Love...Honor...Obey

[Andreus Makaryk]

(OOC: Just to clarify, this RP is to take place and ICly occur before any upcoming events between Master Avara and Xeno's character(s)/characters of said faction. Initial posting order for Jedi is Trell, Denzein, Bac (should Bac wish to participate...please do), after which point I don't really care about posting order. Andreus has a 12+ hour trip alone in hyperspace, so I will post independently of the above order until my IC arrival at Empress Teta.

Dark Cloud and I are obviously collaborating on the material for the next few posts.)

Millions of microscopic shards of darkness began eating away at Andreus' mind. The oily contamination of the padawan's brain began to spread. The padawan didn't know how to control it, really. He tried to meditate, but found his concentration slowly corroded away. He knew he required the wisdom of the Jedi Masters. Masters he had alerted to his arrival, if only they would get the kriffing message. And the shards of darkness, long ago dispersed ironically enough by that Sith's mindwipe, began to join together, to form cracks in Andreus' will...

Da says today is special. I turn four today! Da has spent every moment I know of preparing me for this. For something special. He makes me work hard. I don't know how he does it, but he does. People are scared of him. Maybe that's why. Sometimes I'm scared of him. But not today. Not this day! Today is special. Da has something special planned for me.

He takes me to a bar. The bar owner complains I'm a kid. Then shuts up for some reason. We sit down; Da gets a drink. Then he hands me a toy blaster. "Why don't you play with it?" he asks me with a grin. I smile back. "Why don't you play with it...over there." He points at someone in the corner. I am so happy--my first toy!

I do what Da says. He wants me to play. So I point the toy at the guy in the corner. This will be so fun! I pull the trigger. I blow a smoking hole through the guy's face. The toy is real!

"WOOOOOOAAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Da's happiness fills the entire bar. I'm so happy. My first kill! Of course, Da and I are the only two happy people. The rest of the people in the bar attack! Da immediately turns on his lightsaber and swings it in front of me, to protect me from all the blasters. I hear the glorious sign of necks crushing and crunching and people crashing into walls. It's just wonderful! Blood starts running down the walls, which are dented by people's heads. I decide to play with my toy again. I blow another hole through someone's chest. Another kill! This is just so fun!

Da is a blur. I'm randomly playing, having fun. I blow a few more blackened holes into people. Just a minute later, we're the only two people left. What a birthday bash! Da once again proclaims:

"WOOOOOOAAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I feel so proud of myself today for helping Da. For helping Da do his job. For helping Da to...kill...

Andreus felt his heart thumping out of his chest. He broke into a cold sweat. What now? He had kriffing cut down people in cold blood on his fourth kriffing birthday, as some sort of sick initiation rite. And he'd enjoyed himself doing it! He shuddered to think of what justice would look like. Did he have death warrants out on him? Would the Jedi hand him over for capital murder he had done as a kid? Andreus was scared. And yet it had been fun. The Dark Side beckoned to him...to have fun. To enjoy life. The Dark Side had had plans for him, after all. The darkness had plans for him to become the greatest assassin who had ever lived.

Andreus shuddered. He couldn't, he just couldn't. The thought of him killing people just for fun made his blood run cold. Darth Oseth had tried to kill him for fun. He'd almost killed his own son without realizing it. No he couldn't succumb. He tried reciting the Jedi Code--it was all he could think of--but he found his thoughts consumed by horror and revulsion at what he was. What he could become again. And yet, that horror beckoned to him, to kill people for fun, and quite possibly for profit. He was very much not in control of his emotions. He didn't know how to do that yet.

On Flight 391, the flight that the Sith bombed and tried to make crash, there hadn't been this darkness. Only fear, fear that had been easily overridden by duty. Perhaps duty might see Andreus through--duty to not only the Jedi, but to the galaxy, duty to save the galaxy from himself.

As the dark shards buried within his mind continued to march together, attempting to become one, he could only hope.

 

[Denzein]

A ripple in the tranquil depths of a glassy pool.

Lecchamemnon had felt something akin to this within his mind two days ago, when he had meditated on the matter of Andreus Makaryk. He had been searching the strands of the future for signs of the padawan's advancement, for even though Andreus was new to the Order he had already managed to make an impression on the Loremaster. Lecchamemnon was looking for signs that his knighthood would be coming in the next few years, but his efforts had been thwarted by something altogether more immediate. Had he been Jhon Cordatus he was sure he'd have been able to see past the block, but he was not the Sage Master. Compared to Jhon Lecchamemnon merely dabbled in the future - The past was his domain.

The ripple was dark, and it smelt of something altogether unwholesome.

He had put it to one side for the remainder of that day, as his busy schedule demanded. When he returned to the matter in his private quarters late that night the ripple had spread, and was taking shape. Lecchamemnon himself was not skilled enough to know more than that the padawan was in danger, steeped in darkness and that for some unplaceable reason he felt compelled to travel to Empress Teta, the healing halls of the Jedi. There resided Cordatus and Avara for the time being, the Loremaster felt that between the three of them Makaryk's woes could be put to rest. He resolved to leave, telling no-one but the archive staff where he was going.

Sable was swift, and there was not much ground to cover between Tython and Empress Teta. He arrived within the following Tythonian morning, which just so happened to be late afternoon at the Sage halls. He had slept on his ship, and although there had only been time for roughly half a night's sleep he was alert and attentive when he stepped down Sable's boarding ramp. Endless nights of interrogation, research and at times torture had left the Loremaster with a body clock so broken it no longer registered the virtues of a good night's sleep. He scared himself up some lodgings and recommenced meditation, the better to sense Makaryk's plight.

He was roused hours later by Avara's commlink message. He considered it grimly, the words a politician chooses often only give an idea as to what they actually mean, but in this Lecchamemnon recognised the Prime Envoy as he was without his mask of niceties and approachability. He remained knelt upon the floor, facing the doorway to his quarters. He would meditate until his fellow Councillor arrived.

The whispers of the force reveal much to those with the wit to hear them.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

The dark horrors of Andreus Makaryk's past continued to construct a lattice of darkness within his mind. The padawan seemed hapless to stop the cancer from growing. Incantations of the Jedi Code didn't seem to help; he had to strain just to remember anything other than darkness, to remember what little his Master could teach him in such the short time he had been a Jedi. He seemed unable to gain purchase enough in his own mind to meditate. He couldn't concentrate. By now, sweat drenched his flight suit. He had five gallons of water in his cargo compartment, and had already emptied another. Still, he lost water so quickly that the five gallons he had would not be enough to last the agonizingly long journey. His heart raced upwards of three times per second. Fear overwhelmed Andreus, fear of his own future. Fear of what he would become.

As the walls of darkness closed in upon him, the flashbacks continued, and Andreus was utterly powerless to stop them...

Da spent much time preparing me for this day. He says he has a present for me, but he made me work hard for it. Very hard. He made me practice something called 'telekinesis' for so long--more than a day without food, drink, sleep--that I passed out. Because I used the Force so much that I just couldn't. Not anymore. Because it was gone. And when it was gone, I fell to the floor, unable to do any more. Da didn't kill me, but whenever I'd wake back up, he'd make me do it again. Make me hurl speeders again, as far as I could throw them. Then make me find insects and throw them as hard as I could. They flew miles into the air because of me, if they didn't splatter first. A lot of them did.

Da tells me that it will all be worth it in the end.

Today's my sixth. A special day. So Da takes me to a park to celebrate...Sith style. But we look innocent enough, a father and son going to the park. We sit down on a bench and let the cool spring breeze blow across our faces.

A wicked grin sprouts across Da's face. I know he definitely has something special planned now. He looks at me. "Leo, you remember everything I taught you about telekinesis the last year?"

"Yes, Da."

"Good." Da smirks, a joyous smirk of wicked evilness. "Now pick a kid on that playground over there and SQUEEZE." He points in the direction of the playground.

Now it's my turn for a grin to sprout across my face. Indeed, he had a special birthday present planned! This is gonna be fun! I pick a victim, but like any good Sith, I want the victim to know he's gonna die. I want him to experience pain. So I don't wanna kill him right away. I stretch my hand out, just a little. I don't want it to look like I'm doing anything. I don't want to give us away. Not yet.

Quietly, I focus. I haven't squeezed yet, but Da trusts that I will. He knows I'm focusing. He can sense it. I pick my victim and focus on him, feel his presence in the Force...and there's no way for him to know it. I think: What would be the most painful area I could possibly squeeze? I focus on the little boy's nuts. He's about my age.

Then I squeeze.

He falls off the monkey bars to the ground, howling in absolute pain. "MOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" He has no idea what just happened to him. He just knows he has experienced pain he has never known. I smile in satisfaction. I have his attention, though he doesn't know it's the innocent boy sitting on the bench, smiling with his daddy, that's doing it. Muahahahaha.

He is weak. His pain betrays his weakness. He doesn't deserve to live. Da...he's trying real hard not to burst out into laughter. He doesn't want to ruin my element of surprise. He wants it to be absolutely horrifying.

Then I squeeze the boy again, this time like he's a water balloon and I wanna pop it.

The loud cracking sound of an entire skeleton crunching in on itself fills the air for just a split second. I like that sound. And...instead of being filled with water, the boy's body is filled with blood. I...I just pop him when I squeeze. Just like that. His blood and guts splatter all over everyone else on the playground. I just made such a mess, and making messes is just so fun!

The air fills with shrill screams as people, parents and kids, try to absorb what just happened to them, why they suddenly have blood and gore splattered all over their faces and clothes. Some just stare in disbelief at what's left of the boy's clothing, skeleton, and shoes; others run away in complete terror.

NOW Da bursts out in merry laughter. "WOOOOOOAAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Da immediately starts flinging those too scared to stay and smashing them into nearby buildings so they splatter as well. We're having fun. I hurriedly crush and splatter as many people as I can, as quickly as I can, experimenting, practicing, honing my newfound power. I don't need to restrain myself anymore--everyone knows full well what's gonna happen to them. The grass runs red with splattered blood and guts as Da and I splatter everyone in the park.

What a beautiful day!

Was this what Andreus was meant to become? What he was meant to be? His destiny? He normally wasn't a coward, for he had earned something of a reputation as a pilot for acting in emergencies when every other member of the crew was either too paralyzed by fear or simply in denial to do it. But now, he was afraid, very afraid. The very brief teachings he had learned from the Jedi told him to control his emotions...but he couldn't. He couldn't control his fear of what he was meant to unleash. Of what he would unleash, if he didn't make it back to seek help and wisdom in time. The Jedi had taught him that he should control his emotions--but not how. Not in a situation this dire.

If his life was the only one in jeopardy...even if he had a few hundred people behind him...he could do it. He had done it before, even before (and especially before) becoming a Jedi. But this was different. The Loremaster's class now poured fuel on the fire--for Andreus was in it. Andreus had asked a line of questions of the Loremaster, and learned of Darth Nihilus as a result. Darth Nihilus consumed entire planets and sucked the life out of them, and Loremaster and padawan had reached the conclusion that, had Nihilus not been stopped, he would have consumed the entire galaxy. With no life in the galaxy, aside from Nihilus, the Force itself would decay, with nothing to sustain it as Nihilus slowly starved.

That was what scared Andreus so. That if he didn't make it, that he would slaughter far more than just the few hundred people that might die in a spaceliner crash. That he wouldn't be content with just crushing people in the park and splattering them like water balloons. Then he'd want to crush entire cities. Then planets. Then...it didn't take much for Andreus to fear that if he failed to make it, he would go down the same path as Nihilus. He didn't know precisely how well--or how poorly--Darth Oseth might have engineered him. Though if he had learned how to crush people on his sixth birthday, he must have done a terrifyingly good job.

Andreus guzzled another gallon of water. His flight suit had activated an air-conditioning pack to try to evaporate his sweat by now, but it just couldn't keep up. He was drenched in the sweat of his own fears. He couldn't drop out of hyperspace soon enough. He couldn't do anything to accelerate his arrival at this point, either. He was trapped, alone, with his own fears.

He couldn't succumb to the omnipresent corruption leaching his mind, his will. He just couldn't. Too much depended on him holding out.

 

[Brand]

Galak reached out with the Force, selecting the distinctive presence that Master Lecchamemnon presented. He followed the trail the Force presented at a quick pace, moving in long strides as his legs propelled him onwards.

Thoughts ran through the Councilor's mind at a hundred miles an hour; questions as to Andreus' safety and mental stability dominated those thoughts. The two had only been partners for weeks, but the bond that they had forged during this time was strong already.

Galak crossed the dormitory section and reached where the Loremaster was staying; he didn't bother to ring the door chime, instead sending a blunt pulse to his friend to alert him to his presence as he the door swooshed open.

"Lecchamemnon... it's good to see you again, friend, only not under these circumstances." Galak stepped forward to shake the man's hand, a grim look apparent on his face.

"Andreus sent me a rather vague but urgent comlink message. I'll play it back for you here soon, but I fear Andreus physically or mentally may be severely damaged."

 

[Denzein]

Lecchamemnon stood as the Prime Envoy entered, his musings disturbed by Galak's pulse of awareness. He took the hand, although there was no meaning to the action on his part. He was not the type for bonhomies and familiarities, not even with those few he considered close. Avara's dark look mirrored the Loremaster's own visage.

It was good to see Galak again. Damn the circumstances.

"Andreus is in peril. I foresaw darkness surrounding him two days ago, and made my way here at the bidding of the Force. I do not know much, aside from that this stinks of the Sith. Even now I sense their hand in this, it is becoming more and more clear in my mind the closer the padawan gets. Tell me what you have heard, Galak."

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

The dark walls closed in.

The Dark Side beckoned to Andreus, offered him comfort, offered to blast cold air throughout the ship. Oh, how desperate was Andreus for a chillier environment. Though his flight suit's air conditioning pack had been running full blast for the last seven hours--so long that Andreus had had to hook the unit to an outlet from his ship's capacitor--his core body temperature had risen to nearly forty-one degrees Celsius from the stresses he was under, from the stresses of a constant, fear-driven 180 pulse for the last seven hours, from the stresses of resisting. He'd almost reached heatstroke, only had two gallons of water left in his ship, and he still had five and a half hours left on his race against the clock, on his race against his own fall.

He didn't think he would make it.

Oh, how tempting the call of the Dark Side was, its call to draw upon its power to instantly frost the starfighter's cockpit...

Da is taking me on a trip today. I don't know where, but Da wanted my fifth to be on a holiday. I don't know why. Da says I'll have to wait to find out.

We land on some planet I've never heard of before. I see kids running about from house to house, bags filled with candy in their hands. Everyone seems really happy. Da sees a store, and takes me there. Together, we pick out a costume of someone Da taught me about. Someone named Darth Vader.

I still don't know what Da's up to, but it's gotta be good. We go back outside, from door to door, trolling about for candy. Of course, Da would never waste his time asking people for candy--he's a Sith! So he must have an evil plan.

We happen across a family who ran out. Da sees his chance! He gives the mother and father who came to the door a dirty look. They run back inside, afraid. We follow them in and shut the door behind us.

There are also three boys in the room, one about my age, one probably about ten, and one who is a teen. A wicked evil grin sprouts across Da's face.

Ah, so this is the plan! The entire family is trapped! Because this family ran out of candy!

Da hands me a lightsaber, right before he looks at mother and father with inky black eyes, his eyes of death. He doesn't need to tell me to do anything; I'll know what to do. "This Darth Vader costume isn't a costume. It's real. WOOOOOAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I ignite the lightsaber, throwing a red glow across the room. Red is the same color as blood. Muahahaha. It's time to practice.

I select the youngest boy as my first victim. He tries to run away, but Da reaches out to hold him in place. He can't go anywhere. The lightsaber hums and throbs as I try out some more artistic movements. I get to play ballerina today. Oh, so deadly ballerina. Like a ballerina of death.

The little one screams in pain as both his arms fall to the floor with a thud. With a sadistic smirk on my face, I cut his legs out from under him, and then bringing the lightsaber back around, I chop off his head in the same motion. It's so kriffing easy!

Everyone else in the family screams. The youngest's blood drips away from his limbs. I was fast enough with my blade that there's still a little bit of leakage from his remains. Muahahaha.

I proceed to turn the house into my own little Chop Shop of Horrors...

...First the kids. Then the parents.

It only took a moment, a moment of pure destructive bliss.

No. He couldn't. If that's what Andreus was meant to be, no he couldn't take the easy way out to cool down. Not this time! He'd have to drink some more of his precious water and hope he could make it back to Empress Teta in time. Before he died. Or went insane. He desperately searched for anything that might comfort him, that didn't involve killing things.

There is no death, there is the Force.

The words reverberated through Andreus' mind, provided a rallying point of strength of sorts, strength that didn't involve killing small children. Yes, yes, that was it. He might well die today. He had to embrace that, because if he didn't die, he'd go insane trying to avoid death. And then he'd go out and kill a bunch of people before he was stopped. No, no, that had to be avoided, at the cost of his own life if need be...if he couldn't make it, he would let his own life slip away to save others from himself. Self-preservation be damned.

He drew his line in the sand, a conscious decision around which he could build a defense. It would conserve his energy, now that he had some point to rally around. But self-preservation was a powerful instinct indeed, and with his body approaching heatstroke already, he flirted with death. The five hours or so he had left didn't seem to be getting any shorter.

 

[Brand]

Galak nodded. He withdrew his comlink from his pocket, clenching it firmly in his hand.

"This was the message transmitted from Andreus' ship," he said, depressing the playback button. The distressed voice of the young learner echoed through Galak's soul once more as the same words that Galak had heard just earlier were brought to light once more.

As the recording finished the Prime Envoy spoke once more. "Now, I'm no flight expert, but the flight from Kamino takes a solid fourteen hours... Andreus is going to be heavily taxing his engines to get back here as swiftly as he can, and it's obviously something is terribly wrong."

"The dark side swirls around him, and I only hope we will be quick enough to head off any serious, permanent damage it could scar him with. As he enters orbit I'll have my comlink set to find his transponder code and we can meet him directly upon landing. If you any suggestions as well, please voice them."

 

[Denzein]

Lecchamemnon considered the facts for a moment. From what the pair of them had gathered Andreus appeared to be mired in evil one way or another, and they would likely know nothing more substantial until hye arrived in person. The darkside clouded the situation, so much so that even Lecchamemnon and his affinity for the blackness could not penetrate it. Indeed, he doubted the Dark Lord of the Sith himself could have correctly predicted the contents of Makaryk's shuttle.

As such, the Loremaster knew the precautions that had to be taken. He had dealt with the mysteries of the darkside before.

They had some time at least before Makaryk's scheduled arrival. They would not be caught napping by whatever Makaryk had brought with him, for it was perfectly plausible that he'd been captured and was flying here under duress. A Sith strike team attacking the heart of the Jedi healing halls was not something Lecchamemnon particularly wanted to see happen, yet here he was faced with the very real risk. Uncompromising force was sanctioned in his opinion... And here it was his opinion that mattered, being the resident darkside encyclopaedia.

"We shall meet him in whatever docking bay he arrives in when he arrives. We must not be alone, the possibility that he is the captive of a Sith or worse some Sith and is flying them here to attack the halls must not be ignored. We'll need to be accompanied by Jedi, as many as can be spared, as well as those few temple guards that are posted here. If the Sith are attacking here it means the start of the war, and you can bet they won't throw a light punch to kick things off. You thoughts on the situation?"

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

Mired in evil, indeed. Though Andreus had resolved to die before succumbing to that evil, he appeared completely hapless to stop the flashbacks, to prevent the evil from intruding upon his mind.

Today's my seventh, and Da's taking me on another special birthday trip.

After a few hours of flight and some walking here and there, we arrive in Coruscant's undercity. It's not a nice place. Filth and trash is everywhere. But it's an ideal place to have fun. We can either walk into a cantina and kill lots and lots of people, or we can corner one person in a dark alley and slowly torture him to death, taking in and enjoying each pained, agonizing scream. The undercity gives us a nice mix of targets.

Da asks me which approach I'd like to take.

I rub my hands together in glee. I can sense Da's up to something good. Muahahaha. "Let's go with the slow torture approach. Muahahaha."

In the undercity, there's no shortage of toughs who think they can take shortcuts through the alleys and kill anyone who tries to get in their way. But they don't know that a Sith Lord's seven-year-old son is on the hunt, looking for victims. With that Sith Lord also present, watching. Teaching. No thug ever expects to get slowly tortured to death by an innocent-looking, seven-year-old boy. Muahahaha.

I find my victim. He tries to pull his blaster. A sick grin sprouts across my face as I quickly reach out to crush the trigger hand and the blaster contained therein. A loud crack fills the alleyway as his knuckles shatter under my power. I just LOVE that sound. I smile, an evil smile. He's cornered. I just destroyed his weapon, and one of his fists. He screams in pain, but it's the undercity--no one cares! He realizes that I can crush any defense just as easily as I crushed his hand. And he's gonna die to a seven-year-old kid. I just have to decide how.

I smell his fear. His delicious fear.

Da offers up a suggestion. "Take your power, let it build up within you. Let it build a CHARGE. An electrical charge, like you've seen Da do from time to time. When you have a few thousand volts built up, release it into the refuse before you."

What a delightful idea!

I build up my energy, instead of expending it on something more immediate. I feel it surging within me. It wants to get out. It wants to cause pain. But I don't let it. Not yet. I have to let it build up first. It does. Then, at last, I raise my arm, point it at my victim, and envision his signature in the Force.

I release it.

A cackle of blue energy streams forth from my hands for a few seconds before sizzling out. The man screams in pain. YES! YES! MORE! MORE! I draw the Force to me, through me, suck the life out of the roaches that roam the garbage piles. It fuels me. Sustains me as I blast more energy into the man. A thin but steady stream of blue Dark Side energy cackles from my hand, sending the man into constant convulsions and screaming.

"Good, good." Da enjoys watching. I enjoy inflicting.

I summon more energy from the Force. More, more, a constant stream of pain for my target. Convulsions aren't enough. The cackling energy streaming from my hand expands and grows thicker. The victim howls in pain. More energy, more energy...I'm refining my focus on this victim. Electrical burn marks start to blister across his body. Good, good. More, more. I can smell wisps of electrical smoke as flesh begins to burn.

Good, good! More, more!

He's still conscious. He can't even roll over. His movements are totally controlled by the spasms of electrical energy I send through his burning muscles. He flops about like a fish out of water. He can't even control his facial muscles enough to scream any more. I pour more energy into him. His body blackens. Flames erupt.

Da and I both sense his Force signature winking out as he dies. In unison, we celebrate the fact that the galaxy's population of pond scum just decreased by one.

"WOOOOOOAAAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Now, on to the cantina for some more practice...

Andreus began to feel drained, trying to hold back the flashbacks, trying not to succumb to the clarion call of the Dark Side. He felt like Darth Oseth was standing over him right now, exhorting him to return to the ways of joyous killing. Of father and son gleefully torturing people together. But Andreus wouldn't. He couldn't. He had escaped from that life, traded it for something he could be proud of. But gratuitously killing people was so fun...

No. He had earlier decided he would die if he couldn't make it to the Jedi in time. There was no other way. He held the line at his earlier decision, his determination that death of self was preferable to the mindless death of others. But it was hard. Oh, so very hard. And he knew that death...be it his own, or should he fail, the death of untold others...drew nearer.

He was down to his last gallon of water. Ice had started to form therein, because Andreus had cranked up the E-wing's air conditioning so much in a desperate effort to cool down. But even so, he continued to sweat unabated, the Dark Side taking its toll physically if it couldn't quite break Andreus mentally. His heart rate had nudged up to three and a half beats per second; it hadn't been at anything resembling a resting heart rate for more than eleven hours. But no matter how cold his air conditioning could chill the cockpit, it wasn't enough. In trying to hold out against the crushing advance of the Dark Side, Andreus simply burned through too much energy, too fast. That the Dark Side seemed to drain him directly on top of it all didn't help, either.

He opened the last gallon of his water. He'd tried to make it last. But he didn't know if he would still be alive by the time he came out of hyperspace, or if the Dark Side would consume his body before then. But he couldn't let it consume his mind. Not entirely. He just couldn't.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

(OOC: As bac has agreed to participate in this RP arc after the landing is complete, there is no longer really any need for me to wait for him to decide if he wants in.)

The blue eddies of hyperspace swirled around Andreus' ship. Andreus was almost there, having somehow (he wasn't quite sure how) resisted the sledgehammer advance of the Dark Side against both body and mind for twelve hours and twenty minutes, thrust by the Force into a deadly trial of endurance not even most Masters would ever experience in their lifetimes. Oh, yes, many Jedi confronted the Dark Side during their lifetimes, often in duels with Sith that came up far shorter than twelve and a half hours. Some Jedi had to reconcile guilty consciences, dealing with a slow, gradual torture of the mind. But very few had to suffer the Dark Side draining them both mentally and physically, weakening them, only two weeks into their training, well before they had had the chance to learn how to resist it.

Andreus still had to somehow hold out for fifteen minutes, the next three of which would be in hyperspace. He had pushed the limits of his navicomputer, forcing it to calculate the closest he could get to the Jedi Temple while remaining in hyperspace, without breaking up due to the gravity or outright incinerating him during his planned high-velocity approach. The calculations were razor-thin. With each passing moment, the Dark Side injected more doubt into Andreus' mind. Doubt about his past, doubt about justice, doubt about whether he would make it. Death seemed merciful, oh so merciful.

Every second counted. Andreus had no way of knowing whether Galak had received his message by now or not, much less alerted the local authorities to his emergency. He took no chances; he used the last moment before dropping out of hyperspace to squawk seven-seven-zero-zero on his transponder--an emergency signal. Even if Galak had failed to receive his message, the authorities on Empress Teta would receive the unmistakable declaration loud and clear, as soon as the planetary sensors picked up his transponder frequency.

Finally, after twelve hours, twenty-three minutes, Andreus Makaryk dropped out of hyperspace, dangerously close to the night side of the planet, only a few hundred nautical miles above its surface and just under two thousand nautical miles from the Temple. As close as he could get. Master Avara hadn't been kidding when he had warned his colleague that Andreus was cutting things dangerously close. Avara's padawan, desperate to land and seek assistance, did not waste a second in ramming his throttles up to full and overloading his engines. He began to proceed along the course calculated by his navicomputer without bothering to wait for the clearances. He didn't have the time to wait for them. He knew that with the Dark Side pressing against his mind with the pressure of a black hole, every second counted.

"Unidentified spacecraft squawking seven-seven, state your emergency." The controller was curt, not seeking to waste words.

Andreus had to consider his response. He would tell the Jedi Masters from whom he sought guidance of his past freely, but he saw little reason to tell the controller. The controller was unlikely to knowingly allow a Sithspawn such as Andreus to land at the Jedi Temple, even if the Sithspawn sought healing instead of killing. To explain would waste time that Andreus knew amounted to a death sentence. But the Dark Side had spawned other, more mundane emergencies. Emergencies the controller would understand.

Andreus tried to speak. His voice cracked. His vocal cords were so dry and dehydrated that even the vibration caused by uttering four words caused them to bleed.

"Medical...need...fire...equip...ment..."

Though he had saved his struggle with the Dark Side for the Jedi themselves, his words rang perfectly true. He had stopped sweating more than ten minutes ago, due to extreme dehydration; despite having consumed five gallons of fluids on his way here, he had still lost more than ten kilos of water weight. His core body temperature was forty-two-and-a-half degrees Celsius, and rising. Andreus had a weak pulse of two hundred thirty, above the theoretical maximum for a human of his age, and if it had been possible to measure his blood pressure right at that moment, the measurement would have come out something like 250/180. His face felt like it was literally burning, hence his request for fire equipment to meet him on landing. If he had had a mirror, he might have seen why. Over the course of the trip, his facial tattoos, the product of Sith Alchemy just like he, had transformed from blue to black. After he had stopped sweating, the tattoos had started to act as a heat sink of last resort. Now, they had gone from black to a darkly glowing, deeply molten red. Their temperature had reached sixty degrees Celsius, absorbing what surplus heat from the rest of his body that they could. The cost they exacted in return, of course, was the terrible pain. The pain of burning.

Andreus should have died long ago. The Force--and his design--somehow held him together. Andreus Makaryk was in no condition to lead a Sith strike force as Lecchamemnon had feared. No, he hadn't brought any Sith with him. Instead, the Force revealed a padawan absolutely desperate to land before the Dark Side consumed what little remaining endurance he had entirely. Indeed, after enduring the steady drain of his will, Andreus had begun to suffer from Force depletion as well...

"Unidentified spacecraft squawking seven-seven, cleared direct Jedi Temple, docking bay sixteen."

Andreus, his vocal cords already bleeding from having spoken last, didn't reply in an attempt to conserve his strength. The Dark Side beckoned to him. This was a city-planet, with lots of traffic about. So much life. Life to drain. Life to sustain Andreus. But Andreus couldn't. Not now. He was too close to reaching the help he so desperately needed to forsake it now. He had vowed to make it, or die trying--he would sacrifice himself if necessary, but he would not sacrifice others that he may live, as the Dark Side urged him to do.

The disturbed padawan checked his instruments. Twenty-eight thousand knots. He had to slow down again before he hit atmosphere. He pulled the thrust reversers on both his ion engines--he had to slow down every bit as quickly as he had accelerated. The engines stayed overloaded, pulling available energy from both reactor and main capacitor. His ship vibrated with raw energy.

He pulled back on the yoke, to attain a nose-down attitude to the curved horizon before him of 4.8 degrees, as dictated by his navicomputer...

The desperate padawan was vaguely aware that he had almost reached atmosphere. The ship generated an OVERSPEED warning, as its avionics detected much the same condition and the ship simply was not designed for this kind of atmospheric entry. No ship was. Andreus was a test pilot, so desperate was he to land.

He flipped a bus switch that would redirect power from his engines to the ship's shield as soon as he pulled back on the throttles. He would have to use the atmosphere itself to brake. Eighteen thousand, four hundred knots.

Andreus reduced power to flight idle, reverse thrust. The ship's power cascaded into his shields, bracing them for the moments-long stress test that was to come. Andreus didn't know if he would land, or incinerate himself trying, but he was at peace with either. Either was preferable to falling back to the Dark Side, to succumbing to the immense pressure upon his mind and body.

As his shield encountered the first friction of the atmosphere, it glowed with red flame, then a trail of bright orange and yellow as it redirected the intense heat of atmospheric friction around the E-wing. There were few brave enough--or desperate enough--to test theoretical limits of equipment quite like this. Andreus was just under a thousand nautical miles from the help he so desperately sought now. The ecumenopolis below him began to awaken to a bright orange streak racing across the upper atmosphere, racing for the Jedi Temple's foggy dawn.

 

[Denzein]

Time moves on.​

It had been some hours since Lecchamemnon's talk with Avara, and they had arrived at docking bay sixteen some time before the disgusting reek that was Andreus Makaryk burst from hyperspace. The darkside was strong about him as the Loremaster had sensed hours ago, and now he was closer he could cut through its clouding presence that much easier. Andreus was alone.

Alone in the - no.

Watching the skies, Lecchamemnon waited for the black sheep to return to the flock. For better or worse Andreus was one of them, and so he owed it to the padawan to help him if he could. Of course, he also owed it to Makaryk that he should give him a swift death should he prove irredeemable. He did not relish the idea of killing his own student, one similar to himself in so many ways, but he knew he'd do it if he had to. Few minds were able to contend with the darkness... So very few. He was to date the only man capable of resisting its guile fully while not excommunicating himself from it that he knew of, and Lecchamemnon had met many men in his time.

Andreus was minutes away at most. The Loremaster decided to guide him in, lending Makaryk the strength of one who has stared into the darkness and remained whole. He reached out for the padawan, calmly touching his mind with his own telepathic presence. He sent the boy one word, just one shining beacon to help him overcome whatever horror was upon him. It was the one word that Andreus should answer to, his very reason for surviving this at all.

Lecchamemnon Loremaster, wielder of both light and dark, sent only this to his terrified student. Into it he put the strength to fight the black that surrounded he and Makaryk both, although he knew it was simply a temporary fix for the boy. If he could not overcome his demons himself he would eventually fall, and the Loremaster would grant him the final honour.

"Jedi," Lecchamemnon sent.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

Andreus' starfighter streaked across the predawn sky, leaving a trail of yellowish-orange flame a few miles behind him and awakening tens of millions with sonic booms. Eventually, his wake would puncture the air with the sharp smell of ozone, as well. The troubled padawan cast a glance at his instruments. Sixteen thousand, nine hundred knots.

His right arm reached for a knob a few inches aft of the main engine throttles. Click. Atmospheric speed brakes deployed. Andreus just hoped the shields would protect them enough that they didn't get ripped off the starfighter for sticking up from its wings to spoil the airflow over them.

Water started dripping down his instrument panels, as frost that had accumulated thereupon, due to Andreus having set the E-wing's life support as cold as it would go hours before in a desperate attempt to stay cool without succumbing to the darkness, melted. Flames licked across the outer skin of the E-wing. With the ship compressing the atmosphere before it, and the pilot relying upon that friction to slow down, the ship's shield had to absorb a temperature difference of eighteen hundred degrees Celsius. That was a lot, especially when applied to the entire shield instead of a single point therein, as would have been the case with something more mundane like weapons fire. The E-wing's capacitor began draining quickly, in a relatively vain attempt to supply additional power for the shield to absorb it. It was inevitable that some heat would leak through.

The E-wing's leading edges, those parts of the spacecraft that bore the heaviest heat loads, began to blacken. Though Andreus had left the air conditioning on, heat began to leak into the cockpit as well. It started to get hot in there, and quickly. It didn't take long for the cockpit to heat up from ten below to forty-five degrees Celsius. That was a lot. Too much for someone so dehydrated to absorb. The troubled padawan was too dehydrated to sweat, his skin every bit as dry and cracked as the Tattoine wastes.

His face didn't just feel like it was burning anymore. It was burning. It was a good thing Andreus didn't have a mirror, because the sight would have terrified him even more--the outline of his tattoos grew brighter, just as the hot gases just outside the ship. From a simmering dark red to bright red, then a molten orange. Andreus' tattoos, the handiwork of his creator, absorbed even more heat, for such was the only way for Andreus to survive now that he was in heatstroke and the ambient temperature had become even warmer than his own body. That heat had to go somewhere, and it went into his facial tattoos, causing them to glow alight. They simmered. They grew so hot that they began to boil the blood that fed them--but they accomplished their purpose effectively enough to save Andreus' brain from frying. For now. But even this was only sustainable for so long.

And the pain, oh the pain of feeling his face come to a rapid boil. Andreus was no longer quite so sure that the Sith mindshard he'd experienced in childhood was the most painful experience in his life. Feeling his face boiling off definitely seemed in contention. And the boiling only seemed to get worse. The Dark Side beckoned to poor Andreus, urging him to discharge all this pent-up energy that threatened to burn him alive, and burn a few poor sods two hundred thousand feet below him instead. But Andreus didn't want to do it. He didn't want to fall back to the ways of the Sith, even if he was the spawn of some Sith's sick, twisted idea.

Andreus wanted to scream, the pain was so great. But he couldn't. His throat was too parched to even make a sound. It was difficult enough to simply open his mouth.

Lecchamemnon's intercession proved timely. Though Andreus hadn't arrived yet, he wasn't alone. Not quite.

Jedi.

That single word entered the young padawan's mind, and for a brief instant, he wondered just what, precisely, he was to do with it. There was nothing to be done for his failing body; he knew not how to heal. He couldn't get down quickly enough. But the word wasn't completely empty, either. It carried the strength that the Loremaster had put behind it. Strength of will. Andreus knew not how to do anything to rejuvenate himself physically, but even the knowledge he wasn't alone could help him mentally. Help him focus. Even if he would die in five minutes, at least he could focus on not giving into the urge to prolong his sorry life at the expense of something else.

He cast the visceral urge to drain anything he could lay his senses upon aside. The Dark Side might well consume Andreus' body, but it wouldn't consume his mind. Not this day. Instead, Andreus focused his thoughts on Lecchamemnon's single word to him. He wish he could communicate back, but he didn't know how. So, he figured that as a Jedi, he had better use the Force--to help him land, not out of selfish desire to prolong his pitiful existence. Nihilus had started down the dark path merely to survive, after all. Andreus preferred death to that.

The padawan gathered his ship's vital statistics from his instruments: heading, airspeed, altitude, attitude, position. Though incredibly difficult with his face boiling off, he began the same meditation he had gone to Kamino to practice in the first place--navigating by Force.

One hundred nautical miles to spaceport. Fifty-one thousand feet. Six thousand, four hundred knots. Andreus thought he could make out the powerful presences of his welcoming committee from here, assembling at his docking bay--it helped that one of them had just given him that mental nudge. He couldn't see anything but cloud tops reflecting the reds and oranges of a sun that had just risen from the horizon, for the area around the Jedi Temple remained shrouded in low clouds and fog.

Only about four more minutes, taking deceleration into account. It seemed like an eternity. Andreus wasn't sure he'd physically survive that long; even with Lecchamemnon lending him strength, he didn't really know how to apply it.

Thirty-five nautical miles, eighteen thousand feet, two thousand nine hundred knots. At last, Andreus could bring the engines out of idle. He had to, full reverse thrust, to slow down. Otherwise, he'd splatter at the docking bay and kill a bunch of people, and that wouldn't be good. They roared back to life, to finish the braking that atmospheric friction had started. The E-wing would be fully exposed to the friction now. Andreus allocated more power to his life support, hoping the air conditioning could keep up before he succumbed.

He was almost there.

Six nautical miles, three thousand feet, three hundred ten knots. A fanblade in the Number Two engine, unable to bear the immense and prolonged heating caused by the combined overloaded operation of the engine, and the failure of the engine to cool at idle due to atmospheric factors, started to slag and weld to other components. The engine could no longer turn, and flamed out.

Two words immediately damned Andreus, even before the aerodynamic effects of the engine failure could be felt.

Pilot error.

Andreus immediately realized he had focused so much attention on his spacecraft's vital statistics that he had failed to monitor the heat levels of his engines. He had pushed them well beyond design limits, and burned one of them out in his desperation to land. But he didn't have time to think about that now.

Not when his other engine, in full reverse, was digging the left wing in; even with full control inputs to the right, the E-wing still rolled dangerously quickly to the left. The engine was simply too powerful for ailerons to offset without the assistance of a rudder. Andreus didn't have a rudder. Yet, he needed that engine power to slow down.

He couldn't take the textbook approach, overfly the spaceport, and fly a long final to take more time to slow down, because he wouldn't survive that long. Less than two minutes from the sanctuary and safety of the Temple, it appeared he'd blown it. The long final would add another ten. His body couldn't hold out that long.

Andreus didn't watch his instruments. He could absorb the information faster through the Force (nevermind the constant pain of his facial tattoos burning bright orange to save him from immediate death) than he could by reading it from his instruments. He couldn't see anything visually, as he was deep inside a cloud. But he knew his E-wing was banking to the left at fifteen degrees a second, turning to the left as well. He wasn't flying straight for the docking bay anymore. Every second counted, for if he didn't do anything, he'd flip his craft over in less than ten and crash into the forest preserves that ringed the Temple in about twenty.

He couldn't go around. His hand reached for the repulsorlift controls--the one potential countervailing force he had left.

 

[Denzein]

By the force... Did he really have to do this entirely by himself? The padawan was so far gone that he didn't even seem to be able to keep his ship in the air long enough to get to the docking bay. He knew Andreus was fairly green when it came to darkside influence, but this response was pushing it. Perhaps this was simply proof of how jaded the venerable Jedi Master had become through his own relationship with the darkside of the force, he wasn't really sure any more.

He'd always known he was alone with his demons... Had he really had them so long he'd forgotten the feeling of innocence?

Yes.

Regardless of his own situation Makaryk needed his help if he was to avoid a messy death on the outskirts of the Temple's grounds. He lacked focus, he lacked stamina, and he lacked almost everything else required to effectively combat the darkness inside him AND keep flying. He would die without them, therefore the Loremaster saw only one way to proceed.

He sighed... He really hated doing this. There was always the chance he'd give the recipient that little bit too much: A memory, for example. It did not do for lesser people to dip into the labyrinthine mind of a monster.

He drew upon his gifts, seeking out the things he naturally possessed that had allowed him to embrace his darker half without fear of losing himself forever. His fearlessness that allowed to stare his demons in the face, his almost complete lack of both empathy and compassion that enabled him to ignore the distractions around him presented by the worthless people and focus on his targets, the ruthless determination without which he would never have had the stomach or courage to perform some of the tasks he had done in his long life. If one were to look at the concoction of psychological traits and nuances that made up the Loremaster's psyche they would likely recoil in fear, or perhaps revulsion. He was not a nice man when the twin masks of apathy and severity were prised away, but then a nice man would have fallen long ago.

Only a person actually capable of becoming something could be what Lecchamemnon was.

He was careful to ensure that he did not take any memories with the personality. Such a mistake would have been disastrous, allowing Andreus to watch him annihilate that Metropolitan school in cold blood simply because the Sith had taken it and were using the children as hostages would nullify everything he was trying to achieve. Andreus had to believe that Lecchamemnon was a rock of light energy that he could cling to, that the personality he would be drawing from was of the light.

Once this was complete he projected it all straight into Andreus terrified mind, the process eased by the original "Jedi" which had opened up the path. He melded his mind with Andeus', allowing the padawan to draw upon his strength to carry on fighting and flying in equal measure. The process was draining, but not so much that Lecchamemnon would have to stop any time soon. He was one of the most proficient force users int he galaxy, after all...

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

Twelve hours, thirty-five minutes.

Andreus Makaryk possessed no specific training or instruction on smothering darkness with light. Only two weeks after first joining the Jedi, two weeks after touching the Force for the first time in more than two decades, the Force had thrust him into such a test of endurance that the darkness would have slowly ground to dust even most Masters who came from, as the Loremaster thought them, the ranks of "worthless people." Insofar as that test was concerned, Andreus had been taught literally nothing by the Jedi. There was nothing the Order could have done to prepare him short of some Master receiving a vision of his destiny and cramming down as much instruction as possible within those two weeks. Obviously, that hadn't happened.

Andreus had known as he departed that he would require just that instruction. Yet, from nothing, he had lasted against the darkness on the strength and stamina of his will alone. Just. Not quite enough to actually land at the Temple. But enough for him to reach the assistance he required before the darkness consumed him...or long enough for that assistance to reach him.

The darkness had, over the last twelve hours, drained Andreus' body of its strength and vitality. Even now, it continued, failing to consume the young man entirely only because he had committed to his own death before allowing others to die out of base, simple self-preservation.

A crash in the forest would provide that death. The spacecraft lit up with both visual (which Andreus could no longer see) and aural warnings.

NO 2 ENGINE FIRE
REPULSOR TRIM FAIL

No. The sacrifice wasn't necessary. Yet. Flames licked off his face as his tattoos, bright orange and brightening to yellow, boiled and bubbled. His face was by now so swollen by the burns of his blood boiling off that his eyelids were physically swollen shut. He had to rely entirely upon the Force, along with some vague semblance of hearing, for his awareness now.

Even as Lechhamemnon deliberated on the necessity of assisting his troubled student, Andreus reached for the repulsorlift trim controls, for he needed to make drastic adjustments within a few seconds if he was to have any hope of surviving at all. He couldn't wait for the Loremaster to think. The fire left over from the Number Two engine flameout could wait just those few seconds. His fingers flew over the repulsorlift settings panel, aided by what weak Force-augmented speed he could muster in the face of the Dark Side draining off his strength.

Oh, how he came perilously close to flipping over and crashing--but he (somewhat) stabilized his spacecraft in a seventy-degree forward slip just as Lecchamemnon came to the conclusion that Andreus was too green to handle the darkness alone while still being expected to land. Andreus didn't need to lose altitude, however; he needed to lose airspeed, so he set the repulsorlift to compensate for the loss in altitude, forcing nearly all of the drag induced by the maneuver into reducing his airspeed. The E-wing now flew nearly sideways and flipped up on its side--introducing precious drag that would help Andreus slow down for landing. The repulsorlift at last had provided the pilot with the 'rudder' necessary to keep him from falling out of the sky.

Lecchamemnon's was a correct conclusion, for without the help, Andreus still would have been damned to crash into the spaceport at more than a hundred knots. But Lecchamemnon had inserted just enough of his presence into Andreus' mind to show him the focus, fearlessness, and determination necessary to keep the darkness at bay. It had been largely the fearlessness, and to a small extent the focus, that Andreus had been too green to possess on the scale required.

It was...liberating. Lecchamemnon had lent his guidance and strength freely, that Andreus could finally banish the urges to drain everything in reach for mere sustenance. The Loremaster had controlled what he imparted well, giving precisely the guidance that Andreus had required over the last twelve and a half hours and the strength necessary for one so depleted to apply it, nothing more, nothing less. The enormous drain upon Andreus' own strength, as if he'd had a Sith Lord standing over him for the last twelve and a half kriffing hours draining him, abated, finally allowing him to draw from what strength he possessed as well.

The Loremaster's intercession bought precious time for Andreus to think. To reach peace. Finally, for the first time since he had left, his pulse fell, by a full beat a second. Now, at two and a half beats per second, it was still high, under stress, but at least sustainable, unlike before when Andreus should have gone into cardiac arrest at multiple points.

It took him only a couple seconds to shut off both power and fuel to the disabled engine. He refined his repulsorlift trim settings to set him back on course for the powerful presences he sensed greeting him at the docking bay--the earlier spin had introduced deviation, and he reduced power to the Number One engine slightly so he wouldn't lose that to overheating and burnout as well.

The darkness still attempted to sledgehammer Andreus, but possessed of what he required, he could hold it at bay for two minutes. The Force flared off of him, as for the first time in more than twelve hours he gained something of a semblance of control over his emotions. Unable to open his eyes, Andreus relied upon the inertial sense he had spent so many hours honing to precision--indeed most of his short time as a Jedi--for navigation data. It was a good thing too, because otherwise he would have been defenseless against getting physically blinded as he was.

Suddenly, Andreus could exert his will over the darkness, rather than defending against the other way around. However, he dared not go around to buy himself more time. His face was still boiling off for one, and he still couldn't know how much longer he'd still be alive.

All of this--the sudden shift in the padawan's capacity, the strength the Loremaster had lent him, his desperate need to slow his starfighter down in such a short space--combined in unpredictable ways. But they were ways the Loremaster had nonetheless almost certainly studied, the interaction of raw, untrained Force affinities with dire need. That combination oft generated the most volatile Force usage of all...

Only five nautical miles away from the docking bay, he still carried two hundred eighty knots of airspeed--he couldn't slow down quickly enough. He needed to slow down. More. Now.

That will exerted a depression in the Force, neither light nor dark. It just was.

The air pressure dropped. Precipitously. Enough to pop sensitive ears, as the depression in both atmospheric pressure and the Force grew. Fallen leaves and the stray scrap of paper or debris swirled about the docking bay, at the feet of the Loremaster and those who accompanied him.

At Kamino, Andreus had shifted the wind direction about a hundred eighty degrees without even realizing it was him that had done it. Here, underneath the fog, the wind had been calm...had been.

As quickly as the depression in the Force had formed in the first place, the wind picked up violently as the pressure differentials sucked in a massive gust of headwind into Andreus' E-wing, its flight profile exposed almost cleanly to it by his forward slip, to provide nearly maximum drag. The repulsorlift kept him in the air...but headwind would provide Andreus with precious braking power.

Andreus willed this to continue. He couldn't possibly comprehend what precisely it was doing, but the Masters would recognize it as Force Whirlwind. But the student focused. Whatever it was he had done, he needed to do it more to land at something resembling a non-suicidal speed. The air pressure dropped further. Andreus drew more wind toward himself, and the gusts became more consistent until he had a sustained headwind of seventy knots, with higher gusts. Oh, he needed to exercise the raw power of the Force to have a chance of landing--but he needed consume nothing but his own stamina in the process. He would use the Force as an airbrake.

The calm fog had been disturbed. Now, the air at the bottom of the atmosphere had suddenly moved, and this had a ripple effect. Andreus' raw affinity was that powerful--his maker had engineered a powerful connection to the Force indeed. Now, downdrafts started to form as a twenty-five-thousand-foot cloud deck began to collapse. Not thirty seconds after the first gust started, it started to rain, hard. A cloudburst squall.

This was also good, for the wind drove the rain straight into Andreus' starfighter. Steam seared off its frame as the rain acted as coolant. Precious coolant. It would preserve his repulsorlift, overloaded itself to provide power for the highly unusual flight configuration, for an extra precious few seconds. Steam seared off Andreus' repulsorlift coils as they began to glow a faint red.

Two nautical miles, one thousand feet, a hundred and forty knots...Andreus had a chance. He lowered gear.

Except the nosegear didn't lower. An aural GEAR warning notified him of this--though his eyes were swollen shut so he couldn't look at his indicator lights to see which one it was. He focused his senses on the airflow around the spacecraft to discern which one it was. Ah, the airflow around the nose section was disturbingly clean; it was the nosegear that had failed to deploy.

He raised the gear and tried to lower it again, but to no avail. His atmospheric braking approach had taken the starfighter well beyond design limits, and the heat of entry had welded the nosegear trapdoor shut. It couldn't open for the gear to deploy, not at all...Andreus would have to land with no nosegear.

The aural warning continued to go off, especially as the E-wing descended activating ground proximity warnings as well, as Andreus approached the strong presences awaiting him. The headwind and the heavy rain continued to pound the spaceport, though the cloud had by now almost collapsed in the massive downdraft that Andreus' raw power had induced.

It was enough. Just.

"ONE HUNDRED."

Andreus had only a few seconds to undo his forward slip so he could land wings level, and given his renewed focus courtesy of Lecchamemnon's guidance and borrowed strength, he did. His welcoming party would get soaked with repulsorlift blast in addition to the winds the padawan had semi-consciously stirred up out of his desperate need to land.

Andreus pitched down slightly so the nose would strike the ground instead of the much heavier aft section when the main gear struck the pavement.

His two main undercarriage slammed into the docking bay duracrete hard, but they held. The nose slammed to the ground, jolting Andreus in his seat but doing little more. He had made it, now he needed to get the kriff out because it was sixty degrees Celsius in the cockpit, thanks to all that heat that had leaked through the shield earlier. He wasted no time. Cockpit canopy, open, capacitor bus power, off, fuel to engines off, reactor power, off, emergency shutdown checklist complete. The cockpit canopy had only cracked open about a foot and a half in the time it took the padawan to complete it.

Andreus unfastened himself and wriggled out, falling about five feet to the ground. Had the nosegear actually deployed, the fall would've been more like ten, so maybe it was a good thing it hadn't, even if it'd be a pain to repair later.

He lay there, on the cold, hard ground. He had made it to his counsel, having offered to sacrifice his body to the darkness that his mind would not fall. Lecchamemnon might well have saved him from that sacrifice in the final two minutes, but Andreus had regrettably been prepared to make it nonetheless, should it be necessary to prevent the spread of his own inner darkness. His body was still broken from the darkness consuming its fill; his core body temperature was still forty-three degrees Celsius even with the cold, the wind, and the rain finally helping to bring it down. His face still glowed an orangish-yellow as flames licked off his swollen tattoos, the rain flashing over to steam as it began to cool him. Darkened sunspots of sorts appeared where the rain had cooled him.

Euphoria set in, the kind of euphoria that one who dies from exposure experiences from a final heat flash before succumbing to the cold, hard wind and the death that comes with it. His adrenaline crashed, for he had reached his counsel...but so broken had the darkness made his body before he had reached them that now, as he let go, his body began to shut down. Andreus would die within moments without intervention--he had expended all his strength and there was a reason why he had taken the risk of his drastic approach instead of going long final even after the Loremaster had interceded for him. His voice was weak, it caused his vocal chords to bleed, but at least after the Loremaster's infusion of strength and will, he had one.

"There is no death..."

Andreus took a deep breath. The tempest cloudburst had by now rained itself out, and now the morning sunshine brightly illuminated the twenty-five thousand foot hole in the clouds. The wind stilled once more.

"There is the Force."

He lost consciousness.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

((For chronological purposes about my character, I’m going to put this as occurring right after the class “Right Conduct.”
------------------------------------------------------------

Thud.

The Sage Master, near the docking bay of the Sage Halls, felt the impact of the ship that he’d sensed a short time earlier. There was great distress aboard that vessel. Pain, suffering...was it death? No. The reaper approached, carrying with it great darkness, but it was held at bay, for now. There was great injury aboard the ship, but even greater was the confusion and anxiety he felt. One of the Jedi aboard that vessel was in great distress, and most of it had little to do with whatever physical damage his body had endured.

“Go now. Quickly!”

At the Sage Master’s orders, a team of Jedi healers ran into the docking bay as the young Jedi fell onto the durasteel surface, a hard impact upon the ground that would only add to his injuries. Jhon ran behind the other healers, reaching them as they slowly and carefully lifted the Jedi onto a stretcher, and he placed his hand atop the young man’s head, comforting him while also providing some immediate care through the Force—but it amounted to next to nothing compared to the healing that would occur in the Hall of Healing.

And that was both physical healing and mental. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. The young man had seen something, that much was clear, but Jhon would not know more until he could talk to the patient himself.

“If you can hear me,” the Sage Master said, “you’re in the Sage Halls. We’re taking you to the Hall of Healing right now. You’ll be just fine.”

So to speak, Jhon thought, not knowing the extent of whatever mental trauma had been inflicted on the young Jedi. The Sage Master pulled back his hand and nodded at the healers, and they immediately rushed with the patient towards the medical facility, with Jhon right behind them.

 

[Brand]

The deep thud of Andreus' vessel touching down to earth reverberated through the deserted hangar in the midst of the howling gale that raged outside. Feelings of stress, distress, and sadness emanated from within the craft, and as Jhon dispatched healers Galak rushed to follow up behind them. Comforting words flowed from the Sage Master's controlled mouth, but the Prime Envoy could not help but give in to the single tear that trailed it's way down his cheek.

Steeling himself with the principality of the Jedi Code, "There is no emotion, there is peace," Galak picked up his step to follow in their tracks, placing his hand on Andreus' shoulder and forcing his mind to project an aura of confidence and serenity to the boy. The gurney ran smoothly over the coarse rock floor of the hangar bay as Galak extended his vast mastery of the Force to soften any bumps or rocking of the stretcher.

The Force was Avara's rock, and he clung to it more so now than ever, not as a crutch but as a close friend and confidant. Drawing in the strength born of thousands of repetitions, Galak's voice was loud and clear.

"Andreus, be strong! Never surrender, never succumb!"

They reached the Hall of Healing quickly, at which point Galak was, inevitably, stopped. No matter his authority in the Order itself, they entered into a place where he could not follow. The sickest Jedi in the entire organization were housed here, and outside germs from non-trained professionals could quickly turn deadly. Galak's heart ached for Andreus' health, his well-being, and as the golden doors to the massive Hall of Healing swung shut with an odd note of finality, Galak projected one thought to penetrate deep within his Padawan's subconscious as the rain sloshed down all around him.

"The Force fights with you."

 

[Denzein]

The padawan's ship came into view, and Lecchamemnon afforded himself a small measure of satisfaction. It was in a bad way, and the Loremaster was not under the illusion that it was in any better condition inside. Andreus was probably close to death inside, although whether or not that was an entirely bad thing remained to be seen.

The wind picked up, far too quickly for it to be natural. Lecchamemnon could sense nothing from Avara, and as such had to assume that it was either Jhon Cordatus' doing or Makaryk's. Such a thing would be impressive were it from the padawan, provided it was controlled (which the Loremaster had to admit he doubted very much). He assumed it was to physically push the lump of metal that little bit further, to ensure it hit the docking bay and not the Temple itself. It was effective, the gale force wind blasting the Loremaster with such force that if he had not sensed the blow coming and steadied himself he would have had to take a step backwards. Desperate measures.

Then the ship impacted, and all was heat and swirling dust. It skidded to a halt merely a metre or so from the Loremaster's still stationary cloaked form. Why had he not been crushed by the massive oncoming hull? The force, although he did not seem to have used it. Perhaps it had simply intervened... Or rather Lecchamemnon had used it without moving at all. Regardless, he resolved to stand his ground in the face of the ship, and it halted before his will. His cloak flapped about him, his hood ruffling in the wind. Lecchamemnon was unfazed, for he knew that he had succeeded in this first task: Andreus had arrived.

In what state? That was for the Sagemaster to determine.

As if on cue Jhon Cordatus arrived on the scene, just behind a team of Jedi Healers that promptly strapped the unconscious Makaryk to a stretcher. Perhaps they did not notice it, or they could not, but they ignored the pervasive stink of the darkside that wafted from Andreus' charred form. Lecchamemnon did notice it however, his sixth sense for that what is evil in the world being perhaps greater than that of any other Jedi. He would not forget the smell, and it was very likely he would not forgive it either. He would wait to listen to Andreus' testimony, and he hoped it was satisfactory.

He hoped because he knew what had to be done if it wasn't.

The others left, and Lecchamemnon was alone in the hangar. The wind howled and bit, the ship before him creaked its death throes as its cooling hull contracted beyond all semblance of repair. Amid the wreckage of a padawan's flight the Loremaster of the Jedi stood, head bowed. His hood was up, and his cloak rippled softly now the dead E-Wing was sheltering him from the gale's full power.

It was a good thing he was alone in that room, because if there had been another they might have seen his face. It was a mask, but not one the Loremaster usually wore. No, this was a face very rarely worn by Lecchamemnon, for it was foul. It was a good thing he was alone in that room, because if there had been another they might have seen Lecchamemnon scowl.

He had thinking to do.

/Thread.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

OOC: Story continues here!