T h e A n t i t h e s i s
Coruscant, Level 1313 — The Veins of the Underworld
The undercity breathed in choked gasps.
Steam hissed from broken vents. Neon bled down rain-slick durasteel walls, pooling into gutters that ran red and violet beneath the fractured light. The scent was oil, ozone, and rot — the perfume of the forgotten. Above, the towers of Coruscant pierced the clouds like the bones of gods, gleaming high above the filth that fed them.
Down here, the stars didn't shine.
Down here, everything beautiful came to die.
And through it all, he walked.
The air changed before he appeared. A coldness. A slow, creeping pressure that wrapped itself around lungs and thoughts alike — as if the world itself held its breath. Conversations stuttered. Cantina doors closed. Even the hum of passing speeders faltered when he stepped through the mist.
Bane Kaohal.
Cloaked in shadow, his hood drawn low over a shock of fiery orange hair that caught the neon light like the dying tail of a comet. Rain clung to the hardened lines of his face — a face carved from stone and scar. His eyes burned faintly beneath the hood, twin embers in the dark, promising ruin to those foolish enough to look too long.
The street bent away from him as he passed, the crowd parting instinctively — prey yielding to a predator that didn't need to snarl. Every step he took seemed to echo beyond the physical, the duracrete trembling faintly beneath his boots, the air humming with that unseen, suffocating energy. The Force twisted around him, thick and oppressive, carrying with it the faint smell of ash.
He turned down a side street. Rain poured harder. The light grew thin and gray.
A dozen mercenaries waited there — armor patched, eyes mean, the kind of men who made a living feeding on the desperate. The leader, a Nikto with a cybernetic jaw, smirked as he stepped forward, blaster slung carelessly at his side.
"Long way from the skylanes, stranger," he rasped. "Lose your nerve up there?"
Bane didn't answer.
He didn't even look up.
"Hey," the Nikto said again, louder this time. "I'm talking to y—"
The air snapped.
Sound died.
Every nerve screamed.
A crushing weight slammed down on the group, invisible yet absolute. Armor creaked under the pressure; breath turned to gasps. The nearest merc fell first, hands clutching his skull, veins bulging at his temples. Another dropped his weapon as his mind flooded with images that weren't his — fire. Screams. A den collapsing in crimson light. The smell of burnt fur and blood.
The Nikto staggered, forcing the word out through clenched teeth.
"Wh… what are you?"
Bane finally raised his head. His eyes caught the light — molten, empty.
"…Nothing."
The word rippled through the Force like the toll of a distant bell. The Nikto's body seized, lifted, and collapsed with a dull crack that echoed off the durasteel walls.
Silence.
Only the rain dared move.
The street smelled of ozone and fear. Bodies lay still, steam rising from their armor. For a long moment, Bane stood motionless, his head bowed, rain streaming down his face. And then — faintly, like a sigh across dry bone — came the whisper.
Not a voice, but a vibration.
A low, rhythmic pulse beneath hearing, as if the Dark Mantle itself drew breath. It stirred beneath his cloak — unseen, yet alive — a relic carved from the bones of his bloodline, humming in response to the deaths it tasted.
It sounded like bone scraping over stone. Like hearts slowing to stillness. Like ancestral ghosts murmuring his name.
He did not touch it. He did not have to.
Its hunger was his own. It’s grief, his reflection.
Bane lingered in the quiet, watching the rain wash crimson into the drains. The whisper faded, leaving only the hollow sound of water striking metal. He exhaled once, long and tired, then turned away.
The pressure in the air lifted as he moved — though none who had felt it would ever forget the suffocation, nor the sight of those burning eyes.
Bane disappeared into the labyrinth of light and shadow once more.
A ghost. A curse.
The storm that had long forgotten why it raged.
