Legacy of Tython: In Andraste's Shadow

[Brandon Rhea]

Legacy of Tython
​

As the Mandalorian warriors and the Imperial armies press into Alliance space, the Sith take their focus to the Jedi and their home world of Tython. There was no additional protection for Tython by the Alliance, as any reinforcements were drawn back to Alsakan and Coruscant, so breaking through defenses was easier than what the Sith had planned. The dark warriors allowed themselves to set foot on the planet once again after several millennia, as their Lords and Crusaders basked in the destruction they would bring to the crumbling Jedi Order.

But that was not the true goal of the destruction. He was.

In Andraste's Shadow
​

For months, after long being believed dead by the galaxy, Jedi Master Jhon Cordatus wandered aimlessly through Imperial space with one goal in mind: to avenge that which he had lost and to find answers as to why he lost it. He told himself that he was searching for his former apprentice-turned-Sith Empress, missing after the ascent of Emperor Tyrn Lightell, but it was far pettier than that. No, he was searching for his lost destiny. He wanted to know why his life, which he had been so sure about, had crumbled around him. After all, if Andraste was dead as the Sith believed, how could he possibly train her daughter to redeem her?

Then one day, after being discovered by Ebberla Daw, his memory of what happened next was gone. One moment he was standing on the streets of Ord Mantell, and the next it was the streets of Coruscant surrounded by terrified citizens who thought he was the Sith Lord Darth Vitium. How did that happen? Why did he lose his memories? He still doesn’t know, but the answer was clear.

It was her. She was alive, and she found him. She knew that if he was alive, if he had survived the explosion on Lehon, so too could her daughter be alive. She also knew that the only way to find her daughter was to wait for Jhon to go back to her. But how? The once-more Empress, returned from exile, had to send someone, someone who was powerful enough to go after a Jedi Master yet would be willing to do something so tedious as following him and torturing him.

She had to send someone who hated him, and she had to make sure that the Jedi could not come to his rescue.

------------------------------
​

Master's Retreat

Below the ancient gathering place of Jedi Masters on Tython sat a quiet lake, dotted with the ruins of the ancient Je’daii. Jhon sat on the banks of the clear blue water, silently meditating as he relaxed to the sounds of the small waves coming in and out upon the sand and dirt. His focus was on the Force, trying to find any answers to the mysteries he came to Tython to solve, trying to find any piece of the puzzle about the ancient order that his father told him about.

But his concentration was broken by the sound of a distant explosion. His eyes shot open and his gaze looked up above the nearby mountains, and he watched as the smoke rose high above it. There was no doubt what it was. The only thing in that direction was the Jedi Temple, and he knew, he could feel, that it was not an accident. Darkness had found this world again, and part of it was approaching him now.

-----------------------------------------------
OOC note: this thread is only for me and Boli.

 

[Green Ranger]

All of a sudden, the very sky seemed to boil and churn, boiling and convulsing as a great fire seemed to light from withing the clouds overhead, and all the light seemed to suddenly vanish. Great balls of fire fell from above in a hailstorm that joined earth and sky in red ribbons, as if the very atmosphere was bleeding. Above, the clouds parted to show the black silhouette of an Imperial Star Destroyer, bearing down on the ancient home of the Jedi and positioning itself over the aged and ruined temple. As Jhon Cordatus watched, the great hangars bays of the ship opened, spewing forth TIE fighters and transports which roared across the landscape under the protection of the turbolaser fire from above. The very earth trembled in fear at the coming onslaught.

The Master's Retreat was isolated from the rest of the new temple complex, and so seemingly spared from the full force of the assault. However, as the Jedi Master watched the assault on the temple, a transport shuttle, flanked by two TIE fighters, peeled off and roared towards the secluded hideaway. As the craft approached, a chill wind passed over the complex, the warmth in the afternoon air suddenly swept away. As the shadows engulfed the retreat, the transport came to land in the distance.

As the gangplank lowered, there was the distinct sound of a mechanized rebreather. Heavy boots clanked against the durasteel ramp, and the hum of a lightsaber seemed to swallow all sounds around it. The skull shaped helm of Darth Bhalr looked down on the retreat, and even at a distance it was clear his visage was focused on the former Jedi Grandmaster.

"Cordatus," the Sith Lord breathed, his voice seemingly hollow and mechanical all at once, like the gasp of a dying man. Never before had the Jedi heard any being speak with such hatred.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

For a few brief moments, Jhon couldn’t take his eyes off of the cloud of smoke and fire coming from beyond the mountain. Something about this felt wrong, it felt too unnecessary. The Sith and Mandalorians were pushing into the Core, sweeping every planet in their path towards Coruscant, so why attack Tython now? Why expend the resources to assault this planet when they could come with overwhelming force after the fall of Coruscant? The leaders of the Alliance wouldn’t talk publicly about how Coruscant would fall, but it was nothing if not a foregone conclusion at this point. Anyone with any sense knew that.

He turned around as he felt the darkness approach him. It was familiar, yet like nothing he had ever seen. Before he even laid eyes on it, he could feel its strangeness. He couldn’t tell why it was familiar, but Jhon couldn’t help but wonder if it was his own experiences in Imperial space, whatever those might have been. He knew he strayed close to the dark side. Could this be a remnant of that?

Yet it was the appearance of this Sith that was truly strange. Though it was not exactly the same, the heavy armor and helmeted mask was the visage of only one man in all of galactic history: Darth Vader. There was no way of getting around that assumption.

The Jedi Master arched his eyebrow, and said, “When I told myself I was like Obi-Wan Kenobi, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.

“Who are you?” Jhon asked.

 

[Green Ranger]

The Sith Lord stalked forward, shoulders hunching up at the Jedi Master's mention of one Obi-Wan Kenobi, though he said nothing. Blade in hand, Bhalr leapt down from the hillside onto the Retreat balcony.

"I am the past, Cordatus," the Sith Lord seethed, though the obscure line would bring little understanding to the Jedi Master. It was of little importance. Bhalr stepped forward in long strides, closing the distance between the two remarkably quickly. The Force seemed to writhe around and within him, sickening and corrupting with his very presence and creating eddies of darkness all around him, reaching out as if to swallow the planet - and Cordatus himself - whole. His enormous stature soon became obvious to the Jedi as the Sith Lord raised his lightsaber silently, the great red blade sweeping up into the air to crash down towards Cordatus with the immense strength of one imbued with the raw fury of the Dark Side, tempered by the Sith arts.

Thunder clapped overhead, and the clouds twisted above. The great storms that had once swept Tython were returning. The Force was in disharmony once more.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

The Force swirled around Jhon like a hurricane, consuming the few centimeters between him and the dark one, before it exploded in a burst of energy, propelling him only a few meters away at a speed greater than that of any normal human. As he stopped, the Jedi Master called his own lightsaber into his hand and the shimmering blue blade came to life just in time for Jhon to swing back around and parry the next attack. The two sabers impacted, red and blue energy crackling as they locked. Jhon had seen such a sight all too many times before. He was not an exceptional duelist, his strength derived from the Force rather than the blade, but this time it was different. His arms shook, his strength less than what it was the last time he fought, on the shores of Lehon against Emperor Exodeus.

What happened to me in Imperial space? he couldn’t help but wonder.

Shifting his physical strength more towards his right arm, he dropped his left from the blade. Within the palm of his hand, a ball of energy began to form. Its strength grew as his arm weakened, and just as the strength of his arm was about to collapse and let the dark one’s blade tear through him, Jhon extended his left hand outward, sending the ball of energy hurtling towards his assailant.

 

[Green Ranger]

As the Force slammed into the Sith Lord, Bhalr grunted from the impact...but barely gave any ground whatsoever. He seemed to pause for a moment, out of surprise more then anything - Cordatus was a former Grandmaster, an attack like that should have sent him flying. Instead, the Sith Lord was staggered for barely a second, spiderweb-like fractures dancing across his right shoulder, though he seemed otherwise unharmed.

The Sith Lord then surged forward, bellowing out a massive roar as he brought his blade once more to bear. The lightsaber swung down in a wide sweep before racing up towards Jhon's torso, aiming to hit him square in the middle of his body mass. However, as the blade swept towards the Jedi Master, the very light seemed to vanish from the saber, shadows wrapping around the blade and silencing the light from within. If the Jedi Master attempted to block the strike, the energy around the blade would explode violently with enough force to throw him well clear of the Retreat balcony and down into the lake below.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Jhon’s attack flew out of his hand, an attack he’d used so many times before, but it failed. He never liked dueling with a blade, so he always used the Force. It always the same thing too. He was never a proponent of complicated Force powers that took more and more energy to create. No, he preferred only Push and Pull. There was something elegant about their simplicity, one that could let him do anything. Sure, some Jedi could use a power to control plant life in the area, but Jhon could rip an entire forest out of the ground.

Yet now there was barely anything. He kept his gaze on his hand, watching it, wondering what was happening. The power had never failed him, but now it barely left a scratch. The Sith Lord was right, the attack should have sent him flying back. It could have been a fatal blow if the dark one had fallen off the balcony, but now he only barely moved a centimeter. Jhon didn’t know what was happening or why it was happening, but he was starting to wonder if he could even make it out of this alive.

His distraction was broken when he saw the blade from the Sith Lord’s lightsaber come crashing down towards him. The Jedi Master dropped to the ground and rolled to his side before bringing his own blade back up again, colliding red and blue together once more. As he did, a new burst of energy shot out from the Force, but Jhon wasn’t the cause this time. Now it was Bhalr, and it sent Jhon flying backwards.

It was only a moment before Jhon felt a sudden sense of weightlessness, as gravity tore him down towards the ground below, off the balcony where the duel started. For a few brief moments, Jhon felt like his flying, a fall that reminded him of the the time he fell into the nest of gundarks on Vanqor, only to have Skhai swoop in and save him. But Skhai was dead. There was no one to save him this time.

He didn’t feel it when his body hit the water, but he remembered what happened afterward. It was an out of body experience, like he could see himself helpless and floating onto the shore of the lake. His first true memory of consciousness came when he was lying on the sand there, not unlike when he washed ashore on Lehon after being cast out to sea by Exodeus. He remembered the Lehonian tide moving in and around him, washing his bruised and bloodied body as he laid there. He remembered as the salt water touched his lips, stirring him, awakening him from a sleep that felt like death, yet that’s not what he felt this time. These last months had felt like a constant state of death, so why should this moment have been any different?

For now, he remained lying in the sand, forgetting what he was even doing and that there was a man out to kill him.

 

[Green Ranger]

The Sith Lord knew his opponent wasn't dead, yet he made no move to make the kill. As the unconscious body of Jhon Cordatus washed up on the shores of the lake, the Sith Lord merely watched as the man lay there. This was no Jedi Master the Sith fought - he was barely alive even before the invasion. Bhalr watched on, mildly perplexed at the ease of the task set before him.

Why did the Empress fear this man above all others?

Still, Bhalr himself found himself toying with the Jedi for reasons all of his own. With any other, the Sith Lord would have wasted no time in finishing the job and moving on. But this one...Cordatus, he was different. He deserved suffering.

And so Darth Bhalr waited. As the Jedi Master slowly dragged himself to his feet, still the Sith Lord watched on from the Retreat as the clouds around him clapped with thunder, and the sounds of explosions and cries of pain rang in the distance.

"Do you hear that?" his voice rang, the voice ringing through the Force to fill Jhon's mind, "Do you hear the cries of the dying innocent? How fitting that you should abandon them when they need you the most...just as the Force has abandoned you in turn."

In the distance, the Jedi Master finally turned to look upon the Sith Lord once more. Beneath his helm, Bhalr smiled.

"Only one of us has true mastery of the Force this day, Jedi. When the Darkness takes you, you will be...NOTHING!"

With a roar, Bhalr leapt from the balcony, darkness roiling around his body as he came crashing down into the middle of the lake. The water exploded in every direction away from the Sith as he sank down into the waterbed. Thousands of tons of water were displaced by his passing, whirling and roiling up into the sky. Thunder clapped overhead, and lightning screamed out, striking the rising waterspout. All light seemed to vanish in that moment, as the peak of the spout suddenly turned, arcing over in mid-air, lit from within with the fel energies of the Dark Side as it crashed towards the Jedi Master.

The last thing Jhon would see before the maelstrom engulfed him was the gaping maw of the storm, the water roaring towards him. For a moment before it took him, the water seem to take on the shape of a ghastly, terrible visage, dreadful and enormous as he was swallowed into its gargantuan maw.

...Kara?

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Hear me…

Jhon called out those words through the Force, he called out to the woman he saw in the wave, but he didn’t know if that would be any use as the water came crashing down. But almost immediately as it did, it was gone.

-------------------------​

The wave was nothing more than a distant memory now, as Jhon felt himself stirring awake in a place made entirely of a bright, white light. He couldn’t make out anything, not yet at least, as the light shined intensely against his eyes. But there, from the blurred edges of his vision, he could begin to make something out; a person, a man.

The stranger wore a simple white robe, one that Jhon would have thought to seen on someone much older. This stranger was far younger than Jhon, at least in physical appearance; his light skin, dirty blonde hair and beard were all neat and polished. Everything about this man seemed so clean, so pure in a way that the Jedi Master had never seen on a being before. Were they both dead? Was this the netherworld?

Jhon couldn’t wait any longer. “What is this place?”

“The veil between life and death,” the man told him, speaking in basic, his accent containing a hint of the old Alderaanians that Jhon had heard in holo-reels.

“So I’m not dead,” John muttered to himself.

“Not yet,” the stranger said with a sly grin, as if he himself had asked these questions before, “but that’s entirely up to you.”

Up to me? The former Grand Master had seen his share of strangeness over his many years, but nothing quite like this. Everything about this place was... what’s the word? Vague. That was it, there was a lack of clarity here. He couldn’t get his bearings because where he was almost seemed to not exist, like it was in his mind, but Jhon wasn’t imagining this man before him. Something here was real.

“Who are you?” an incredulous Jhon asked.

The man clasped his hands together and walked towards Jhon, saying, “Not a vision, I can assure you. Only a shaman from a distant past, here to restore faith in what has long been lost.”

“What are you talking about?” Jhon wondered.

“Balance,” the shaman said. “To the Force, to the galaxy, to you most of all.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jhon said, though his slide into hardened beliefs let him not even hear that last point. “Anakin Skywalker brought balance to the Force over a thousand years ago.”

“That’s very true,” the shaman said, the satisfaction of which brought a smirk to Jhon’s face, but that was soon wiped away when the man said, “but also very wrong. That can mean any number of things. Even the old Jedi knew that the prophecy might have been misread. Have the new Jedi grown so complacent and so unwise that even a Sith invasion can’t break the dogma of the Chosen One?”

The man walked forward, placing a comforting hand on Jhon’s shoulder and said, “I once knew a man faced with that same situation. Believe me when I say that dogma in the face of this kind of threat doesn’t end well. His was the wrong answer, and he had to find the right one.”

Jhon shrugged, forcing the shaman’s hand off his shoulder. The Jedi Master backed away, still not comfortable with this whole situation, but his curiosity was nevertheless piqued. Still, Jhon couldn’t let this shaman know that.

“I have no idea what you’re saying to me,” Jhon snapped.

“I’m saying to look for the key,” the shaman said, “the one from that book of yours, the one my friend Skhai gave you.”

His…friend? What did Skhai not tell me?

“What key?” the former Grand Master asked. “Who are you?”

The shaman smiled as he said, “Someone who understands the curse of destiny all too well, and who wants to help you be the candle that guides all those with a destiny through the darkness. But that can’t happen unless you live and find what you’re looking for.”

The stranger backed away, walking backward towards the white light. He began to fade away, back into whatever obscurity he came from. Jhon couldn’t help but abhor the cliché, but he wondered if it was done on purpose. He wondered if it was a way of trying to sell the importance of this moment. Jhon caught one last glimpse of the shaman before he finally faded away.

“So go now and live.”

-------------------------​

Jhon began to spaz violently as he suddenly found himself underwater, right where he last remembered being before he saw the shaman. It took a few moments for him to center himself and regain his composure, and, as he did, he pulled a breathing device from his belt and put it on, letting the water around it transform into breathable air. He looked up to find his bearings, seeing where he fell into the water when the giant wave crashed down upon him. Rather than go back there, where the Sith Lord must have been, Jhon swam away, deeper into the lake and towards the opposite side.

He swam for what felt like an hour, but was really only minutes. His muscles were aching like they had never ached before, his drive for fighting clearly going away the older he got, but he kept pushing forward. This lake would not be his tomb. As he swam, he noticed a current, a strange current headed towards an underground cave. He made his way towards it, looking close upon the rock that drew him towards it, using whatever light that made its way down to see.

Soon he came upon a granite door, a clearly man-made structure. He looked towards its mid-section, looking for some sort of door handle or control, but he didn’t find anything, nothing to give him any clues as to what it was. Yet there was a curious thing, some sort of painting. As he looked closer, he could make out more of it.

It was an emblem, familiar yet very different. It bore the spiked emblem of the Old Republic and something akin to the emblem of the Old Jedi, yet upside down and more primitive. Still, that wasn’t all that was familiar about it. He had seen this very thing before, and that’s when he knew what it was.

The key.

 

[Green Ranger]

As Jhon looked upon the symbol, the underground cavern boomed and rocked. The former Grandmaster stepped away from the symbol, walking back to the water, the distant sounds evolving and growing clearer - the sounds of screams, and blasterfire, and the distant hum of lightsabers. The chambers rocked again. Jhon stepped slowly back into the cold water from whence he came.

The caves were gone. So too was the cold of the water. Instead, he stood admist a fiery inferno. Broken coolant pipes screamed gas at him, while flames licked at his robes. The ground rocked again, and the Jedi Master found himself reaching out to a wall to balance himself - where he had expected the cold, harshness of stone, he instead found superheated durasteel panelling, which scorched at his skin. As he looked forward, the scene slowly came together, and he realized he was in a long hall. Silvery panels lined the floors and walls, and the ceiling was braced with great exposed beams, ventilators and pipes. Flames spat at him from every seam, and the ground moved beneath his feet. As he looked down on the floor, great seams opened up in the panels, jets of flame screaming up at him from some unknown depth.

A blood-curdling scream brought his attention back to the hall, where a youth tripped and fell, convulsing on the floor as lightning arced across his lifeless form. Stepping out from the shadows, a hooded and masked figure looked upon Jhon, red lightsaber in hand.

The Jedi raised his own blade in defense as the figure came screaming towards him, only to stop in confusion as the figure passed right through him to cut down a Jedi behind him. Jhon kept walking forward into the inferno.

The scene twisted and convulsed again, and the Jedi Master suddenly found himself at an intersection. Faint sobbing echoed through the halls, through his very mind, and he turned to face the source.

A young girl, scrabbling at a twisted mess of durasteel. She was screaming a name, but Jhon couldn't understand her. An arm feebly reached out from beyond the twisted metal. The ground shook once more, rocked by another explosion, and Jhon found himself next to the girl, hand on her shoulder. Icy blue eyes looked up at him, tears pouring down her cheeks, and Jhon found himself stepping back in surprise.

Kara.

***

Returning to the Jedi had left Kara Vaalki somewhat directionless. The Force had bid her return for some greater purpose, and yet she had spent months wandering from temple to temple in a futile effort to feel useful. It was almost like the Force was holding its breath, waiting for the final pieces to move into position.
And then, the Sith came to Tython. An Imperial fleet blackened the skies, and the Temple grounds were filled with invasion forces before the Jedi even had a chance to react. Within minutes, Kara found herself running down the Temple steps, stopping in horror as she saw the sheer numbers the Imperium had managed to bring to their ancient sanctuary. In her haste, the Jedi Master found herself with only a holdout blaster at her side, having preferred to keep her numerous lightsabers in her private study. Within moments, the air was filled with blasterfire, as the Alliance garrison moved forward to face the first wave of Imperial forces.

Kara ducked behind a statue, firing off several bolts before hiding again. Marksmanship had never quite been her forte, but at the moment it was somewhat inconsequential - even firing blind would hit an Imperial, so great were their numbers. The Alliance's push was short lived, however, and she soon found herself in the thick of a rearguard as the Imperium continued to push forward. Summoning the power of the Force, she found herself toppling ancient statues just to create makeshift barricades for her dwindling forces. Somehow, the Alliance managed to stem the flow...at least for now. Kara could already see artillery in the distance moving steadily forward.
"Hold the line here as long as possible, but don't risk your lives if you need to fall back," she snapped at the commander, too busy firing his rifle to do anything but silently nod in consent. Good enough, she thought, charging back into the Temple complex as droves of Jedi moved forward. There was a sudden explosion from above, and a transparisteel skylight shattered, sending great crystalline lances into the waiting Jedi below. At least a dozen Sith leapt into the courtyard from above, crimson lightsabers blazing as they swept through the surprised and vulnerable Jedi. Kara fired several shots in vain before retreating further into the Temple.
The deeper dormitories were filled with panic and chaos, elderly Masters doing their best to rally together younger students in any way possible, other teams of Knights arming themselves in whatever armour they could find before heading upstairs. Amongst it all, Kara was the only one walking in the opposite direction. She finally managed to reach her own dormitory - a rudimentary and empty place, much unlike her old residence on Empress Teta, her chambers on Tython were devoid of all clutter. On a bench, two matching lightsaber hilts sat, waiting for her. Kara quickly clipped the two weapons to her belt, before looking up at the wall. Carefully, she grasped her hand around the ancient, leather bound hilt.

The walls suddenly faded around her, and she was no longer in her dormitory. All detail vanished, and she was surrounded by white. She was a little girl again, and a young man stood over her. She heard a cry in the distance. The man spoke.

'Kara.'

Suddenly, Kara was back on Tython. Jhon's voice still rang clear in her mind.

'Damn it', she muttered, as she jogged her way back up into the main temple complex once more.

'This is Jedi Master Kara Vaalki,' she shouted into her commlink, 'requesting an emergency shuttle at the auxiliary landing zone in the Temple complex.'

'Master Jedi, we're busy with evaccing the students at the LZ-' a voice chimed in in response, but Kara cut him off.

'This is a priority mission, captain,' she said sharply. 'I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't. Reroute to my coordinates, now!'

'...Roger that, Master Jedi. ETA is two minutes. Over.'

 

[Brandon Rhea]

The water was gone, but he still felt cold. It was the icy chill of a ghost. He could even see the breath that he exhaled, leaving his body and wandering down the lonely corridors of the once-serendipitous vessel that ferried children from the Imperial border to the Jedi Temple for training. He could see himself as a younger man, before Lana; before Andraste; before the fateful day on Ardos when the young, stupid Jhon Cordatus he could see now was cast away forever.

Tyrn. The Jedi Guardian could finally hear the name that Kara was screaming: Tyrn Lightell. The name rang familiar, but he did not know why; something from the distant past of the Jedi, but he did not know what. All he knew was that the girl he was protecting now wanted Lightell to be saved. Her tear-stricken face and her cold blue eyes revealed the depth of her sorrow. It was almost like she knew what was about to happen, that she knew the fate of her friend, and was trying to find peace with it... a peace that would surely never be found.

Jhon was surprised, but not shaken. As he had always been for his twentysomething years, Jhon was nothing but confident. He had never failed; no matter the mission, no matter the hardship, he accomplished what he set out to accomplish. It was much to the bewilderment of the Jedi Masters, most of all Sage Master and friend Errand Khoss who repeatedly lectured him on his arrogant bravado and smug over-confidence, but Jhon always found himself in victory.

Though the magnitude of this impending failure would not hit him for decades, though he would not piece together that this was the first day of the rest of his life for so long, this moment was his first true taste of failure. This was his first experience with death.

He gripped his lightsaber and rushed forward, where he could see Kara’s friend being carried away—no, dragged, like a rabid dog—by the army of evil that had boarded this vessel, forces that would one day reveal themselves at the head of a once-benevolent empire. He screamed, he shouted for help. Save me, he cried out, save me please! And Jhon was happy to oblige.

But as he rushed forward, saber in hand, a surge of energy burst through the conduits in the ceiling above him, sending metal and debris down into the corridor. He could still make it to the boy, he could still save him if he went around another corridor first, but he couldn’t. Behind Kara, behind other children who congregated around her where she was now helping to protect them and keep them calm, another group of warriors approached them, red blades in hand.

For the first time, Jhon was confronted with a no-win scenario: would he save the boy, or save Kara and the others? His decision was simple, he would save Kara and the others. He would let the dark warriors take the boy, knowing that it meant Tyrn would be condemned to death, so Jhon could save more from the same fate. The choice was the right one, yet Jhon had no idea how it would one day come back to haunt him.

And yet now, here on Tython, where Jhon once more found himself standing on the beach of the lake, he was beginning to piece it back together. As he saw the last remnants of that memory, as he heard Tyrn shouting Save me! Save me!, Jhon knew at last what was happening. He knew at last that the boy wasn’t condemned to death, but that he discovered a fate much worse.

That’s when Jhon knew the magnitude of his failure. That’s when he knew that Andraste was not the only one who he condemned to a life of the dark side, twisted and filled with hatred because of the things that he had done. It was why this Lord of the Sith had chosen to conjure the memory of the Serendipity in Jhon's mind.

So Jhon threw his lightsaber to the side, He looked at Darth Bhalr, clad from head to toe in armor, and said, “Hello, Tyrn. It’s been a long time, my old friend.”

 

[Kiro]

Kiro Haas, Knight and Artisan of the Jedi Order, and Keeper of the Wardens, had been on Tython to ensure that the ancient Forge of Vur'tepe didn't fall into the hands of the Sith, along with some of the most ancient secrets of the Order. It had been a simple, if drastic, measure. As soon as the ancient temple had been evacuated, and that which could be salvaged had been put aboard ships and shuttles, very same woman whom had rediscovered, and restored Vur'tepe, ensured it's destruction. It was a simple matter of overcharging the geothermal vents which allowed the Forge to work, providing both raw materials as well as heat and power for the ancient temple, so long dedicated to the creation, expression, and artisanry.

With the volcano of the Thythos ridge erupting, covering the ancient temple in liquid rock, Kiro and her Alliance shuttle headed to the main temple's LZ, where they began to assist in loading Jedi younglings. At least, that was until Master Vaalki's priority mission came in. Kiro was aboard the shuttle when the mission came in, and she trusted in the will of the Living Force, though she wondered what could possibly be so important at such a time. Well, she'd know soon enough. Adjusting the gloves of her father's old armour, which sported the markings of the 103rd Brigade, the two crossed swords of tricopper, as well as the right pauldron having been replaced with one of plain copper, she chanted a Jedi Mantra under her breath.

"The crystal is the heart of the blade.
The heart is the crystal of the Jedi.
The Jedi is the crystal of the Force.
The Force is the blade of the heart.
All are intertwined.
The crystal, the blade, the Jedi.
We are one."

It wasn't the Code of the New Jedi Order, but it was the one which resonated the strongest within her heart, for several reasons. One was clipped to her fore-arm. Her primary lightsaber, which contained the refined, and focused, crystal feather of Skhai Baatch. Her former Master. Her mentor. Her friend. A woman with whom she shared an intensely strong Force Bond. A bond which gave her strenght and comfort in her trying moments.

As the shuttle moved through the skies of Tython, Kiro suddenly understood why the shuttle had been diverted from it's previous task. She had always been good at sensing things within the Force. There was a distinctive Force presence ahead. A presence she had encountered only once before. But thanks to her Bond with Skhai, it was a presence she was decidedly familiar with. Jhon Cordatus.

"Well, I'm certain the old man could use some good news about now..."