The Coming Storm

[Rom]

Theme​

Perched on the bow of the Titan-class Star Destroyer, tattered black cloak snapping in the wind, the Dark Lord looked down at the still roiling battlefield in the streets below like some dreaded God gazing upon its creation’s end with contempt. The Battle of Coruscant had always been meant to be a victory for the Imperium; their push deeper into the Core assured by the chaotic leadership and lesser skill of the Jedi and their puppets in the Alliance. Still, the warriors’ heart burning within the Barabel thrummed with approval at their tenacity, that even now with the Imperium landers falling from the sky like raindrops in a hurricane they fought on for themselves and their comrades.

The heart of Coruscant was filled with Light, despite the decadence and corruption that clogged it’s halls of wisdom and democracy. It was a symbol, a bright light for all to share… and now it was tarnished. Fire leapt from building to building, melting transparisteel and clogging the air with smog and the stench of burning flesh. Lances of blaster fire burned through the dust and rubble, knifing through armor and flesh in a deadly flash of light. TIEs arched and twisted through the smoke, cannons blazing as they shot down the transports of those who dared to take to the skies in one final bid for survival. All of Coruscant was stained with smoke and ash and the blood of thousands…

And it was beautiful.​

Darth Vereor took a moment to glance behind him, sanguine eyes gleaming in the flashes of lightning that arced through the dark storm clouds that were gathering all around them as they tracked over his . Arrayed in two concentric semi-circles at his back were men and women of varying force ability, standing on marked positions facing him. The first row contained seven figures, three Jedi padawans and four knights, robes and jumpsuits torn and burned with obvious signs of injury on their bodies with their hands secured behind them and forced to kneel with their heads bowed against the wind.

Standing tall just behind the Jedi were seven black cloaked Sith, their own dark auras flooding the area with excitement and pride at being asked to take part in this ritual with their Dark Lord and Empress. Vereor suppressed a smirk as he turned away from the group of fools and cowards behind him, the Jedi Temple spires knifing towards them as the Star Destroyer moved into position. Here above the cries of agony, the hum of lightsabers and whine of blasterfire, the Force screamed and writhed as Dark and Light clashed for supremacy. He could feel the strength of the Lightside failing as their Chief of State beamed out his message of failure and retreat, hopelessness and impotent rage bringing the Darkness to a staggering crescendo... except within the Temple.

The Nexus of Coruscant lay far below them, a swirling mass of Force Energy that burned away all the darkness that dared to approach it; more than a thousand years of Lightside teachings nurtured the Soul of Coruscant, and it would not bend in the face of Darkness. Unbowed, immutable, free of corruption.... but not for long. Vereor's own aura burst forth out of him, a black hole of malignant energy that seemed to absorb all the pain and hate and suffering from the war below and gather itself within the Dark Lord's power. At the edge of his senses, a similar energy reached out and briefly touched his mind; a message of impatience and unbridled fury slamming into his shields and echoing within his mind as his former Apprentice made her presence known to the Core.

“Ready yourselvez... the Empress will arrive soon and the ritual must be completed. The Light haz taken a major blow today, but we have not yet struck a mortal wound... Thiz one believez it iz time we fixed that.”

 

[Sreeya]

Darth Vereor’s former apprentice wouldn’t be making any introductions to the Core. She didn’t need to, for the apprentice had become the master. The Core was painfully aware of the twisted, chaotic taint in the Force that was the Andraste, the Empress of what was soon to be the entire galaxy. The past, present, future; they all had a single rift, a single regret, and a single massive mistake. That curse was the woman who now resided upon the Star Destroyer falling like a dagger into the heart of the Alliance, overlooking its destruction.

Andraste was a design, both an architectural masterpiece and abomination. The good, the evil, the wicked; they all had their hand in molding her into what she was now. Her haunting, corrupted visage was a mere husk which housed a fully-matured monster that had hatched within long ago. It was always there, always trying to claw its way out. She tried telling Jhon once, that she was rotten in her core, but he never accepted it. He had little inkling of what he had stumbled upon all those years ago, in the quiet orphanages of Corellia. He plucked an oleander, thinking it to be a rose. Exodeus allowed it to bloom and then paid the price. The once-Emperor was part of the Force, and though he was long gone, Andraste yet felt his presence. He was savaged, and she was disgusted by the realization that she had allowed it. The former Dark Lord had found solace in the Force, coming to peace while all his darkness poured into her with his dying breath.

She was the result of two masters; one light, one dark. Both destined to be devoured.

Now, Andraste stepped out onto the hull of the ship. In this moment, with the decision she had made for this planet, whatever light was once there was gone. The very fabric of reality winced at her presence. She could feel it in the wind that raged all around her, so high above the city. The nexus beneath her was pure Force energy, and she was connected to it. She heard it, and she felt it cry out. The Empress was a wound on the universe, a pain that couldn’t heal itself. It was a reflection of her pain, the one she kept buried in place of her mind she dared not go, and of her hatred. It was a hatred that would tear the universe apart if it was allowed to grow.

She fully ignored her surroundings. The chaos that raged below was reflected in her steely gaze. Her face was devoid of expression, her pallid features glowing almost eerily, and the shadows of her face gave her a skeletal look. She almost appeared to be a ghost, yet housed within her was a chained beast tortured into shape by years of devastation. It was a torture that made her ready to face her destiny, the ultimate claim to the galaxy.

Andraste came to stand beside the Barabel that had known her since she was a child. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t recognize her now, regardless of how often he saw her. What he would see now is the woman from his vision, the one he had seen so many years ago. He would see her standing in her full glory, the very image of the dark side of the Force, the very embodiment of controlled chaos. The image he had seen was the fateful day when he would play a role in the galaxy far beyond his wildest dreams.

"I am above both light and dark. I am control. The galaxy will bow before me. They will all bow before me."

The words were uncharacteristic. They were ones that her late husband might have uttered, and she found herself almost grinning in satisfaction at the thought she was able to steal them from him. She was able to face this moment, while he was robbed of it, robbed of what he thought was his destiny. That same grin twisted into a look of hatred as she weighed the cost to be here. The price she had to pay to finally come to the top of her constant climb, the very pinnacle of power. She always thought she was beyond the petty thirst for power, but that was a lie. It was a Jedi’s lie, Jhon’s lie. Now, as she stood above a dying planet, she couldn’t help but revel in it.

Andraste pulled from it, drank from it, siphoning all the death and misery that was happening around her into her very being. She closed her dead eyes, drawing her bony hands out and beckoning the agony and pain all to her. It no longer tortured it. Instead it was a drug, an elixir she drank from. It healed her as much as it destroyed it.

The woman’s aura pulsated from power, with thin, ugly veins snaking their way throughout her ashen skin. She pulled form the smallest creature in an artificial forest crying its last cry before a predator devoured it, up to a Jedi groaning in pain as he fell to a saber in the crumbling halls of the temple below her. Every essence of life, every particle of decaying existence, every tear, every scream, every abandonment of hope poured into her. She was an endless void, rapidly accumulating clay to mold into something. Something that would utterly cripple this planet.

Those that stood beside her would buckle under the vast amount of energy pooling into her. The ship itself groaned in protest, the tip of it dipping abnormally low, all under the weight of the planet’s energy. Andraste stood poised where she was, a smile creeping across her face. There was no going back. There was no stopping her. This power heralded the age of Andraste.

Beneath her, in every sense of the word, those on the planet would feel what was to come. Flowers began to wither, animals gazed up at the heavens, and those with no sensitivity to the Force could even feel an abnormal chill, as if light would never come again. It was the closest they would ever come to seeing the stars burn out. The Jedi would feel it worst of all, as if every thread of their existence was being neatly dissected and extracted from their very souls.

Andraste was in bliss, the monster inside her obeying her every command now. She had mastered it, tailored it, and now she was the artist that would compose and perform the dirge of Coruscant. As she pooled in all the energy, she saw memories and sorrows of everything and everyone she was extracting from; the chaos of a massive explosion in the underworld, the dying thoughts of a head of state, the final regretful memories of a Grand Master. Everything. Her physical being strained under the onslaught, with a large field of energy rippling around her as if she were the center of the whirlpool.

It was only a matter of time before she unleashed everything on the planet. And in that moment, as she saw the lives and energies of everyone on this planet, she rose above the Force. She did not open her eyes yet, seeing everything from a higher plane. It was the plane the monster saw in, where she saw destiny itself. Now she saw that every bit of life was tainted, every bit of energy contorted by her will. She had become death, destroyer of worlds. In that moment of realization, she saw who she truly was. It was the great lie that Jhon never revealed.

She would not be releasing the dark side of the Force onto the planet. No, that was entirely too weak. She would be unleashing the side of the Force she had crafted herself, the most brutal side of the Force that was never meant to have come into existence. It was a crime against nature.

It was a power, a destiny that only a Skywalker could produce.

 

[Rom]

Theme​

Many years ago before the war began when the Force was calm, the Alliance whole, and the Jedi could only look out into the dark of space in suspicion of what was to come, the Dark Lord had made a prediction. A young girl, struggling beneath the burden of Destiny and Power lurking deep within would become his Apprentice. She would grow into a fierce and powerful warrior - she'd topple governments, crush armies beneath her heel and sunder the very earth upon which she stood. The vision had ended with them standing together, the Apprentice now at the forefront of their forces rather than at his side, with a single hand outstretched to encircle the galaxy.

It still shocked him to this very day that his vision had been proven true and false in so many different ways.

Darth Vereor turned and acknowledge the maelstrom of power that was his Empress - long ago she had been a scared little girl with a love for bloody flowers and flouting the conventions of propriety and hierarchy… and years later here she stood, power crackling off of her skin and the wind whipping her lank hair and robes into a frenzy around her. He was not afraid to admit that she had surpassed him; to know ones limits was necessary to survive amongst the Sith, and yet he still could not resist opening his link to her and releasing the constraints on his own aura, the power bursting forth around the pair. With two titanic powers such as these opposed, Coruscant itself would shatter beneath them… but when merged towards common purpose, the Force itself would quake in agony.

The world beneath them shook as the dark woman beside him drew more and more power from the world around them as she absorbed more and more life energy from the once vibrant planet beneath them. The sacrifices behind them fell to the floor, rolling and crying in fear as the dark power around them crashed against their minds like a tsunami, overwhelming their sense of self and leaving them fearful savages gazing upon their deities. The ship rocked and swayed under the tumultuous power being drawn to its passenger, and down below the soldiers knelt down in awe and terror, unable to face the evil that gathered high above.

Darth Vereor stood unaided, sanguine eyes glittering in barely contained excitement as the dark energy thrummed through his veins and into his mind. His body did not sway in the wind, nor rock with the undulating weaving of the ship. Steady and tall, the Dark Lord was unmoved by the display; a lone mountain defiant against the approaching storm. His Darkness swirled about her own, two black suns orbiting in an inextricably tight dance, their power ebbing and flowing into the other. Her power was all encompassing, a pull that nothing and no one could dare resist... fitting that his own had morphed to compliment it, the shadow that slipped into all things and crushed it from within.

"Emprezz… alwayz a pleasure to see you again. This one almost feared that you would miss out on the fun."

His tone was familiar and warm, a carryover from their long years spent training and developing a bond that was more familial than anything; the young woman beside him had become family to the Dark Lord long before he ever thought to put a name to their bond, and his loyalty to her was stronger than the Beskar'gam of their Mandalorian allies. Still, a barely discernable thrum of worry moved through their bond, a connection that had once brought them close enough to lose track of where one mind ended and the other began. This was not the woman he had known, or the Empress he had forseen. She was darker, an insatiable fury and lust burning where cold logic had once smoldered. It was… disconcerting.

Still, he had been absent for far longer than he had ever wished, and his contacts within the Imperium had still been unable to furnish him with the full tale of what had changed his Niphredil into this dark wraith she had become. His own concerns would need to be set aside for a later date; already his agents had extracted the remains of the Senate and the Jedi Archives, the Ubiqtorates’ men combing through electronic records and bankrupting now abandoned businesses, fleeing the now doomed planet with all that he cared for. The time had come to finish the task at hand…

"Now, you've alwayz been the better hand at fine manipulation… this one iz going to serve az the generator, pulling power from thiz one and our… guestz. You will need to take the energy this one givez, and shape it into the malignant energy we need to complete the ritual."

For a moment his gaze hardened as he reached with his mind and claws, and with a careful motion slowly righted their ship, leaving it parallel to the planet below - held steady by his iron will.

"You must be cautiouz Niphredil.. This one would not see you follow the likez of Nihiluz. You will need to keep a tight hold on this power, lest it consume you and your Empire with it. This one will signal when to act, you must guide thiz energy down the path this one createz and allow it to corrupt the energy below. If you deviate from this one'z instructions, we will both die."

His tone stayed soft, the voice of a close companion offering advice rather than the reproach of an Instructor. That was no longer his role to fill.

Taking a deep breath the armored Barabel fell into a lotus position with palms facing towards the stormy sky, small sparks of blue lightning skipping along his claws. Within his mind the hunter moved swiftly, drawing from the power that Andraste had summoned, the energy of the agony and hate and death that surged below on the planet falling to his armies, and finally reaching out far beyond himself, to the prismatic explosions and emptiness of space. Vereor had only opened himself up to the pooling energy of the Force that welled within and without him once before, an occurrence that led to prophecy, survival, and change. On that occasion he had hesitated at the precipice, staring down at the vast and seemingly limitless potential power at his disposal with wary mistrust. Today, he fell forward into its embrace without a second thought and pulled.

The world seemed to move in slow motion around the reptilian, blaster bolts lancing through the air at a snails’ pace, men and women falling as if they had leapt into a pool of molasses. He felt every single impact, every injury, every death below and above, on this world and the next, his senses pulling from the far reaches of space. Life and Death bowed before his power, the energies of both gathering from Andraste’s hunger, the battles in the halls of Democracy and the cold bleakness of Space all being shaped by the Dark Lord’s will.

As he worked his dark ritual the world beneath him seemed to quiver in dreaded anticipation. The storm that already threatened to devour the once pristine city grew into a massive hurricane, dark tornados knifing through the sky to scoop up the unwary soldiers and fallen rubble into a maelstrom of destruction, leaving destruction in their wake as they carved through the Senate district towards the shattered Temple. Lightning burned through durasteel and flesh like lightsabers, the scent of burning skin and ozone filling the smoke choked sky. The air that the citizens sucked in to scream froze in their lungs, as the driving rain fell in icy daggers from on high. Above the Star Destroyer, the energy began to coalesce, a green aura of beautiful sparking energy forming and twisting over the Jedi Temple, reeking of pain and death. High above the battle on the ground, a cold voice roared through the sky, cutting through the screams of terror from below and echoing through the suddenly silent streets with a chant that filled all who heard it with dread.

The chanting grew louder and louder as Vereor rose from his position on the Star Destroyer, one hand reaching towards the lightning filled sky while the other swung out like a scythe, cutting through the tenuous bonds holding his captives to the mortal coil and adding their shattered souls to the power coalescing above. He began to twist his wrists, one clawed hand forming a lance of power far above, the energy twisting into a spear of dark energy more potent than anything he had ever created. With a growl, he pulled down both hands and sent the dark energy cutting through the air, cutting starships into pieces of burning refuse and pulling the last gasps of life from the beings in its path before slamming into the Light Nexus far below with the power of a metaphysical Death Star.

The Nexus itself shuddered and held, the dark and light energies clashing for supremacy; the Light burned through the darkness, shoring the tip from the spear and scattering the power into a haze that swiftly moved to surround the glowing font of life. In his minds eye Vereor directed the energy like a maestro, dark tendrils prodding and pulling at the shell of power until finally it cracked. The Force was silent for three breaths, and then a psychic shock rolled through the minds of all who could sense it.

The Force screamed, a shriek of unending agony as millions of Jedi’s legacy tore and vented out into the world, the Dark Side swiftly widening the crack until a gaping hole began to bleed the soul of Coruscant dry. The Dark Lord began to pull on the energy, the Light Side burning through his mind like a turbolaser as he struggled to gain control of his own anathema. The energy rose, forming a twisting spiral that led down past the broken barrier and into the heart of the Force Nexus of Coruscant. Half of his mind bent towards the task of channeling the Dark Side power he had gathered into Andraste’s own hurricane of power, Vereor bent the rest of his will into trying to contain the Light energy that rushed from the Nexus, struggling to keep it there for Andraste to finish the ritual.

The Dark Lord could feel his skin beginning to burn, smell the smoke rising from his body as he sought to control the overwhelming powers of both Light and Dark at once. He rose off the hull, the energy blasting him off of his feet and into a sustained levitation a hundred feet above the Star Destroyer. With his last conscious thought, the Dark Lord pulled all of the energy he could towards himself to sustain the opening and sent a telepathic flare into Andraste’s conscious, signaling her to begin….

And with a horrific scream and a burst of golden light, Darth Vereor was gone.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Life itself was dying. Coruscant, in this moment, was the closest any mortal would ever come to understanding what it would be like if Death reached out its cold hands and reaped the Force, or God, or nature, or whatever it was that made the universe spin. On the surface, and even in orbit, every living thing felt the destructive power of what the two tiny figures atop the hull of a Star Destroyer were doing. Life was being drained, sucked into the blackened and decrepit soul of a curse called Skywalker.

Those adept in history might have drawn a comparison to the ancient Dark Lord of the Sith called Darth Nihilus, a devourer of worlds, and life, and all the energy around him. Like that Dark Lord of old, Andraste was a wound in the Force, craving all of its energy and devastating everything in her path. No being escaped feeling its impacts; they felt drained, weak, like even the simplest of tasks required strength of herculean proportions. Escaping Coruscant, or even hiding, would feel like an eternity.

The planet itself was breaking. As the Empress drained the life and energy from all around her, the Dark Lord Vereor was ravaging the surface. A storm of pure Force energy was growing; lightning, real lightning and not artificially created from satellites, struck down from the clouds from all directions, in all streets and crevasses in the city, tearing swaths through buildings and dirt. The energies even reached into space, tearing apart ships and disrupting systems on so many others. The wind howled all through the sky, and tornadoes formed to destroy the artificial world that they were touching down on.

The temperature was dropping. At once it felt sickeningly hot but also colder than the snowy wastes of Hoth. The rain falling from the sky froze, turning into shards of ice as it fell, stabbing through the heads and bodies of countless thousands, if not more. The carefully constructed weather of the once-great capital of the Republic and the Alliance was torn asunder. The planet itself was now just as much the enemy of the Alliance as the Sith.

Yet at the center of all this madness was something beautiful. At the Jedi Temple, above which the Imperial Star Destroyer sat, a beautiful aurora was forming. Dark and dangerous energy collided into a green display of dancing lights, one that could have been a calming sight were it not for the life being drained from everything below it. At the core of this beauty, though, was something rotten, for the light was not a mere byproduct of the attack. It was the attack itself. The dark energies and lightning being displayed was the eldritch energy sucked into the very heart of this labyrinth by the Dark Lord himself, a reflection of the souls being sacrificed for more power.

Anyone with any sort of psychic awareness, be they Jedi or anyone even remotely attuned to the Force, could feel as those souls were taken and twisted into a dark purpose for which the Force should never have been used. It was a warning, a reminder of what the Chief of State said across the HoloNet.

Leave or die.

 

[Sreeya]

Andraste felt an unexpected surge of satisfaction seeping into her veins, twisting the black husk that now marked where her soul once was further and deeper into the dark side she once feared, so very long ago. As she did, and as she sucked in and formed the energies of the Force to her own design, she felt something. It was a presence she had not felt since a rainy day on Lehon, the lost world where the Padawan she used to be ran scared into the arms of the monster that she always knew was inside of her. It was the day when her daughter died… or rather, the day when he made her believe that her daughter died.

The Empress looked down at the temple beneath her, on the roof of the crumbling castle of a defeated people, and saw him standing there. Jhon Cordatus was looking up, looking straight at her. She could not see him physically; no, it was too far away. She could barely make out a small dot, as if he was an insignificant ant that she would crush beneath her boot. Yet, she could feel his presence. It was like a cancer inside of her, a reminder of a time when she was weak and useless. Now she had all the powers of the universe at her command, and he still mocked her just by standing there… yet she couldn’t help but think back.

--------------​

Before the war, before the monster…

Andraste was a girl again; young, wide-eyed, and damaged. Never innocent, not really. The Empress was always inside of her. Darth Exodeus had made sure of that after he killed her parents, after he took her and raised her in the ways of the dark side as revenge for her father’s betrayal of him. She didn’t know that her evil, that darkness that gnawed at her from as early she could remember, was the Empress then. She called it a monster. Jhon called it confusion, one that could lead her astray, but never a monster. He never thought it would lead to this.

“What is the Force, Jhon?”

She was still a Padawan, early in her training, still trying to understand the way of the Jedi after being bombarded with darkness for so many years. She called him Jhon; they never had a formal relationship, where she called him Master and he called her Padawan. He never wanted Andraste to feel like she was in servitude to him. He could always remember that little girl he found in the orphanage on Corellia, scared of the others who made her feel inferior. “Master” was a term used by one who was inferior, and he would never allow that. He was always a kind, gentle man, even when she didn’t deserve it.

“The Force is what gives a Jedi her power,” Jhon told her, as she played with a small red flower from the Sage Hall gardens. “It’s everywhere; in you, in me, in all life. It’s the energies of life that flow around us, and it’s what lets us do good throughout the galaxy.”

Andraste stopped playing with the flower, and set it down on the floor where she was sitting. The smile that had been on her face disappeared. Jhon talked about using the Force for good, but her life had seen things that were anything but good. She knew the evil of the people who used the Force. It’s why she could never quite fit in with the Jedi. She was tainted by her past, and she tainted the Force with it.

“But it can be used for bad things, can’t it?”

Jhon nodded his head, remorsefully. “The Force gives you great power to do great things. As a Jedi, you can shine a light on the darkest corners of the galaxy, but if you’re not careful... it can destroy you and everyone around you.”

--------------​

Coruscant, present day

If Jhon had only known that those words were prophecy, things might have been different. But here she was. The Padawan had embraced the Empress that was always inside of her, but that little girl still remained. She still lived in the dark corners of her heart, screaming, pleading to be released so she could see her daughter and her mentor at least once more… but that was not her fate. Andraste had seen it. She had risen above the Force itself and looked onto it, looked onto all life and saw her hand reach across the galaxy as everyone bowed before her. That was a future she was not going to give up.

She looked down once more, and this time Jhon was gone. A tiny starship flew off the roof. She could have destroyed it just by thinking about it, even from here, but she let him go. She couldn’t allow herself to care anymore. She was consumed with hatred, so much so that it brought serenity. Somehow, it was peaceful. She controlled her hatred, it did not control her, and everything she once thought was important was rendered meaningless; Exodeus, Jhon, even Lana. Everything. Andraste was surprised she didn’t even shed a tear, but this was the moment she had been waiting for all these years. There was nothing to cry over.

Vereor stood beside her still, and she funneled energy from him as a guide to form her own power into the wave of energy that she was going to unleash. As she made her final mental preparations, the life draining powers all around Coruscant ceased, as her focus was now with forming and guiding the energy rather than pulling it in. Finally, she screamed and the power burst out of her in a blinding flash of light so intense that the universe had barely seen anything like it since the big bang itself.

A torrent of dark side power fell towards the surface, slamming into the Force nexus and corrupting its energies. Lightning burst out of the sky, and even from the ground itself. There were no clouds above the temple; it was an eerie calm, and an eerie stormless lightning generated only by the Force itself. Anyone with even a hint of Force sensitivity could feel an overwhelming tidal wave of darkness; some who felt it passed out, and some became mindless thralls, a shadow of a person now simply catatonic from severe exposure to raw power.

The energy expanded across the planet in all directions, passing through the Works and destroying the building that Palpatine used to conduct his Sith business in secret. It was an artifact of a golden age for the Sith, one that Andraste cared nothing about. The ancient Sith were insignificant. This was the age of the Empress. On the other side of the wave, the power even moved into the Senate District. In its wake, the Senate building crumbled. The very heart of the Galactic Alliance… no, the Galactic Alliance itself was gone. Andraste and Vereor accomplished the goal that their predecessors had started; the war that Exodeus launched, the destruction of the Alliance that an old Sith ghost commanded Darth Aevum to carry out. It was theirs, hers for the taking. The name Andraste would echo through time long after theirs had faded to a dim memory.

In the sky, the lightning even surrounded the Star Destroyer that she stood on, breaking apart retreating Alliance ships, and even other Imperial starfighters and Star Destroyers trying to leave the area. She didn’t care. The power was twisting her even as she stood there, destroying her soul and contorting the very skin on her face, yet she barely flinched. As she stared out on what was quickly becoming a devastated wasteland, all she had was a smile, a satisfied, fulfilled smile, for the first time in years.

The Padawan was truly dead. Only the Empress remained.

 

[Rom]

Floating unseen high above the pitted and cracking hull of the Star Destroyer with it's mouth open in a scream that had long since faded into silence, a dark figure slowly pulled itself erect from it's hunched position while twisted pieces of armor fell to the shattered world below. Scarlet blood flows slowly out of the splits between the scales that covered it's smoking body, steaming and hissing in the unfathomably bright aura that surrounded him. The Barabel looked around the planet stretching far below him with a frown, glowing white eyes narrowed in indignation at the sorry state of the Capital and it's dying denizens. An imperceptibly small part of his mind questions why he cares before being brutally crushed by the greater consciousness of the Force that has completely enveloped him. All traces of the Dark Side around and in him were swept aside by the Nexus far below, the power of the light side rushing away from the corruption and funneling into the only available conduit it could find. The mindless hate soothed, the thirst for death sated and the fires of his rage quenched; everything that he was lost in the sea of energy, Light and Dark, that surrounded him.

The Universe expanded before him like a never ending sea of light in an awareness through the Force that he has never known, and as he opens himself to that sparkling current it flows into him and through him and out again without the slightest interference from his conscious will. The part of him that calls itself Vereor is no more than a ripple in it's wake; infinitesimal and fading to nothing as his awareness grew.

And yet as his sense of self evaporated under the blazing power pouring through his mind, the Dark Lord could feel himself in everything at the same time. He was the shattered walls with rain seeping through their cracks, the fires that defiantly scorched the ecumenopolis, and the air clogged with smoke and ash. He was the tattered, rain-soaked robes flapping wildly around the Empress as she smiled towards the heavens, a convoy of freighters blasting away at Imperial Starfighters as they made a desperate climb to orbit and the terrified beings huddled within them. The soldiers and civilians fighting and falling and dying across this world, across every world.

Every blaster bolt driving into flesh, every burning strike from a lightsaber, every cry of horror as entire ships were consumed in a blazing beam of turbolaser fire echoed through his expanded consciousness. Every whispered prayer and sobbed plea for help filled his ears and burned into his mind. He felt this because they are all of the Force.... and the Force was all he was. Light and Dark, the Force filled his body with a sense of joining, of becoming whole.. of Oneness with the eddy and flow of the Force.

A single thought resonated through the ocean of power he was caught in, a defiant surge in the face of the evil that sought to pervert it. The word, though whispered softly into the howling wind, seemed to seemed to echo across the galaxy in a distant tone that rumbled with the voice of trillions.

"No."

The Lightside power within him settled; what once burned through his flesh like thousands of lightning strikes enveloped him in a soothing embrace, balming his burning flesh and easing his aching soul. The Dark Side that raged around his shielded form swept in; no longer uncontrolled hate but refined into something deeper, a burning flame that armored his body and shackled itself to his control. Raising his arms out over the devastated planet, clawed fingers splayed wide, Vereor let out a grunt of pain as he slowly began to pull the deadly energy that rushed across the surface of Coruscant back towards it's focal point, arms shaking from the infinite power of the Universe flowing through his body.

It was too much, this power burning through his body; such a connection to the Force was not meant for a mere mortal, and his body began to deteriorate, scales sloughing off of his body and blood bursting from his eyes and mouth as the Force poured through him, seeking to mitigate the perversion of it's purpose. Yet he did not scream and did not falter, the power of the Force that was destroying him simultaneously sustaining his purpose and hardening his resolve.

The wave was returning towards it's epicenter, plunging through the Senate District and The Works like a wrecking droid, knocking buildings low and turning falling rubble to dust. The Works crumbled, ancient refineries and towers falling away into nothing and leaving a huge swath of the upper layers of Coruscant exposed to the sky for the first time in thousands of years. The Senate district cracked like a hawkbat egg, bridges and walkways snapping and sending abandoned equipment and the dead tumbling into the darkness below. All around him the planet heaved as the unnatural force of Andraste's power destabilized the Nexus and shook Coruscant to it's lowest levels. Tectonic plates far below the burning city ground into motion as tremors and shockwaves rode the durasteel foundations to shatter the once pristine skyline. The Entertainment District buckled under the strain, cantinas and night clubs crumbling into a growing canyon of torn metal and shattered glass before disappearing into the undercity below. The Barabel grunted as he lifted his hands higher, raising the wave above the heads of the fleeing people below, Light and Dark energy working in unison as he pulled the energy upward, the wave shaping into a conical blast of dark side energy arching towards the lightning filled sky. Growling, Vereor reached one arm down towards the light energy remaining within the Nexus and pulled, feeling something within himself snap as the pure energy surged through his body and raced skyward, surrounding the dark missile in a brilliant aura seeking to contain it in the seconds before it imploded.

The screaming stopped. The sound of explosions and falling buildings vanished. The sky filled with a prismatic burst of color.... and with a sudden rush of displaced air the sky above Coruscant morphed into a storm of unrivaled fury and potency. Lightning bolts lanced out of the sky, atomizing flesh, blasting duracrete into dust, and knocking fleeing starships out of the sky. The wind howled and whipped the floating Barabel around, lightning bolts flashing dangerously close and slamming into the raised shields of the Star Destroyer and the Empress waiting below. Vereor groaned in pain as the power that held him faded, swept away by the dark Storm that quickly grew with black clouds and white arcs of lightning stretching out to overtake the horizon. The remaining power of the Nexus fled, worming deep into his very being and taking refuge within him, a burning brightness hidden beneath the darkness that clung to him like tar.

He was falling, his body limply tumbling through empty space as it was buffeted by wind and rain. Dizzying images flashed past his sanguine eyes, black pupils narrowing as they tried to understand where he was and how he had made it there. Soldiers vanishing into widening crevasses, fleeing civilians turned to ash by bright tongues of white fire that fell from the sky, the senate building he had fought in mere hours ago sinking into a bottomless chasm. He had only a moment to realize what was about to happen, and his hastily gathered force shield was not quite enough. His punished body slammed into the hull near the command tower with bone jarring force, leaving a crater in the thick hull that rapidly filled with blood-stained rainwater. Vereor slowly pushed himself until his back was propped up against the crumpled metal, blank eyes searching for his Empress and ending up staring at the shattered skyline before him as the fading light was swallowed by the Coming Storm.

He laughed brokenly; his voice hollow and empty, the words turning to ash in his mouth. "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worldz."

The Empress had her victory. The Alliance was defeated, the Jedi were scattered, and the Imperium stood victorious over their foes; their Dark Lord and Empress standing at their head.

Standing before a never ending horizon of fire, and ash, and death.

Coruscant, the bright jewel of the Core, was gone.