V.3-C.62│Approaching II│

Coruscant, as grand as it is, has fallen to an unknown form of corruption.

Stepping down within the large mega-city that surrounded the entire planet, Shaak and Zannah had come here within their designated suits to explore this place.

The portal was kept to allow the Jedi turned Empyrean Force-sensitives and Anakin, along with anyone else could come through. The portal was made out of really strong material with fine tuned Force related energies imbued into it.

So, it was perfectly fine to use and would, for now, remain unaffected by whatever corruption was present.

"This place is very, very strange." Shaak said as the two walked the cities landscape, which was not a landscape at all, but a place full of metal and concrete, full and built up into the sky.

"Yeah. Of course it is. What I am confused about is why we are here." Zannah said as she was looking from left to right. Her instincts built from training and fighting still present within herself, despite having only regained her body not too long ago.

"The Empyrean droids have started to continue to keep the population under control, but it has become as if the beings here are remaking themselves from nothing." Shaak didn't answer Zannah's rhetorical question.

"Yes, yes. But why are we here? Wouldn't you much prefer that we wait for something to change or happen? What about all your Jedi buddies that wish to somehow take care of this." Zannah replied, waving off what Shaak said and instead wanted to go back.

Possibly to have some alone time with Anakin, who knows.

"Come one. This way." Shaak gestured for Zannah to follow after her.

Coruscant, originally called Notron, also known as the Queen of the Core, or Imperial Center, was a planet located in the Galactic Core. It was the ancient homeworld of the Taung and Zhell species, and it was generally also believed to be the original birthplace of Humans. During most of galactic history, Coruscant was the most politically important world in the galaxy.

At various times, it was the capital of the Galactic Republic, the Galactic Empire, and other empires. In controlling Coruscant, these governments controlled most of the galaxy in the process.

Now, Coruscant was something to be avoided.

Over the centuries, Coruscant had developed into an ecumenopolis, with a total of 5,127 levels of city built up from the crust by the time of the Clone Wars. The actual planet-wide metropolis of Coruscant was called Galactic City. Under the Galactic Republic, the names Republic City or the City of Spires were also used to reference the city.

It was also called Imperial City under the Galactic Empire. However, in practice, Galactic City and its other names were sometimes applied to the Senate District, the central government center and de facto capital of Coruscant.

"The attitude of most inhabitants is that Coruscant exists for the business of government, not for vacations and sunbathing and sightseeing…" Shaak said as Zannah was following behind her, looking at the dimmed and somewhat greyed out buildings.

It was as if the buildings were losing their life, even when they weren't alive themselves.

"I can see that. This place is definitely not that great. I thought it would have been better, to be honest. At least on par with the environment created on Tatooine." Zannah replied.

"Tatooine was a barren planet before Anakin helped to remake it as it is now. Other planets as well." Shaak supplied.

A series of orbital mirrors were set up that reflected the sun's warmth and light. Several of these mirrors were destroyed during the Clone Wars, specifically the Battle of Coruscant. It is known that thunderstorms and rain occurred only in specific circumstances.

Now with the destruction of those orbital mirrors, the sunlight and warmth from Coruscant's systems star was no more.

It was colder than before.

With their suits, Zannah and Shaak are able to negate the effects, given that they were designed to be survival suites in all environments. Especially for those with the Force, as the Force is the most dangerous thing to access.

The planet produced trillions of tons of waste every hour. Though almost everything on the planet, from clothes to packaging and machinery was recyclable, some waste was too dangerous to recycle.

Such items included worn-out hyperdrive cores which were delivered to one of the planet's five thousand garbage pits, where they were put into canisters and fired into a tight orbit around the planet.

Garbage ships then collected them and transported them to nearby moons for storage. Some of the more dangerous materials were shot into the nearby sun for complete incineration.

Garbage not exported or destroyed was mixed into a slurry of silicone oils and processed by garbage worms which chewed it into pellets while removing any remaining organics, plastic, or recoverable metals.

They turned millions of tons of pellets into carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases.

With everything shutting down, Shaak and Zannah would no doubt puke at the smells now present on the planet. It didn't take long for things to become like this either, as the automatic systems were destroyed in that great Force Nexus explosion.

This impact lead to many things failing, causing a chain reaction even with their advanced technology to make sure nothing bad happens.

Watching, Zannah and Shaak saw the Empyrean droids hunt down and destroy those beings inflicted with madness. Whatever Sidious had done, made it harder for anyone to come here and investigate the strange happenings.

Coruscant's enormous population and industrialization also produced massive amounts of carbon dioxide and heat energy. Thousands of carbon dioxide-reactive atmospheric dampeners were put into place in the upper atmosphere to prevent atmospheric degeneration.

Of course, their population decreased immediately after events lead to Sidious' rise. The heat had all but vanished, leaving only the cold in its wake as ice was forming everywhere.

The machines also shut down produced no heat, and droids from the Empyrean didn't give off large amounts of heat themselves, so the planet was like ice.

Near the planet's core were a number of massive power relay stations. The lowest levels were abandoned to mutants and scavengers, such as the cannibalistic, mythical Cthon. The foundations of many of the buildings, some of which weighed billions of tons, also extended deep into the planet's crust.

From this core, those mutant beasts had arisen and been afflicted with whatever corruption had got to them. It wasn't only Sidious' cloned Sith that were malformed, and attacking all those that come.

Even the droids were not left alone, despite them having no relation to what is happening.

"Wait! Look at that..." Zannah pointed something out, getting Shaak's attention.

"That looks like one of those Yuuzhan Vong." Shaak replied quietly, before the mutated Yuuzhan Vong creature turned around and sprinted towards them, going at very fast speeds.

"Look out!" The two moved out of the way, as the Vong's body started to expand more and more, leading to it easily towering over both of them.

"Look's like we have to face off against this thing." Zannah said with a smirk coming across her face.

"You inherited some bad habits from Ani, I see." Shaak also smirked, as the two huntresses faced off against their first foe of many.

"And you didn't?"

[]

In another area of Coruscant, or more specifically the area that was previously known as the Jedi Order's main headquarters and temple, one could find Obi-Wan along with Qui-Gon exploring the area in their own suits.

These two had tasked themselves with going to here and figuring some things out. The main reason it was these two is due to Qui-Gon's experience and knowledge with differences in the Force and Obi-Wan's fighting capabilities.

The two together made for a good enough team this explore this place.

Also known as the Palace of the Jedi, the headquarters of the Jedi Order from the conclusion of the Great Sith War to the Great Jedi Purge and during that time was home to its major training, bureaucratic and dormitory facilities. Jointly operated by the Order and the Galactic Republic, the Temple was sealed to all but the Jedi and their allies, with very few public areas.

Now that this was over, both the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic, no one really had any claim to this place anymore.

Especially since it was just one gigantic thing of nothingness. In the quake of the Force Nexus, the Jedi temple was vanished and so to was alot of the surrounding areas as well.

"Master." Obi-Wan began only to be stopped by Qui-Gon.

"You may not refer to me as Master anymore. Now, you are fully grown and have become a good person yourself. No, if there is a title you wish to call me by, then something like Professor would do." Qui-Gon responded, having liked the idea of not referring to another as their master.

The implications of the word was connected to much wrong. 'No, it would be better to abandon the word.' Not that Qui-Gon was against the word itself.

He would just not like to be called or referred to as such. "Ok... Professor? Strange title, but whatever flies your starship."

"Yes. Thank you." On the outskirts of the quake of nothingness, there was no ruble or anything to indicate anything of a mass magnitude had happened.

A massive structure which soared over a kilometer above the surrounding rooftops, the Jedi Temple had the appearance of a fortress but was really a place of meditation and gentle reflection. Located in a strategically isolated area of Coruscant which neighbored the Senate District, the Temple rested on a large city block in the Temple Precinct.

All of this, was gone.

"This is a marvel, is it not?" While Qui-Gon did practice caution, he also couldn't help but admire the strangeness of such a thing.

"Marvel? I don't think I would call it that. But it is certainly... something." Obi-Wan replied, as the two of them only stayed on the perimeters edge.

The crater was unlike any normal crater. It's surface was completely shaped perfectly like a sphere. Like something took a bite out of the large metal place and this chunk was perfectly sculpted to be as such.

"Thankfully the Jedi library and all it's contents aren't gone forever." Qui-Gon stated as he viewed the damage, getting the strangest feeling that if he entered the large hole, he would probably not come back.

"What do you mean? The Jedi Order hadn't been able to collect their information in time. At least not all of it before we were forced to evacuate." Obi-Wan was puzzled as to why Qui-Gon would say this.

"Oh? Really...? I think I have spoken too much." Qui-Gon continued going around and so too did Obi-Wan, where a few times they came across strange corpses.

Strange corpses that couldn't quite make it over the edge of the crater, or pit as it was. "Well? Are you not going to answer my previous question?"

"One could say that I took liberties when I left the Order. I am sure that I will be forgiven for taking such sacred information, and preserving it within the Empyrean." Qui-Gon answered truthfully, but even if Qui-Gon didn't do this, Anakin had done it himself.

"What!? You stole information." Obi-Wan exclaimed, looking at Qui-Gon weirdly.

"It can't be stealing if I had access too and was allowed to take it, now could it." Qui-Gon replied, carefully inspecting one of those mutated creatures.

"That may be so, but-" Obi-Wan was cut off by Qui-Gon.

"No buts here. Take it up with Anakin. He stole-I mean borrowed from the Jedi first when he left." Qui-Gon held his hands up defensively as he answered.

Some distance away, a creature was hauling itself and managed to leap off of the edge, before throwing itself down into the black pit that used to be the Jedi Temple and Dark Force Nexus.

"There!" Obi-Wan called as he spotted something in this rather lifeless abyss.

"What is it doing...?" Qui-Gon also looked, using the suits in built binocular vision, zooming in and seeing that the creature was falling in.

It slapped itself on the side of the some sphere surface, before a small parts of its being was melded. Melted into the sphere and slowly siphoning something out from it.

"I think... I think it is absorbing the life force and Force energies of the creature..." Obi-Wan said, thinking that this was happening.

"Maybe... It is best not to test this theory. Even getting closer to those creatures, we would be unable to tell fully what is going on here." Qui-Gon responded, before looking down. "Look down as well."

Both of them looked down and identified some sort of liquid at the bottom, black as tar and night. As black as space itself, and it also seemed to contain small stars revolving within the liquid mass.

"We should report on this. It was hard enough getting up here." Obi-Wan suggested.

"Ok. Let's go."