The Revenant Saga - Chapter 2: Truth and Madness

The sheer irony of the situation was probably the only thing keeping him coherent, if Raven were to be honest with himself. Being honest with himself, however, was not a luxury he had most days since the Leviathan. As a matter of fact, he mused, were he to be honest with himself he'd have scuttled this mission a dozen times already since landing on Korriban. He sat in the main crew area of the Ebon Hawk, surrounded by his friends and allies, each one watching him and waiting for his next words, his next burst of insight to get them out of this pickle. Trying to look more confident than he felt, he closed his eyes a moment and let his mind go still, listening to the low whistles of the Korriban winds as they rushed across the hull of the Hawk. "All right," he began brusquely, "We've got the medallion we need courtesy of a small group of Darth Moron's bullies-in-training from Dreshdae. I won't be able to take more than one or two of you with me into the Academy itself, but there are enough other things that need doing that no one should get bored. And before anyone says it: No, there is no other way to get into Naga Sadow's tomb, and yes, we're sure that's where the Star Map is." He allowed them a few moments of their crestfallen looks before continuing. "That being said, Carth is coming with me. No matter how important our mission is, I'm not about to let him down on a chance to find Dustil." Carth acknowledged the comment with a curt nod and by picking up his already-packed backpack. "Juhani, I'll need you with me as well. Given the attitudes of the locals, you'll be the easiest of the crew to pass off as a slave." As he saw her hackles start to rise, he continued sympathetically. "I'll need you as a Jedi to help me get through this sane, and you're the one of this crew the most likely to keep me from slipping too far down the dark path. I'd never have asked you to put on such a painful act if there were any other way I could have you at my side." Even as she began to relax, he played his emotional trump. "Besides, it's right up there with asking me to pretend I want to be a Sith again, right?" He allowed himself a brief indulgence of smugness as he saw each of his companions (save Canderous and the droids) wince uncomfortably at the pointed reminder of who they'd so recently discovered he used to be. "Canderous has everyone else's orders. There are supplies we need, repairs that have to be made for the Hawk and some upgrades to her weapons systems that have to be done. The way I figure it, I should barely give you enough time to finish everything that needs doing in time for us to be blasting out of here." Standing up, he smoothed his Dark Master's robes casually as he gathered up his custom double-saber. The look of the robes was perfect for the place and time, but even so just wearing the clothing of a servant of the dark side made him uncomfortable. He gripped the hilt of his saber fiercely, impressing its lines and bumps into the palm of his hand, trying forcefully to remind himself that he wasn't Darth Revan anymore and that he didn't have to repeat Revan's -- no, HIS previous mistakes this time. As Master Zhar had once told him, you can never correct a mistake you fail to admit you made in the first place. He snapped his head up, putting on a mask of cold impassiveness and letting emotion drain from his wearied body. The Sith would be expecting a fallen Jedi to be radiating anger and resentment, and those were easy enough to manufacture on a moment's notice -- all he had to do was think of his beloved Bastila and what he could feel happening to her through the lifebond. With that deeply unpleasant thought, he snapped his last orders out with a vehemence that sent the others cautiously a step back from him. "Juhani, Carth -- It's time. Let's go meet this Yuthura Ban and show her who owns this planet now." Flipping the black hood up over his head, he led the small procession to the Dreshdae cantina.

Yuthura had proved easy enough to dupe into giving him admission to the Academy. Although it made him sick inside to play along, a mild combination of flirting with innuendo and overbearing arrogance had convinced her he was worthy to enter the Academy. Mentally, he was already begging Bastila's forgiveness for even just flirting with another woman, despite knowing it was necessary to get her guard down once he'd been initially disbelieved that his two companions were his slaves. The Master of the Academy, Uthar, had also been easily duped. At least Raven hoped he had been duped -- It wasn't that he was unsure that Uthar was convinced Raven was fit material for a Sith, he was simply hoping that Uthar was indeed wrong. Uthar had seemed quite gleeful during their little banter about Raven's worthiness to become a Sith. Uthar had visibly reveled in the power flowing from Raven, and had seemed deliciously pleased to declare it dark. Raven sighed thoughtfully - he had tried to be exuding his anger and bitterness in full to pass that test. He had to hope for his own sake that this was all that Uthar had detected and not some deeper darkness within, left over from his former self. Regardless, they were in now and settled into a semi-private chamber in the Academy's dormitory area. The first order of business was to find Dustil and let Carth try and convince him to leave. Then, it was a matter of impressing Uthar enough to be permitted to enter the Tomb of Naga Sadow so that the Star Map could be obtained. Subconsciously he turned the hilt of his saber over and over in his hands as he went over action planning with Carth and Juhani, twirling it in intricate patterns with his dexterous fingers. That lightsaber also contained a bit of a new personal talisman for him. His violet crystals, the ones that he and Bastila had gathered together from the Krayt Dragon's cave on Tatooine had been removed and replaced with a new color crystal set. Looking at the violet blades that reminded him of those wonderful times with his shay'kreth'ashke, his lifebonded beloved, had proved too painful for him each time he ignited the saber. Unable to risk the chance that his anger and pain would overwhelm him, he had researched information on Bastila's home world of Talravin, searching for a new color that would be appropriate. It hadn't taken him long to find a passage on the proper etiquette of legal blood-feuds that caught his eyes. By law, the wronged party could present themselves to the elder council of their city, and if the cause was found to be just they were given badges and clothing of ceremonial emerald green as a mark of their legal right to blood-feud. Wearers of the Green, or Emerald Magistrates as they were commonly referred to, were allowed to seek retribution from the wrongdoers as they felt fit. He smiled ironically, thinking how appropriate it was that among the crystals he had taken from the bodies of the Dark Jedi on the Leviathan were a pair of twin emerald green crystals the exact shade of his eyes. Given the information he had gathered, plus the fact that Bastila had told him time and again that his eyes were her favorite of his features, the decision had been made. He slipped the double-saber into its comfortable resting place on his right hip as the group finalized plans and left their chamber to search for Dustil.

"Fine, father!" Dustil spat, contempt dripping from his words and countenance like blood from an infected wound. "Find me proof! If the Sith are as evil as you say they are, you should be able to find some proof of it. If you come back with that proof -- we'll talk." Raven still marveled at the rage and hatred the young man harbored inside. The dark side had grabbed onto the young man with all its might, feeding from and nurturing his anger and hate over many years. Raven was sure it was nothing less than a Force-inspired miracle that he'd been able to get Dustil to listen even as little as he had been willing to. He could vaguely hear Carth assuring Dustil the proof would be found even as he let his consciousness flow freely along the currents of the Force, seeking some object that would help Dustil come to his senses. It didn't take him long to find a likely candidate; something nearby in the housing area itself was tightly bound into both Carth and Dustil's fates. With a clear direction to move in for what felt like the first time in days, he gestured for his companions to follow. As he walked the path the Force had shown to him, he reflected again on the conversation that Yuthura had initiated as they walked past on their hunt for Dustil. It wasn't the eminently cliché way she planned to overthrow Uthar, her master, that stuck out to him; but he couldn't quite put his finger on what was bothering him. On a whim almost, he had agreed to help her. He couldn't escape the feeling that somehow Yuthura might not be as lost as she seemed to the darkness, and maybe that was the cause of this nagging feeling of wrongness about her, this splinter in the back of his mind whenever his thoughts dwelled on the Twi'lek apprentice. Abruptly, he stopped just short of walking into a large carved stone door. In his highly distracted state, he'd traversed the entire area without any awareness of his surroundings.

He frowned deeply, trying to pass it off as studying the door, but he knew that getting that lost inside himself -- especially here in this foulest of places - could prove fatal to all of them. A soft groan escaped his lips as he realized his wandering had led them into the far back of the Academy's dormitory area and they stood before the door to Master Uthar's personal chambers. A quick investigation of the lock confirmed his fears -- neither he nor any of his current companions was going to get through that lock, and using his lightsaber to open it would leave telltale traces that could result in a lockdown of the Academy or worse. Gesturing to Carth and Juhani to cover him and watch for guards, he knelt by the door and adjusted his wrist communicator to a secured frequency. "T3, this is Raven, come in." When he heard the surprised acknowledging chirps and whistles on the com, he continued. "T3, I've run into a personal access lock that's too complicated for me and I need your help. I'm sending you a vid-feed now. " Tense seconds passed before his readout displayed how to manipulate the interface enough to insert one of Mission's specialty security tunneller spikes. "Thanks, T3. " As the droid signed off, he channeled the Force to increase the speed of his hands so that even as the wrist communicator de-activated, the door was already hissing open. The item, blazing like a fiery beacon in his mind's eye, was in a footlocker near Uthar's bed. A cursory inspection of the contents revealed a datapad emblazoned with the emblem of the Academy underneath some neatly folded robes. Quickly, Raven transferred the data to one of the same make that he had taken from one of the other students, Kel by name, who had recently had a "sudden change of heart " about being a Sith. (With a little nudge from Raven, of course.) He allowed the memory to make him smile as he placed the datapad with the copy into the footlocker and sealed it again.

Back in their shared chambers, the three of them read through the datapad quickly, searching for some sort of information that could be used as proof that the Sith were evil. When they found it, it was almost more than Raven could bear. Apparently, Dustil had arrived at the Academy with a woman by the name of Selene. The text implied that she had been more important to Dustil than his training, but even as he read it Raven could feel the truth of it -- they had been in love. And for that, the record continued, she had been murdered. Uthar himself had murdered Dustil's beloved Selene because her love was more important to him than his training.

Deep inside Raven, something snapped. A cord of humanity that tied his essence to sanity and the Light was finally stressed too far beyond its capacity and popped like an over-tightened guitar string. The evil all around him combined with his awareness of Bastila's torture through the lifebond had formed a brilliant knife within his spirit, and that knife was sawing away at those cords. One cord snapping wasn't enough to make him lose control yet, for there were many strong cords remaining -- but the blade's progress was inevitable.

He smiled insincerely as Carth pounded him on the back. "You did it partner! " Carth practically crowed. "It's grim reading no doubt, but this is surely good enough proof for Dustil that the Sith are evil! Let's take it to him, come on!" Raven swallowed deeply and put on the most enthusiastic face he could muster. For a moment he thought Juhani might have suspected something of what was really going on in his mind as he caught a sidelong glance she gave him as the trio started walking, but she smiled and wandered on down the hallway as if nothing had happened. Following Carth through the twisting halls, Raven found himself alone at the rear of the group and deep in dark thoughts. "Fool! You march off to give him this horrid news as if you're telling him he's won the lottery. All that pain and hatred over the death of your wife, his mother, and yet you go to tell him his love was murdered with no thought at all what it will mean or do to him."

A second cord snapped as the knife picked up speed.

Raven still had not mentally rejoined his companions by the time Carth was picking up the dialog with his son over the information in Uthar's datapad. Raven had managed to find all the right things to say to get Dustil to listen, but that was more instinctive Force use than anything conscious. He was dimly aware of Dustil's declaration that proof or not, he couldn't come with them right away because he had friends that still needed to be warned and possibly saved from themselves as well. So like his father, Raven mused. At least that trial was overcome, as good a start as he could reasonably hope for to such a miserable mission. Now, he just needed to somehow go about gathering the prestige required to pass Uthar's little test. Abruptly, Raven's entire focus shifted, his mind flying across the energy lines of the Force to where Bastila was being tortured. Something in the torture had changed, Raven realized, and whatever had changed had made Bastila unspeakably angry -- no, something far more than angry; she was nearly feral, livid beyond words. He watched in horrified fascination how the dark side swirled around her like a malevolent predator waiting for its moment to strike, feeding and amplifying her unholy fury. He knew then that he had only seconds to act lest she be lost to the dark side. His mind, moving at its most incredible speed, arrived at the solution to both of their problems between one beat of his heart and the next. Latching into the lifebond, he took energy from the Force and formed a rudimentary tube paralleling the metaphysical structure of the lifebond. Once that was complete, he took that tube and began shunting through it the energies of the dark side away from her and into himself. He shivered as the unclean power began to flow through him, but he knew it was her only chance to hold out, and the taint of the dark side would help him keep up his facade and make it that much more difficult for any wary Sith to discover his true intentions. As Raven started to withdraw his consciousness back through the Force, he reached out a tendril of mental energy, intending to soothe Bastila and let her know she was neither alone nor abandoned in her struggle. Instead, he got the full mental backlash of exactly what had changed.

The room was dark and quiet except for some feeble sniffling at Bastila's feet. She was struggling to see, but the shackles still held her firmly in place on the stone altar slab. Oh, how she craved to reach out with the Force and soothe the broken woman she knew must be in the darkness there, but she dared not risk it. The dark side was too strong here, and she knew with unfeeling certainty that if she were to touch that power it would overwhelm her in her weakened state. Unbidden, the images flashed back to her mind. Unable to break Bastila through pain, Malak had changed to far more cruel tactics yet. The woman -- the girl really... barely bloomed, a pretty little blonde human and so innocent. Malak had crushed that. He had brutalized the girl in every way Bastila could have imagined and many ways she never before had. And Malak didn't stop at forcing Bastila to watch and listen to it, no -- he violated Bastila's mind as surely as he did the innocent's flesh and made her feel it -- forced her to feel the girl's agony and worse yet his sick enjoyment of it. He knew that doing this directly to her would have accomplished nothing, but to make others suffer because of her resistance -- he knew exactly where her weaknesses were. And now Bastila, too shamed to even sleep lay there in the darkness, listening to the feeble sobs of destroyed innocence and wondered what new horrors the morrow would bring.

Raven landed back in his body, which was now covered in a blazing sweat, with jarring abruptness. He looked downward before speaking, knowing if either of his companions could see the unmitigated hatred blazing in his eyes that his entire plan would be for nothing. Seeing Dustil was gone from the room, Raven was able to stabilize his voice enough he hoped his companions would explain away the emotional thickness of it to Carth and Dustil's now mostly successful reunion. "Well, Carth, I kept my promise." Despite his best attempts at control, he knew the smirk that creased his face had to have had the tint of madness to it. "Now it's time for me to go impress Uthar. Let's get to it." Spinning abruptly on his heel, he called his double-saber into his hand and clenched it in a near death-grip as he strode purposefully towards the torture and interrogation rooms of the Academy. "And I know just how to start." Carth and Juhani exchanged quick, worried glances before hustling down the hallway after him.

The knife's speed increased again, severing many cords in quick succession. Now, only the bright silver of the lifebond and the blue of duty remained. With only those remaining the blade hesitated, its momentum stopped for the moment.

"Do you think he's all right?" Juhani asked under her breath as she took long-legged strides trying to catch up to Raven. "No, I don't," Carth responded as he nearly jogged alongside. "but considering what we're about to do, if he were acting all right I would be more worried than if he wasn't." "I sincerely hope you are correct my friend. " Juhani answered, and then continued to herself. "If you are not, then based on what I just saw in Raven's eyes I fear we are all doomed."

Raven smiled wickedly to himself as he reclined on his sparse bunk back inside the Academy that evening. One Mandalorian prisoner saved, Three former students saved, one Teran'ta'tek slain, One assassin droid destroyed, one ancient Sith Lord redeemed and his sword acquired, two Sith apprentices killed, one apprentice redeemed and one former Sith Master slain. Of course, that didn't include the various and sundry droids, monsters, and puzzles that he had overcome and bypassed. Not a bad afternoon's work if he said so himself. He looked over in the corner where Carth had just finished catching his breath and Juhani was still deep in meditation restoring her energies, and remembered fondly Carth's playful complaining that Raven hadn't been leaving enough for the others to do. What Carth hadn't known, couldn't ever know, was that Raven's frantic need for the combat today had been driven by the siphon of dark side power he'd set up from Bastila. Delicately, he reached out a tendril of thought to the siphon. Relief washed over him as he saw that indeed a large amount of the dark side energies that had whirled around Bastila had been bled off by his efforts. Hopefully, she would be strong enough to resist what remained, at least for a while longer now. Switching his focus inside he saw that many of his energy pathways were tainted and blackened by the dark side power he had channeled, but all in all it was a small price to pay for her protection, he figured. Besides, he reasoned to himself, it is the duty of a Jedi Guardian to destroy evil and evil's servants wherever they are found, and every sentient I killed today was evil throughout. So many people tied up in petty ambitions, each one like so many dune crabs in a jar - each constantly clawing the others down so that none of them ever escaped the squalor at the bottom. Each one no doubt thought they were the master of all they surveyed, when in truth they were simply slaves to their own reckless ambitions, desires, and lusts. What was so wrong about enjoying doing good works as thoroughly as he had today?

The dark side roiled and bubbled all around Raven, gleefully amplifying his anger and bitterness through the channel he had so conveniently provided for it. With his mind's eye so focused elsewhere, he was utterly oblivious to the fact that the dark side energies around him were more potent and focused than the general aura of the Academy itself. One of its favorite toys was so nearly back in its grasp! Now, one more good opportunity was all it needed to bring this lost black sheep back into the dark fold. Tightly now its tendrils grasped the knife, and it waited.

His musings were disturbed suddenly as Juhani sat delicately on the chair next to his bed and propped her feet up onto his midsection with a soft thump. Raven sat up jerkily, startled at first and expecting trouble; but seeing the mischievous light in Juhani's eyes he instead relaxed and threw a companionable arm over her outstretched legs. "Comfy?" He inquired, a twinkle in his eyes. "Yes, very." she purred, grinning impishly all the while. "So tell me something Raven, this word I keep hearing you use about Bastila, this 'Osh-kay' you constantly speak of under your breath when you think no-one is listening... what is this word you speak with such power? " Raven's grin turned rueful again. "Ashke. It was a word I remembered when Bastila and I first... " He hesitated, trying to decide now much to reveal to her of what had happened between he and Bastila that day. Opting for caution, uncertain how she would react to the knowledge the he and Bastila's love had already been consummated once he continued. "...when we first admitted to each other we'd fallen in love. It means 'beloved' in ancient Tayledras, one of the languages of my homeworld. The longer phrase is Shay'kreth'ashke, meaning lifebonded beloved, or in more flowery terms 'the other half of my soul'..." As his voice trailed off to nothing his grin disappeared entirely, replaced with a mournful frown. "Are those even truly my memories? I hadn't really thought about that before just now, but I don't even know if those are created from some Master's imagination to fill in space in my head or if they're mine from before... " His shoulders sagged and his head slumped forward in a gesture of utter defeat as the full weight of how lost he felt inside hit home.

"I won't ask if it matters," Juhani ventured after several quiet seconds had passed, "because to you it most obviously does. However, this is one riddle of your past that need not remain a mystery forever. " Raven looked up slowly, curiosity dimly dawning on his distraught features. She continued, as she did so removing her feet from his midriff, then reaching over and taking Raven's arm and half-helping, half-dragging him to his feet. "You won't sleep well with such thoughts on your mind, my dearest friend. Let's go take a look in the Academy's archive computers. Surely, some data on the homeworld of Revan must yet exist, and with that we will have your answer, yes?" Raven was able to manage the weakest of grins as he responded. "I am shamed by your insight and wisdom, my friend. Here I am pitying myself for feeling like a stranger in my own mind and you're coming up with ways for me to feel more at home there. I would be honored to go with you to research this. " Juhani reached out and gently, warmly embraced Raven and held him for many moments before speaking. "For whatever it may mean, I believe in my heart you will save her." "Thank you, Juhani..." he responded quietly, his voice thick with unspoken emotions. "I can only hope against hope that you are right." As they wandered down the halls, leaning comfortably on each other, she piped up with another suggestion. "I also think it's long past time you played your music again. That we all know is yours and yours alone, Raven Skywalker, and I, for one, miss the lovely sounds of your voice." He grinned genuinely and warmly now, and gave the cathar's shoulders an affectionate squeeze. "You've got it. I think I can manage that when we get back to the room."

"Well, the language is definitely not Deralian, but there's not much information on Revan at all in here. Malak must have had it purged." Raven stretched quickly before hunching back over the terminal. "Wait, here's something that came back when I searched for the term 'Ashke'. There's no world name associated with it, but there's at least a province or country name here: Valdemar. Looks like a very primitive place by all records, the people apparently weren't even spacefarers when the planet was discovered." He looked at Juhani with a puzzled expression as he continued. "The reference in here is ancient... it looks like it might even date back to or before the time of the Star Forge. In any case, there's nothing in here that would overlap with my fictionalized service records at all." He scanned through the data quickly, then downloaded the passage to his datapad." Juhani, I'm very glad indeed you talked me into doing this - I really couldn't thank you enough for my own sanity or for what you helped me find. It looks like that language could be as old as the Jedi Order, or possibly even older. The reference I found was contained in a passage on the founding of the Order and the formation of the Republic. It says here that the first Jedi were trained by and modeled after a society from this 'Valdemar' called Heralds. Looks like the council will have a field day with this." He grinned impishly, reaching out and tweaking Juhani's nose with his fingers. "And better than any of that, the memories are really mine... not constructed or made up, but genuinely mine!" Grinning widely, his pain nearly forgotten for a few precious moments, he spun and started back for their chambers. "I promised you a song Juhani! I think I've got an idea for some new lyrics now." 3

After the song was done and Juhani and Carth had both fallen asleep, Raven reached into his pile of discarded loot from the tombs and went over again the items that had surprised him the most. Activating the archaic datapad again, he slowly, carefully, re-read the words of Duron Qel-Droma describing the love between he and Shaeela Nur, searching the man's personal thoughts and recordings for any sign of what it was they did wrong that ended up with getting at least Duron killed. As he did so, he idly toyed with the fabric of the marvelously made Jedi robes he had found near the remains. In the back of his mind, he made a mental note to ask Juhani to repair them tomorrow to keep her busy during his trials. His smile changed from the wicked grin it had been for most of the evening into a more rueful smile as he wondered to himself for a moment if someday in the future some young apprentice might be reading through his own journal and rifling his belongings searching for such clues. Snapping the datapad off, he tossed it aside and swore under his breath. He didn't have time for those thoughts tonight. Tonight he needed to focus and prepare, for tomorrow he would go alone into the Tomb of Naga Sadow and there retrieve the fourth and final Star Map he needed to save Bastila. By the time he fell asleep, he still hadn't noticed that nowhere in that thought was he at all worried about saving the rest of the galaxy while he was at it.

And the dark side was pleased, and polished its gleaming knife. It was sure tomorrow would be a good day indeed.

Raven was thoughtful as he stood back at the cross intersection at the center of the tomb. He had been surprised so far at how easy this supposed "test" had been. A few Wraid and Katarn were certainly no challenge, even alone. He contemplated the seared pieces of the creatures where they lay strewn about the intersection, smiling quietly as he thought to himself that it was just as well the tests weren't any more difficult. If they were, perhaps more of the Dark Jedi he ran into might give him trouble. The left chamber's challenge and rewards had both been a joke; a child's learning puzzle guarding a discarded child's toy. A dangerous child's toy, he mentally corrected himself as he remembered the foul black venom dripping from the cursed blade he had found. Sighing deeply, he closed his eyes and reached out with the Force again, trying to get a better idea of his surroundings. Again, he could sense the evil on the passage that lead deeper into the tomb like a clear beacon of blackness in his mind's eye, and still the rightmost chamber was muddled and grey. He poked and prodded at the energies, but he could not get a clear reading of light or dark from it - which meant it was significant, he decided. Hastening along, he came quickly upon another sealed door, and the corpse of another student that had apparently failed his exam. Raven shook his head disbelievingly even as he rifled the mauled corpse for clues. The only thing he found more amusing than how easy this tomb was to navigate was that there were apparently a fair quantity of "best in class" Sith hopefuls that weren't even competent enough to get through it. Finding a datapad tucked under the desiccated corpse, he pulled it free of its morbid prison and flicked it to life. "Looks like a private journal," he muttered to himself to break the silence. "Let's see if it can tell me what killed you." Flicking through to the end, he finally found the first information that gave him some idea of how the test might be dangerous. "Hmph. A Teran'ta'tek, eh? Well at least I didn't get all dressed up this morning for nothing. " Smirking, he straightened the custom black fiber armor he'd put on this morning. It was fabulous workmanship when he first took it from Darth Bandon's corpse, and the upgrades Raven had put into it since acquiring it made it formidable gear indeed. Add to that the fact that it didn't seem to interfere with his Force powers the way normal armor did, and he had quickly decided to break his personal rule about not wearing armor. Setting his mouth into a firm line, he opened the door into the chamber, trying his hardest not to smile. He'd been begging the Force for a challenge today -- the dark side was back surrounding Bastila again even more powerfully than before, and he needed something to vent the building rage inside him on before he lost his mind. And a Teran'ta'tek was at the least always a challenge.

Even as the door slid shut behind him, Raven swore vividly under his breath in several languages and reminded himself to never again ask the Force to challenge him. He slid silently back into the corner of the room and began to ponder how precisely he was going to deal with two of the damnable things at once, especially seeing as he was now locked in this large, rectangular chamber with them. Bemusedly, he noticed that this room was designed much like the ancient sporting arenas he had seen set up for various entertainments on his travels and that the creatures were resting in what would have been the goal area for a team playing from this end. It seemed that today he would have to be the main attraction if he wanted to get out of here alive. Almost as an afterthought, he had to wonder how this room hadn't positively reeked of the dark side when he had looked at it earlier. He scanned the room with his mind again, this time with a small, focused sweep rather than the blanket scan he had done earlier. It didn't take him long to find his answer. Creeping forward as silently as he was able to, his senses led him to a mostly-eaten human corpse. Searching the broken and chewed remains, he found the source of the powerful light side energies that had masked the beasts' presences from his scan. It was a glowing white crystal in the broken remnants of a lightsaber, and next to that lay a slightly chewed datapad. Begging the Force to be with him, he gathered the items and slithered back into his corner again to investigate what he had found. The crystal was apparently intact - indeed even still flawless, and its light blazed the pure blue-white of starlight. After admiring it for several seconds, he switched his attention to the heavily tooth-marked datapad. In what he was sure was a futile gesture, he attempted to power it up. Miraculously, the datapad flickered to life without so much as a sound. Miraculous isn't to say that it was a good thing that the datapad still functioned -- far from it. When someone is saved from certain death by a nearly impossible combination of circumstances, a great many people would call that a miracle. But of course if a freakishly improbable chain of events kills someone - the oil spilled just there, the lighting struck just in that place at that time - that in fairness must also be a miracle. Just because an event is not good doesn't mean it's not miraculous. The datapad he read was the final journal of Shaeela Nur, detailing her bloody-minded pursuit of the creature that slew her beloved Duron in the quest to avenge her lover's, her own Ashke's, death. And since her bones and the Solari crystal of her shattered lightsaber were here and the creatures yet lived, that meant she had failed. She had failed to save her beloved, failed to even avenge him; and that concept was too much for Raven's battered psyche to stand. Every day since Bastila had been taken from him he had been bombarded with the images of love that came to nothing, and ended only in pain and death. Carth. Morgana. Selene. Dustil. Duron. Shaeela. He felt in that one moment all of his fear, a deep and debilitating fear that struck him to the depth of his very being. He feared that he would lack the strength he hoped for and that his and Bastila's names would be the next on the universe's list of victims in its apparent war on Love. In that instant of black despair, he yielded to his pain and rage and welcomed the dark side into his soul.

The knife sliced through the cord of duty in a single fell motion, and Raven's mind was open fully now to the dark side. Only the lifebond remained, and because of the siphon it was no longer enough to hold him to the light; in that moment all the universe trembled as the dark side laughed.

Raven couldn't think about stealth or his own survival any more. His mind was gone, replaced by the feral instincts of a hunting predator. He tucked the Solari crystal into a pocket on the armor and flicked his custom double-saber to life. Advancing, he howled a battle cry that shook the very walls of the chamber to their foundations, fueling it with all the pent-up rage and despair he'd felt since the Leviathan. The powerful creatures sprang up into defensive crouches, and Raven could feel from them that his scream had actually frightened them. Basking in the mighty creatures' fear, reveling in it, he tapped deep into the reservoir of dark side power the siphon gave him access to and with a casual flick of his right hand ripped a giant square of the floor to the depth of about a meter of solid stone up around the further Teran'ta'tek, in the blink of an eye wrapping the creature in an ungainly bundle of heavy stonework. With a second dismissive gesture, Raven reached out through the dark side with the full power of his mighty will and flung the gargantuan bundle of stone and monster upwards at a velocity that would have sent it into orbit... were it not for the many tons of stone ceiling that abruptly and messily ended its attempt at spaceward flight. Even as gore-laden gravel and dust rained down around the two remaining combatants, the outcome of the confrontation was already decided. In its last seconds, the remaining creature became the first of its species to feel the horrible sensation of knowing that it was prey, helpless before the more powerful predator.

Dune crabs? Raven thought to himself. I overestimated you people... you're a lot more like sand scorpions... each so busy jealously killing the other that the very prey you were fighting over in the first place easily gets away. His mind re-focused to the present as Uthar was ending his speech. "And that is why you shall fight my apprentice, Yuthura." Master Uthar finished, a note of arrogant pride in his voice as he completed what Raven was sure Uthar felt like was a triumphant and deeply innovative plan to rid himself of his troublesome apprentice. Raven hardly cared, he had the Star Map now, and all the information he needed to locate the Star Forge and his precious Bastila. He was remotely aware that the two Sith were continuing their acidic banter, but as if summoned by her name his consciousness was again being pulled along the lifebond towards his beloved. Scanning her energies, he saw within her a great and gathering darkness. Somehow despite his best efforts she was being contaminated, filled slowly with dark side energy! Upon examining the connection more closely, he realized the awful truth of the situation. The dark side energies were flowing from him into her, along the neat channels of the siphon and lifebond that he had so conveniently set up for it. In trying to save his love, he had unwittingly enabled her fall through his own actions, for through the lifebond the dark side had access to the core of her very essence, and was able to manipulate her from within. His mind swirled as he recoiled from what he had done. All that effort, all the taint he had absorbed into himself, and in that frozen second of time, he felt that it was all for nothing. Visions of the text from Duron's and Shaeela's journals danced through his mind, mocking him for finding a more creative way to fail than they ever had.

The knife flashed at the lifebond, the dark side certain that it had won and reclaimed its prize.

It had never made a worse mistake.

Instinctively, Raven's fractured mind anchored itself in the lifebond and with all its full capacity solidified it into a gleaming column of power, white-hot with the full heat of his rage. The knife shattered, and the dark side energies recoiled from Raven. He had anchored his entire soul into the lifebond, abandoning all other ties. He was no longer a part of the light or dark, but only of his beloved. Cut off from all other anchors, he had also gone quite mad. The colors of his mind swirled in diffuse, hypnotic patterns as the barriers between the Raven personality and Revan blurred, weakened and then nearly vanished. For the first time in history the dark side knew confusion as it was truly controlled by a mortal rather than controlling the mortal, and it fled from Raven as fog might dissipate in the sun, leaving him alone to his rage and abandoning its remaining servants in that place.

Quietly, emanating from the bottom of his fractured mind, Raven began to laugh. It was an unholy, chilling sound full of hate and self-loathing, and it flowed forth like the venom from a lanced wound, carrying with it all the poisons that Raven had built up inside his mind.4

The two Sith, interrupted amidst their spitting and posturing, both rounded on him as one. Yuthura seized the moment, misinterpreting his laugh as being at Uthar's expense.

"It is you who are finished, Uthar! My pupil stands with me!" She gloated.

"Is this true, student? Do you wish to die as she does?"

Raven stopped laughing long enough to look up from the floor and glare at Uthar. Both Sith involuntarily took a step back from the blazing heat of Raven's eyes. They glowed from within like two emerald stars, burning orbs devoid of any trace of humanity, compassion, or sanity.

"You're both wrong, and you're both dead. I'm no Sith... and I choose me."

His green double-saber blazed to life as he lunged for Uthar. With a casual flexing of mental muscle, Raven grabbed Yuthura with the Force and spun her in place until she was blurring like a child's top, then flung her spinning into the corner where she ricocheted off of several walls and piles of stone debris before thumping limply to the ground, all before the first clash of his and Uthar's lightsabers. The two adversaries struck and parried at unbelievable speeds as they each were impelled to new heights of mastery trying each to outmaneuver the other, their double-sabers whirling in a deadly dance. Uthar was a master of the lightsaber arts beyond any doubt, but Raven had no equal at them. Fueled now as Raven was by his madness and grief, Uthar stood no chance at all. When the end came, if there had been anyone to watch the duel they would not have seen it anyway, other than noticing that the blurring and whirling of the duelists had suddenly stopped. Uthar parried Raven's left-hand blade just centimeters from the outside of his right thigh with an impressive and improbable-looking around-the back maneuver. In an imperceptible flash, Raven flicked his blade upwards, nicking the back of Uthar's hand just enough to cause him to loosen his grip, rendering him unable to raise his saber fast enough to parry the high slash of Raven's other blade. Uthar rocked back on his heels and stretched as far back as his frame would allow in a desperate and impressively acrobatic attempt to avoid the saber's deadly arc. Raven's right-hand blade whistled microns from Uthar's tautly stretched neck as the Sith master nearly lost his balance from the forced overextension. Reflexively, Uthar reached out to the dark side to call forth a blast of lighting to push Raven back and allow him the space he needed to regain his balance. He hadn't even had time to wonder why the dark side had not answered his call as Raven made a lunging step to the right-hand side, using the momentum of his slash to spin into a backhanded vertical rotation so that the backhand blade slashed though the muscles of Uthar's left shoulder immediately before the right-hand blade severed Uthar's suddenly unprotected neck in a single fluid motion. Raven disengaged his blades and went over to where Yuthura's limp form lay. As he contemplated crushing her windpipe beneath his boot, she stirred and groaned weakly. Through half-lidded eyes, she looked blearily up at him, and as he raised his foot she whispered a single word.

"Mercy... "

The word might have turned him to stone, so instantly and completely did he freeze. After what seemed like an eternity of inner struggle, he slowly moved his foot, but instead of crashing it down on her vulnerable throat he stepped back from her fallen form and looked curiously at her. Inside his mind the parts of him that were good and kind latched onto that word, and in doing so began to re-anchor his being and stabilize the horrid spin his mind had entered. When he at last spoke, it was in a harsh and stilted tone, as if he were battling some other voice inside himself for each word that escaped his lips.

"Mercy? You, a Sith, ask for mercy? "

"I do."

He stood impassively for several moments more, watching her as he might a venomous insect. When he spoke, his words were formal and direct. "When I first got here I sensed that was something different about you. I had hoped you were not wholly lost to the darkness, and I am glad to know I was not wrong in that. Go. Abandon your dark ways and leave this place. If you cannot find it within yourself to return to the Jedi, then leave here and trouble the Republic no more." As the words left his mouth, with them fled a portion of his murderous rage. It felt as if he had stepped back from a great precipice somewhere inside his soul, and his eyes were almost sane again when he spoke next. "It would honor me however, my friend, if I were to see you on Coruscant after I defeat Malak." Tentatively, he reached out a hand and helped her to her feet. Recovering himself steadily, he tried for one of his trademark charismatic smirks as he added: "If I were you though, I'd wait just a little bit longer before fleeing this place. When I get back to the Academy without either you or Uthar in tow, I have a feeling all hells are going to break loose." She nodded weakly before answering. "Yes, that would be best I feel... I need to rest a moment and regather my strength. For whatever it is or isn't worth, thank you, my friend. I hope to see you again. And May the Force -- be with you." He smiled almost imperceptibly, acknowledged her words with a slight inclination of his head and then spun on his heel and nearly ran from the Tomb headed back towards the Academy.

As he had predicted, the three apprentices set to guard the door had more ambition than sense. As they each snapped their sabers to life, he was already a blur of motion. With a quick pirouette he deflected two clumsy swings and maneuvered himself outside the triangle of enemies. A reversed thrust through the abdomen of the blonde female was followed with a quick wrist snap, severing her torso in two vertically. Even as she flopped lifeless to the sand the other two students came at him from opposite sides, alternating attacks in coordinated high and low patterns, but each swing was parried by the perfectly placed blade of his double-saber. The apprentices pressed the attack, working Raven's blades higher and higher and closing ever closer in to him to negate his greater reach. At last when they had closed in so far that they could have reached each other around Raven had they tried, the one to Raven's right tried a high thrust. At the same instant the one to his left tried a great low sweep towards his ankles creating a combination move that no mortal swordsman could have hoped to counter effectively from that range. In Raven's primal state however, he was something more than mortal. Reacting without thought, Raven turned a back somersault, simultaneously flipping over the sweeping blade and circling around the high thrust in mid-air. Twisting out as he landed, he flicked out with the right blade and took the stunned apprentice whose thrust had missed across the eyes. In the same motion, he launched into a high cartwheel towards the remaining opponent. Gamely, she blocked the heavy overhanded slash he delivered, but that left her open as he levered off her block and pivoted to land behind her, and with a horizontal flourish of the double-saber sliced her cleanly in half at the waist. Stretching out with his senses, he felt that most of the Academy had been alerted to his presence by the disturbance in the Force his massive power use was causing. Groaning inwardly, he called out mentally to Juhani. :Juhani, it's Raven. Get Carth and get to the door to Dreshdae now! Put your backs against something and just hold on, I'll be there as fast as I can!:

Raven entered the great hall, and with a quick mental count tallied thirteen enemies in the room, three of which had heavy blasters and the rest of which were armed with lightsabers. Several of the Academy trainers had Juhani pinned against the door and were pressing her sorely; Carth already lay nearly unconscious at her feet. Raven estimated she wouldn't last another 30 seconds if he didn't do something to save her. Roaring his defiance, he threw his double-saber in a whirling arc that cleaved the tightest knot of them facing her into several pieces each before the saber returned to his hand. Raven having gotten their attention quite thoroughly now, the survivors all moved as one to encircle this new threat even as the pieces of their dead comrades splattered to the floor of the chamber. Raven acknowledged quietly in the back of his mind that this group of enemies was large and skilled enough that if they were able to work in any kind of concert they might prove too much for him to handle without something to tip the flow of battle in his favor, and Juhani's injuries were too severe for her to be any help. As it so often did for Raven when he was in danger, his mind kicked into overdrive so far that time appeared to slow to a crawl around him. Analyzing the patterns of the enemies' minds and movements, and seeing how tainted his energy paths were with the dark side already, he realized that only by giving in entirely to his rage would he have the strength he needed to prevail. This time when his mind stood at that precipice between light and darkness, it leapt off in a graceful dive, transforming Raven into a being of pure and uncontrollable fury. Acting on feral instinct, he analyzed the minds of his enemies again and found the one that was the most full of fear. He grinned a demonic grin as he began to make an example and warning out of that opponent. As the others circled around him in what Raven perceived as slow motion, he grabbed that one with the Force, yanking him through the air to hover a meter in front of Raven and about as high off the floor. With graceless power, Raven squeezed that apprentice's torso in a crushing grip with his mind, and then drawing deep into the dark side grabbed each of the victim's arms and legs with independent vises of Force power and ripped them from the unfortunate man's body, flinging the limbs that were still spraying blood freely into the four corners of the chamber like discarded children's toys. As the dismembered apprentice began to scream out the agony of what Raven had done to him, Raven reached into the mind of his victim and in the same breath amplified the already unbearable feelings of fear and pain inside him, and then with a jarring shove forcibly linked the victim's mind directly into the minds of every remaining Sith in the chamber. As the Sith reeled from the shock and horror of what he had forced them to collectively experience, Raven unveiled his last desperate trick he'd been saving for such a moment. With a quick twist of his wrists, he opened the interlock system in the center of the hilt of his custom double-saber, separating it into two fully functional independent sabers. Dancing around the chamber, spinning and twisting in a macabre jig of death, he dispatched enemies in singles and groups with an expression of morbid glee on his face, not even aware of the horrified look that Juhani had on her stricken face as she watched him. His blades flashed out again and again, his hands now able to work independently to parry each strike that came near him from any angle. His hands blurred in constant motion from perfect parries to slicing across throats, severing limbs, and gashing torsos in a symphony of perfect destruction. For many minutes, wave by wave more Sith streamed into the chamber; and wave after wave they died at his feet. At last, only one apprentice, a young female human remained. Raven was beyond reason, beyond thought, still a creature of only feral rage, and his bloodlust had not been sated. He advanced on the trembling woman, hatred twisting his face into a visage of pure evil. The terrified woman threw her lightsabers away, falling to her knees and begging for mercy, but this time Raven could not hear her cries. He raised his sabers to destroy her, and as he did so something extraordinary even in his experience happened. Even as Juhani tried in vain to reach out with her mind and stop him, the Solari crystal flared to life from its protected place inside his armor.

Raven blinked disbelievingly as the woman before him was gone, replaced by Bastila. She was looking at him with grief-stricken, fearful eyes as she cowered on her knees before him, begging him not to strike her. Those eyes penetrated the haze of incoherent range in his mind, and his sabers slipped from lifeless hands to clatter on the floor in front of him. As he sagged to his knees and reached out to comfort her she was gone, replaced by a black-haired woman of striking beauty, dressed in Jedi robes of ancient design. Smiling sadly at him, the woman reached out and caressed Raven's cheek as she spoke into his mind. :You cannot save her by becoming that which you despise, Raven Skywalker.: Her voice was rich and melodious, and the touch of her mind on his was as cold water on scalded flesh, soothing his mind and washing away the terrible pain and anger inside it.

:Raven, I am Shaeela Nur. Listen to me well, for I do not have much time. If you would honor me and end this sad cycle, this doom of Love you see all around you then you must let go of your hate. Only the man Bastila loves can save her from Malak and the dark side now. If you are not able to remain that man, then she will be lost to you forever, even if her body is with you. More than that, if you are able to save her, the two of you can teach the Jedi so very much that they do not understand. The Code is an amazing foundation, but it was intended as a basis for starting and learning from, not as codified law. Emotions should not be repressed or ignored to gain peace, Raven. In fact, repressing emotions is how you make them dangerous! Rather than suppressing them, they should be embraced, acknowledged and controlled. You cannot control what you deny exists, and therein has lain the doom of many Jedi. Teach them, Raven Skywalker! Let go of your fear, hate, and anger, and you will not only save your beloved Bastila, your shay'kreth'ashke, but you may very well save the fate of the very Jedi Order.:

Raven bowed his head in silent acknowledgement and let the last vestiges of his fear flow away, clutching it no longer. When he looked back at Shaeela again, it was with true peace in his soul for the first time since the Leviathan. :I will, Shaeela... and thank you.:

Shaeela's spirit smiled sweetly at him as she began to fade back into the crystal that anchored her spirit to the Force. : I believe in you, Raven Skywalker. Place my crystal into your blade and my spirit will be with you on your quest. You and she are the last and best hope for the survival of the Jedi and the Republic, and you alone are the only hope for Bastila. You are worthy of this great destiny Raven, and I will guide and guard you as best I can as you fulfill it. Leave this place and the memory of it behind you now and go to your lady where she awaits you. Go now, and succeed where I could not. May the Force be with you... always.:

The vision faded, and Raven was again aware of the terrified woman before him. Delicately, he reached down and helped the trembling woman to her feet. "Go." he said quietly and with absolute serenity. "Leave this place and make something of your life. May the Force be with you. " He turned away from the completely flabbergasted woman and walked silently from the carnage of the Academy, calling his lightsabers to him along the way. As he neared the exit, he saw that all of his companions except T3 were standing in the open door of the Academy. The hope that they hadn't seen what he had done was stillborn as he looked at the medley of expressions on their faces as they stood there, unexpectedly useless weapons hanging from grips slack with horror. Or, in the cases of Canderous and HK-47, what looked like reverential awe. I guess I know I've done a bad thing when only Canderous and HK look happy about it, he thought self-deprecatingly. As he walked through the door, he stopped and reached out with the Force and healed Juhani and Carth, then helped them to their feet without speaking a word to any of them. Wearing expressions of utter confusion, the rest of the crew gathered themselves up and trailed silently behind him all the way back to the Ebon Hawk.