Chapter 78: Lonely Darkness

Despite the creature that pursued him, Terrak's hearts did not race. Though he was afraid, it was not for himself.

The distant echoes of clashing lightsabers drifted to him over the sounds of his own footsteps, but his head did not turn in that direction for even an instant. Instead, he followed the bond that connected him with his sister.

Terrak was no fool and Garsh had been brutally honest in his assessment of the situation. The moment he had set foot in the tomb alongside his teacher, they had both known there was only a slim chance of survival. The deck had been stacked too highly in Aldrex's favor to allow anything else. There would be no victory here.

Their only hope was to take Aldrex and his allies with them when they fell.

Olia was a cruel, vain woman and a slave to her passions and power games. On her own, she'd be a threatening Dark Jedi. As a Sith, she'd likely garner significant power in the Empire.

But Aldrex, cold and spiteful, had the potential to become something worse.

Sacrifice was not a concept unknown to Terrak. If anything, his understanding of it allowed him to better touch the Force as it truly was, not the aberration used by the Sith.

Garsh had once said that his propensity for precognition was likely strengthened by his ability to detach himself from the physical, which in turn allowed him to shrug off loss.

Terrak hadn't understood most of his explanation, just that it was something the Jedi considered a good thing. All he knew was that sacrificing his arm for his sister's life was a price he had not even hesitated to make.

As he entered the chamber the fight had started in and saw her limp form, illuminated by a discarded glowrod, he wondered what he would have to sacrifice to save her.

From a distance, Ianna appeared to be dead. But through their connection, he knew she still lived. As he knelt beside her, he could see that her breathing came in short, shallow gasps. She was covered in burns and the tips of her fingers twitched, holdovers from the hours of electrical torture inflicted by Aldrex and Olia's hands.

She was teetering at the edges of consciousness and murmurs of unintelligible speech drifted across their bond.

There was little he could do to help. He was no healer, nor did he know any tricks of the Force that might aid her.

Instead, Terrak reached out and grasped one of her twitching hands in his own. He knew she hated his mechanical arm and would take more comfort from his flesh and blood one, feeling his pulse through his skin. The Zabrak took what solace he could from the feeling of her fingers tightening just a little bit around his.

And then, he simply waited.

It wasn't long before he could hear the plodding footsteps of the creature. Terrak could feel its eyes boring into his back, but he did not turn to face it.

The footsteps stopped some distance away, making no further moves to approach.

Time ticked by slowly, measured only by the erratic pulse of Ianna's hearts. He allowed himself to briefly believe that it was only the two of them, alone in the dark but safe.

But eventually, reality reasserted itself in his mind.

Leaning forward, Terrak placed a kiss on his sister's forehead. Her eyes fluttered, but did not open. Standing to face his foe, he got his first good look at it since they entered the tomb.

Now that they were in the light, the creature no longer looked as monstrous as he had first thought. Though it still towered over him by nearly a meter and it still held a naked blade in its hand, the primal terror it inspired had been replaced with something else.

Its dark eyes, nearly hidden by its ashen pelt, regarded the siblings with what he could now see as exhaustion. Not physical, but mental.

"Thank you." Terrak said sincerely. When the creature's head tilted to one side in a very humanoid gesture, he elaborated, "For allowing me to reach Ianna and give me time to…well. We both know that you were capable of easily killing me right after you separated us."

The creature said nothing, but the Zabrak sensed that he had been understood. However, his words seemed to drain it even more.

"You don't want to do this, do you?" He asked.

Its eyes regarded him for a moment…before it shook its head slowly.

For a moment, Terrak allowed a sliver of hope to rise in his chest as he made one last appeal, "Then for both of our sakes, yours and mine, is there a chance that you will stand aside?"

Again, it did not speak, either because it did not want to or could not. It let out a resigned sigh and again slowly shook its head.

Hope was replaced with pity. Pity for this poor creature ensnared by Aldrex. It was not hard to wonder how it had come about, particularly with his own experiences within the Empire and its views on aliens.

"He showed you kindness once, didn't he?"

A pause. Then a nod.

It was a simple answer, though Terrak sensed that the full extent of it was far more complex than could be conveyed with simple gestures. But to one battered and beaten for years, sometimes a simple kindness was all that was needed to forge a strong chain.

And as Aldrex fell further, that chain had begun to drag the creature down with him. But despite realizing that, it could not simply break that tie.

Terrak let out a quiet sigh of his own, sliding his right foot back as he readied himself, "Very well. We each will do what we must."

There was no declaration of battle, no war cries shouted, no hatred expressed. Neither wanted this fight, but neither would back down, each bound by a duty to others.

It began much like his first vision, with two combatants charging the other and meeting in the middle. Durasteel blade met durasteel arm with a cacophonous shriek and a shower of sparks.

Once, he had tried to overcome it with brute force, only to end in death. Instead, Terrak moved with the blow, allowing it to spin him around. Using that momentum, he slammed the heel of his right foot into the side of the creature's right knee.

As before, it had seen the blow coming and braced, but again, it flinched.

The blade screamed in again and again he met it with his metal arm, parrying it rather than meeting it head on. The creature was fast for its size, but Terrak was still more agile. He ducked and weaved around its powerful strikes, parrying them away when that proved impossible. He took no offensive action, instead focusing every ounce of energy on defense.

His training had taught him to be patient, to wait for the right moment.

The next moment came when he ducked under a horizontal slash. In that instant, the Zabrak's durasteel fist slammed into the same spot he had kicked before.

Again, the towering creature flinched, but flesh and bone gave just a bit more.

It wasn't stupid. Quickly realizing what Terrak was trying to do, the creature adjusted its stance to cover its abused knee. But the damage had already been done as it was soon favoring its right leg.

He had been on the right track before by choosing the hobble the creature, but he had not followed through. The creature was tough and even its weakest points were capable of enduring more than a single blow. 

But inflicting multiple hits to the same place while augmenting his strength with the Force was enough to get through its tough hide.

Now that it was slowed, Terrak held more of an advantage in mobility, even without his Force enhancements. Even with its defense, he was still able to dance around its blade and land one more strike, again with his metal fist.

This time, the bone let out a loud crack, soon followed by a howl of pain from the creature. As its leg buckled, Terrak took the opportunity to rapidly land blow after blow to its chest and arms. 

There wasn't nearly as much power in these strikes, but they would still bruise and sting. A backhand shattered the durasteel blade.

Just as he was about to deliver an uppercut to the creature's chin, he abruptly leaped back, narrowly missing being disembowled by the remnants of its sword and grasped by a large hand.

With a growl, it forced itself back up onto its feet, putting almost all its weight on its left leg.

It shuffled a step forward. Terrak moved one back.

One forward. One back.

One forward. One back.

The creature's brow furrowed in frustration…before it lifted a shaggy hand. Terrak raised his own just in time as fingers of pressure tried to latch onto him, held at bay by his own power.

The Zabrak grunted from the strain almost immediately as he realized just how much power it held…and how much it was still holding back.

It could no longer catch up to him…so it was attempting to pull him to it.

As he fought, Terrak felt a flicker across the bond. Daring to move his gaze for just a moment, he saw Ianna's eyes weakly flutter open. Conscious, but barely so.

He held no illusions of his ability to overcome the creature's raw Force strength. He was too weak for that. But perhaps…

Closing his eyes, Terrak stopped fighting and…let go.

As his body flew across the gap between him and the creature, he shunted every ounce of power he possessed across the bond to his sister. After a moment, he felt something hit his chest.

"TERRAK!"

He smelled blood. Its overwhelming coppery tang forced its way into his nose and mouth.

Suddenly, opening his eyes felt like the greatest task he had ever undertaken, but he managed it.

The creature's arm ended where his chest began. He chose not to look further. But with Ianna's scream, the creature's other hand was grasping at its chest before they both collapsed to the ground.

His sister's sobs rang in his ears as he told her t-

Terrak blinked. The creature was once more back at the entrance to the corridor.

He smiled grimly in acceptance.

...

'Alone in the dark,' Terrak thought to himself, still alive, but too weak to move or even speak. Nevertheless, he still had a smile on his face.

His blood spurted out onto the floor from the hole in his chest where his primary heart had once been. His secondary heart, mangled beyond all hope, still tried in vain to keep him alive.

Ianna had fled as he told her to, tears streaming down her face as she stumbled weakly away. The creature had tried to pursue her, though he had soon heard it collapse into the corridor only a few steps past the archway.

As he was filled with satisfied hope and the last glimmers of life began to fade from his eyes, the Dark Side bestowed a terrible gift on the man that had dared to touch the Light on this dark world. Flashes of events yet to pass and hints of nightmares that threatened to persist into the waking world tore into his dying mind, no longer protected by his will. 

A hellish world of flame spreading its horrors into the stars, a dying planet emptied of life, the countless dead of innumerable battlefields.

And at the center of many was Aldrex. Older, more powerful, and even more twisted.

A grim set of futures.

But his smile did not waver. The future was not set in stone.

Instead of focusing on the future, Terrak turned his mind to the past, to happier days.

Alone in the dark, he breathed his last in peace.

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The first book of this fanfic has been completed on Patreon, you can look it up in the collection alongside the second book. You can visit Patreon if you want to read in Advance.

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