The March of the Black Queen

The blistering hilt had opened up at one end, blackening the metallic grip with a distracting ash. The flash of molten carbon seared through their eyes for a moment, and a hot flare scathed Bastila's left eye, painfully. The glow only soon burned dead after the perilous violet swipe had found its mark. Bastila's double-bladed lightsaber was reduced in size as the man who she all but over-powered, cut away her killing stroke. She yielded to his awaited command, falling backwards onto the cool grating.

Revan slowed his movement in time to catch a glimpse of his surrendering captive, just before he would have delivered the last of his unwanted strikes.

'Enough!' he shouted at her, silencing his disquiet within. 'You can't fight the good in you, Bastila. It is stronger than what you have become, can't you see it?'

The fallen Jedi knight let her eyes fall upon her damaged symbol.

'It would be sluggish,' she thought so quietly in her mind, 'but it would suffice.' Bastila looked up to him, finally relinquishing her train of thought. 'Why should I?'

'Because I love you, Bastila,' he spoke softly, as if revealing a dark secret he had long protected. She had known the feeling, all too well. The words stabbed at her heart but could do no harm. As she switched off her remaining blade, Bastila finally understood what needed to be done.

The elliptical sheets of metal rolled away the mystery before Malak's augmented audio receptors could inform him of the struggle from behind. His senses were double-bladed in conception, but soft to the surreal victory waiting impatiently for him to acknowledge. The Dark Lord opened his frightened eyes as he slowly turned around to look upon the horror that challenged before him.

'My dear Bastila, what have you brought me?' Malak asked instinctively. 'She should know her place by now.' The thought appeared in the curve of his eyebrows. He felt her mind slipping from his manipulative grasp. She was willfully resisting his advances through the Force. 'Yes, she is an ambitious one,' the Dark Lord thought to himself.

'I did not bring you anything, Malak,' Bastila replied.

The blade of her dying lightsaber began to warm Revan's neck. He fought hard against the pain swimming in the arc of his back, the wounds he'll never be able to heal. The pain destroyed the foundations that held his hope so high. 'It had to be a trick,' Revan thought, 'lure Malak in and I'll close the trap.' His back was on fire with the searing pain; yes, it was an act of compassion on Bastila's part, for him to lie on his chest. The injured warrior made an effort to turn to his side, but the red blade burned into his hair and singed his scalp. He gritted his teeth and froze his body. 'She loves me, I know it.'

Malak watched painfully, waiting for Bastila. Did his patience show weakness? Was he passively allowing his apprentice to undermine every bound he had placed in her head? Was the Star Forge working through her? Did he really underestimate Bastila? The questions were taking control of his mind. He stepped lightly towards the presence ahead of him; slowly, curiously.

'What is this defiance I sense in you, my young apprentice?'

'I have no defiance to give you. That would be implying that I have some shred of loyalty to you and that, my master, is what I find lacking today.'

Darth Malak knew no control over his hatred; he wanted to destroy Bastila right there, but he also wanted to stand dignified before his former master. To give in to his strong emotions would be a definitive display of weakness, and he knew he was stronger than Revan... he only needed to prove it. As Revan met his darkened yellow eyes, Malak saw the devastating fear of betrayal, and understood. His feet froze into entropy, forcing the feelings out of his mind. He would wait once more, for his apprentice to fail him.

Bastila withdrew her concentration upon the Dark Lord's emotions and turned to her captive. She knelt down to Revan's level, gently lifting his chin with her bare fingers.

'I have a confession to make, my dear,' she spoke soft and affectionately. 'I've always envied the power within you.' She placed her free hand on his padded white shoulder. 'You have a certain strength about you; it's why Malak is so afraid to touch you.'

Revan winced in pain; feeling the wound in his back tear open even more. 'You've been in my head all along, Bastila,' he pressed on. 'You give me my strength.' He needed to keep her focused on their bond. 'Blink once for good, twice for bad?' Bastila's smile fell upon his viridian eyes, tearing down the love he had believed in for the longest time.

'It's interesting that you should say that, Revan, because now I need your strength.'

Revan tried to push himself up, but Bastila only pulled her blade closer, mildly burning the back of his neck. 'Hold still, my dearest, it will all be over soon enough.' Picking herself up hurriedly, she let her fingers run across his ashen white face.

Revan closed his eye-lids over his once good friend and tried to steady his breathing. The red lightsaber lifted from his neck for a moment and before the hum of the blade would pass his ears, his once good friend called out 'Wait!' Revan opened his eyes to see Darth Malak thrown a good distance away by an unseen force; his cloak fluttering over his head chaotically, and then he saw no more.

Bastila felt the energies from the Star Forge shoot through her fingertips painfully. She reached out madly with the Force, stripping the electric current from Revan's body. It shook through her hands, channeled through her arms and dug into her heart. The raw energy took her by surprise when visions flooded her eyes with memories and feelings she couldn't fathom; basilisk war droids raining down upon the glimmering towers of Coruscant, an old woman leaving a child to deal with Kath hounds alone, a dark corridor lit with eerie red lights, an empty Sith sarcophagus, and then the iridescent touch of her own lips against her own. The sensation was rudely interrupted when a barrage of electrical charges pierced through her lightsaber hand, causing Bastila to lose her grip.

The shock surged through her bones quickly, as she tried desperately to untangle her mind from the euphoric indulgence. Her eyes flashed open, searching for the menace behind the violent storm. With her right hand, Bastila redirected the pain, the hate, the rage coursed straight out of her body and into the red blade in her master's quivering hand. The lightning attack was slowly focused down into Darth Malak's lightsaber, long enough for the Dark Jedi to twist around and pull a discarded lightsaber into her hand with the Force.

Credits:

Knight Savtrian - she kept me going with this work, gave me wonderful ideas, and provided the best encouragement possible.

StarShadow - for helping us all acknowledge that Bastila (along with many others) fell to the power of sexism, should Revan be male.

Uma Thurman - facial base for Bastila.

Christian Bale - facial base for Revan.

Sean Bean - facial base for Darth Malak.

Queen - "The March of the Black Queen" and "Seven Seas of Rhye" (teaser) 1974