Location: Sullust Jedi Temple - Outer Defensive position
Equipment: Lightsaber | Vibroknife |
VT Vanguard Armor |
Blaster Carbine |
QQ-83n |
GE-AVM
The Dark Side was
strong now. It seemed to pour out in waves, a seeping mental oil that corrupted all it touched. Some withstood it, shields of light parting it around them. Select few even parted it around those in the immediate area and allowed the soldiers near them to resist the despair it carried. Many of those who weren't protected succumbed to it: the best one could hope for here was the person stopping and gazing in horror at the wasteland of Sullust. The bodies that had been dropped had been bad, this was worse. Psychological warfare.
Audren had never trained against this sort of thing, never really encountered it before. He could see the darkness coming on and did the only thing he could think of: accessed the Light side of the Force. He drew it to himself, focused on it to the exclusion of all else, patterning it after the physical shield he'd seen a Sith lady create on Thyferra. As the darkness washed over him he felt most of it slide right off, repelled by the Light Side. Some managed to seep in, making the cracks in his mental defenses apparent. All of the sudden he saw bodies where their had been none, walking corpses wearing not only Galactic Alliance clothing but Silver Sanctum uniforms as well. A mere taste of the terror that was projected could be felt, enough to make him raise his carbine and target the dead but not fire. Others around him weren't so lucky, they started screaming in terror and shooting. Some took their own lives, but the vast majority simply wasted ammunition. Meanwhile TIEs strafed, blowing holes in the defensive lines. Audren wasn't hit directly, but he took the concussion wave and debris of a nearby explosion, peppering him with bruises and cuts across his exposed skin.
The lightsaber clipped to the right side of the Knight's belt responded to the dark wave of power, and
not in the way he would have hoped. Here on the plains of Sullust where it had been used to kill its creator, the Sith-made lightsaber welled with darkness. Despair, hatred, fear...all the negative emotions its creator had seared into the crystal - all of the bits that Audren had attempted to eradicate with hours upon hours of meditation - came back in full force. Fighting with the thing would be a constant battle for control, and that on top of the ongoing mental assault. This would not be good.
As the Jedi fought to find some actual Sith soldiers, the oily pressure dissipated. The illusions disappeared into the wind. Whatever had powered them was still alive, he could sense that much, but it was no longer pervading the battlefield and terrorizing those on it. And just in time it seemed, as white-clad stormtroopers started rushing the defenses.
Now he could open fire.
Now the combined mass fire of the soldiers did some good. Some recognized the illusion for what it had been and channeled their anger into their fight. Not something he normally advocated for, but these weren't Jedi, just soldiers. He joined them, his carbine doing what damage it could. Once the Sith and their soldiers got in close, he'd be up to the plate. For now though, he was just another gun in the lineup.
