds of energy billowed around him, annihilating any hint of matter that they touched. Even the ice Cedric stood upon began to melt and crack beneath his feet.

The connection Cedric had forged with Maliphant snapped immediately, and the Jedi Master found himself standing alone in what he perceived to be a true living hell. The smell of burning sulfur filled his nostrils, and his ears were deafened by gale winds that could have toppled buildings were there any for it to do so. It was only the reflexive bubble that he'd forged around himself that kept Cedric from certain and immediate death.

Once again, Cedric was alone. The empyrean could not answer his calls - it was far too busy being brutalized and broken. There would be no friends to come and save him now - he had cast them all aside in his eternal quest for retribution. There was only him, the darkness, and its progenitor.

Frozen with inaction, Cedric only watched as the storm roared all around him. His lightsaber dimmed, and he settled down into the exposed earth that the ice had melted over. He sat on his knees, his eyes drifting shut as he called upon the empyrean with a desperation that surprised him.

Before, the empyrean had been a constant companion. It had been akin to that of a loyal, well-loved hound, rushing to meet Cedric's call without a hint of hesitation. He felt it reach back to him, but there was a gap that might as well have been the entirety of the universe between them.

What do I do?

Cedric felt a hand upon his shoulder. His eyes drifted open as he glanced back to see the ethereal form of his ancestor standing over him. Vicarion Grayson, founder of the family line, gave him a wan smile.

"Grandfather?" Cedric asked, his voice shaking with despair. The ghost's hand squeezed, and then it stepped forward, arms outstretched to shield its child from oblivion. Cedric could only watch as the encroaching see of shadows tore as Vicarion's form. Pieces of the force ghost were torn away as the winds ripped about its form. The bright blue glow that always followed Vicarion dimmed and began to fade, but part of it flickered on against the storm.

Cedric could only watch as his sole companion, teacher, life long friend, and progenitor's spirit was obliterated in its entirety by Maliphant's onslaught.

Cedric couldn't hold back his shout. He jumped to his feet, the protective barrier Vicarion had formed around him shattering with the movement. Cedric felt hollow, the righteousness that had brought him here gone from his heart.

Maliphant had destroyed the only person that had ever truly loved him. The first person that had ever done anything for Cedric simply out of the kindness of their own heart. Vicarion had served as a constant mentor, and had guided Cedric through more trials than he could ever remember.

To have him gone was...

Both arms outstretched into the darkness. The corrupted winds tore as his flesh, slaking the skin from bone slowly but steadily. It extended beyond his limbs, carving at the side of his face that was not covered by his cowl. The pain was a distant thing - the despair of the soul far outweighed whatever physical agony wracked at his body.

Cedric dug deeper than he had ever done before. Fueled by grief, Cedric marched through the storm. Flickers of golden light coalesced about his fingertips as he imagined himself trudging through the sea of lava within the empyrean. The Light was so very far, but he could not submit himself to accepting its distance. The Blade of Ruusan burned white hot in his hands as he pierced the storm, and for a moment, it spoke to him once more.

He grabbed a hold of it as if his life depended upon it, which it very well did. for a moment, he felt the pain leave him, both physical and emotional. he knew naught but peace. With one arm outstretched toward the heavens, Cedric called upon Force Light like he never had before. It ballooned up from his fingertips, starting as naught but a flickering ember, but swiftly grew into a blinding golden radiance. That radiance expanded ever-further, slowly working to try and force back the shadow that had engulfed the very planet itself.

Cedric was entirely unaware of what was occurring all around him. He and the Light were one, and whatever had been within him before had simply ceased to be. He was a vessel for its fury, and nothing more.


[member="D.E.L.T.A."], [member="Darth Maliphant"]