Coruscant, The Draay Estate, Saturday late afternoon [FT]
The Draay compound was being destroyed. As the Jedi assault team lead by Master Vrook Lamar of the Jedi High Council invaded, taking on the Jedi loyal to the Covenant, the Republic starships in orbit began a laser bombardment to disrupt the assault. The main residence within the compound suffered some damage from the bombardment, collapsing a wall on top of the people inside: Zayne Carrick, Marn Hierogryph, Q'Anilia, and Lucien Draay.
Standing apart from them was Haazen, an aide to the Covenant's leader, Krynda Draay. Haazen stood in the massive hole in the wall, overlooking the chaos after sending out an order to Covenant agents placed in strategic spots within the Jedi Order in an attempt to stage a quick coup.
Zayne dug himself out of the rubble and stared at Haazen. "Lucien, what's going on? Who is this guy?"
Lucien was already on his knees, watching in horror as his world collapsed. "Haazen. My family steward. A retainer. A flunky. You two should have a lot in common. He's a failure, too. He was a classmate of my both my parents as they rose through the ranks as Padawans. My mother was the most gifted seer the Order had seen in years. My father overcame all odds, being a captain of industry by the time he started his training, but he won over hs teachers and my mother. It wasn't long before they were Knighted and then married. Haazen was much like you. Little skill, little foresight, stumbling his way through his Trials. He was rejected."
Lucien was on his feet by now, with Zayne following him and removing his Sithly disguise to reveal his normal clothes under the robes. Lucien continued, "While my father became a legend in the Sith War, he kept Haazen as his aide. Eventually on Toprawa, they were following a lead on a smuggler who was helping the Sith cause. But it was an ambush. My father and all of his Jedi died that day. Haazen lost half his body and returned home to serve my mother. After that, she started training seers to prevent another such war from ever happening. That was how the Covenant began, with my mother always keeping an eye on the future with Haazen helping her."
"And now the future has arrived!" Haazen called out, raising his red lghtsaber to the sky as the laser barrage continued. "What do you think of your family's new investment, Lucien? When I learned Vanjervalis had a system for linking Republic cruisers under a single command, we bought the company! Then we forced their design past the admirality, slipping in a little extra feature... a direct line to me!" Haazen lowered his lightsaber and used his human hand to punch commands into a controller on his robotic hand. "The navy will figure out how to deactivate it soon enough, but it'll keep the Jedi at bay for as long as we require!"
"Wrong pronoun, Haazen!" Lucien said. "You've gone mad, and I'm going to stop you!" Lucien charged forward to strike Haazen, but before it could connect, he was thrown violently into a wall. For the moment, Zayne just watched.
"I'm surprised you didn't recognize this other addition form the Covenant's own stores of Sith relics!" Haazen said, holding up his robotic hand to show how it glowed red. "The Gauntlet of Kressh the Younger. While I have it, no one may touch me without my consent!"
Lucien rose quickly, flipping his lightsaber on. "Sith sorcery! We'll see about that!" When the lightsaber was inches from Haazen, it stopped moving and Sith lightning surged through Lucien, flinging him across the hall again.
A small assault team of Jedi smashed through a window at that moment to engage Haazen. They wouldn't last long, though, and Zayne knew where he needed to be. "Lucien!" he called as he started digging through more rubble for his former Master. "Are you--"
"Take your blasted hands off me, Zayne!" Lucien said, flinging rubble everywhere as he rose to his feet. "Haazen touched you earlier when you had your lightsaber! Why didn't you kill him then?"
"What?" Zayne asked. "I didn't know who he was!"
"That's why I would never have recommended you for Knighthood. You could never strike when you had to!" Lucien declared. "You knew Celeste Morne had become a threat, but you didn't do anything then either!"
"She hadn't done anything wrong!" Zayne countered.
"That doesn't matter. The potential danger was enough! You have to be able to strike even an innocent--"
"What, like you did?" Zayne yelled, starting to lose his temper again. "LOOK HOW THAT WORKED OUT!"
"Gentlemen, relax," Haazen said, fresh from slaughtering the Jedi team. "We're all friends here. Part of the same team. Indeed, the same future." Haazen closed his eyes and repeated a prophecy Raana Tey had told Zayne about once. "'One for the darkness. One for the light. One for the darkness stands in the light. While one from the light stands in the darkness. The last one stands apart from all.' It is Krynda's Prophecy of the Five, telling of a day when old empires fall and a new power rises. A day I have toiled long to bring about. This day!"
As Haazen strode past Lucien, Zayne, and Gryph into the courtyard, he continued, "I once thought the five masters of your circle might suit those roles, Lucien, but that changed as I perceived the role I wanted for myself. And so now we have the cast right here. Q'Anilia of the light stands in blind darkness. Our little criminal, Master Gryph, has chosen the light. I had thought Zayne would be our one for the darkness... but it seems he is our one for the light. No matter. There is another for the darkness."
"Yes! You!" Lucien interrupted.
"No, I stand apart, ruling all," Haazen said, turning around sharply, his red lightsaber and Zayne's yellow saber ignited and held out at his sides. "My parallel armies will wield powers from both sides of the Force. Jedi and Sith, always in balance. Always in competition. And always serving my will. For I am both. I am Haazen, dutiful retainer to Krynda's Jedi Covenant. And I am also, were I to take a name like the Sith of old, Darth Hayze, for the clouds of perception I have crafted. I already have the Jedi followers I require, Lucien. The one for the darkness, YOU will train my Sith."
"What?" Lucien asked, sounding shocked.
"You shall be, what? Something for the illusions under which you have lived. Dark Luzion, perhaps? Darth Sion?" Haazen held the red saber out and floated it over to Lucien to take. "We'll decide later. Fortunately, you've had practice with the role. Gathering artifacts, searching for Sith resources to deliver to me. The Sith relic grafted to my body may have clouded my intentions, but you were only too willing to go along."
"I don't want this!" Lucien said, trying to push the saber away, but finding Haazen's control of the Force too strong to resist.
"But you'll take it. You're a Draay," Haazen said. "You take everything. Including, now, orders from me. And this lightsaber belonged to you, young Carrick." Haazen floated the saber over to Zayne, who didn't have a problem with that gift.
A distruption was caused as the rubble started to move and, finally, Q'Anilia rose. "The madness continues," she said. "Jedi dead, everywhere! But they haven't reached the compound! I've got to get to her. Got to protect..." She started rushing unsteadily toward the stairs, apparently staying on her feet from sheer dedication.
"She's looking for Krynda!" Zayne called out. "Gryph, follow her! Maybe Krynda can help us!"
As Gryph started off with Zayne following, Haazen chuckled slightly. "You're wasting your time. The acolytes will not let anyone interrupt her repose."
"NOT YOU!" Lucien yelled, bringing his red lightsaber down to block Zayne's path. "I told you before, I'm not letting you near my mother!"
*****
Gryph made his way up the stairs, watching out for any Covenant acolytes. Everyone he spotted was already dead, so he quickly realized that the number of people he had to worry about was probably down to just Q'Anilia. His attention was caught by a bouncing droid head, which at least indicated which way Q'Anilia had gone.
Sure enough, Gryph spotted her in a fancy bedroom, draping herself over a large coffin with a crystalline cover, repeating "Too late.... Too late," to herself.
"Uh, Q'Anilia?" Gryph said. "Something happened to your droid. And some people."
"They tried to keep me out," Q'Anilia said, raising her head. The bandages she normally wore over her eyes were gone, giving Gryph a horrifying view at her empty eye sockets. Most people never saw a Miraluka without their bandages. Most people were lucky. It was freaky. "But they couldn't keep me from my Lady, from my Lady Krynda...."
"This is her? You can see her?" Gryph asked, since, you know, she didn't have eyes.
"Yes. But I can't feel her," Q'Anilia said. "I'm too late. Her shining mind, her beautiful spark. I don't sense it at all. The droid said she was meditating when the stroke came. For days, she struggled to speak. Only she couldn't. The droid said their treatments, even Haazens, failed." Q'Anilia stood unsteadily, and a chalice dropped from her robes. As Gryph bent down to investigate the chalice, he noticed several empty tubes. "But I will see my Lady again, because I have my own appointment to keep. ANd I have kept it. It's all happened. The Rogue Moon Prophecy is fulfilled."
Gryph put things together quickly and rushed over to support the Jedi. "Hang on, lady! I don't know what you just drank, but this is no way to act. There's always an out!"
"This is the out," Q'Anilia said. "From a prophecy which has none. Raana Tey. Feln. Zayne has killed us all!"
"Actually, Q'Anilia?" Gryph said, giving a little shrug she probably couldn't see. "I think I did it. I blew up the Jedi Tower under Raana Tey. I stole Feln's lightsaber. And Xamar...."
"Wait, you speak madness!" Q'Anilia said. "The red spacesuit in the vision! Zayne wore it!"
"A lot of people wore it," Gryph pointed out. "Zayne, Jarael, the other Jedi guy, even me. I was looking for a place to sleep in the Last Resort, but it didn't fit." After helping Q'Anilia to the bed so she could at least die comfortably, he started playing with the chalice a little nervously. "That's the problem with you people and your prophecies. When something doesn't fit, you force it."
"I never could read you," Q'Anilia said. "But at least I know Zayne's prophecy failed! 'The one who confesses lives!' Xamar confessed and he's gone!"
"Yeah, about that," Gryph said, putting his hands behind his back humbly. "Those were my words. When we escaped Taris, we knew we'd need a long time to be able to clear our names and we were afraid you'd follow us. I suggested he scare you off."
"But... he said he would destroy us. Hunt us like...." Q'Anilia said, but she didn't have the strength to finish.
"Anybody who really knew Zayne would never have bought that," Gryph said. "If you did, after all those years, I guess you never really knew him at all. Nice play, Gryph."
Q'Anilia turned over on the bed, whispering, "I'm so sorry, my Lady. I'm so...." Befor eshe could finish the sentence, she was gone.
"Terrific. Nobody here but us corpses," Gryph said, walking over to the window, watching the bombardment continue. "Plus two if we don't do something! Hey, Krynda, I don't suppose you kept a couple of jet packs under the bed? No, that would be too...." He stopped suddenly as he finally recognized something. "Wait a minute. This crystal box. It's shaped just like that thingie back on Jebble! It's not a coffin, it's an oubliette! I think this lady's alive!"
[OOC: Adapted from Vindication Parts 2 and 3 by John Jackson Miller, Bong Dazo, and Brian Ching. And yes, I finally hit a scene without Zayne that was too important to the story to skip and/or adapt in some other way. I'm a little disappointed, but hey, them's the breaks sometimes.]
Standing apart from them was Haazen, an aide to the Covenant's leader, Krynda Draay. Haazen stood in the massive hole in the wall, overlooking the chaos after sending out an order to Covenant agents placed in strategic spots within the Jedi Order in an attempt to stage a quick coup.
Zayne dug himself out of the rubble and stared at Haazen. "Lucien, what's going on? Who is this guy?"
Lucien was already on his knees, watching in horror as his world collapsed. "Haazen. My family steward. A retainer. A flunky. You two should have a lot in common. He's a failure, too. He was a classmate of my both my parents as they rose through the ranks as Padawans. My mother was the most gifted seer the Order had seen in years. My father overcame all odds, being a captain of industry by the time he started his training, but he won over hs teachers and my mother. It wasn't long before they were Knighted and then married. Haazen was much like you. Little skill, little foresight, stumbling his way through his Trials. He was rejected."
Lucien was on his feet by now, with Zayne following him and removing his Sithly disguise to reveal his normal clothes under the robes. Lucien continued, "While my father became a legend in the Sith War, he kept Haazen as his aide. Eventually on Toprawa, they were following a lead on a smuggler who was helping the Sith cause. But it was an ambush. My father and all of his Jedi died that day. Haazen lost half his body and returned home to serve my mother. After that, she started training seers to prevent another such war from ever happening. That was how the Covenant began, with my mother always keeping an eye on the future with Haazen helping her."
"And now the future has arrived!" Haazen called out, raising his red lghtsaber to the sky as the laser barrage continued. "What do you think of your family's new investment, Lucien? When I learned Vanjervalis had a system for linking Republic cruisers under a single command, we bought the company! Then we forced their design past the admirality, slipping in a little extra feature... a direct line to me!" Haazen lowered his lightsaber and used his human hand to punch commands into a controller on his robotic hand. "The navy will figure out how to deactivate it soon enough, but it'll keep the Jedi at bay for as long as we require!"
"Wrong pronoun, Haazen!" Lucien said. "You've gone mad, and I'm going to stop you!" Lucien charged forward to strike Haazen, but before it could connect, he was thrown violently into a wall. For the moment, Zayne just watched.
"I'm surprised you didn't recognize this other addition form the Covenant's own stores of Sith relics!" Haazen said, holding up his robotic hand to show how it glowed red. "The Gauntlet of Kressh the Younger. While I have it, no one may touch me without my consent!"
Lucien rose quickly, flipping his lightsaber on. "Sith sorcery! We'll see about that!" When the lightsaber was inches from Haazen, it stopped moving and Sith lightning surged through Lucien, flinging him across the hall again.
A small assault team of Jedi smashed through a window at that moment to engage Haazen. They wouldn't last long, though, and Zayne knew where he needed to be. "Lucien!" he called as he started digging through more rubble for his former Master. "Are you--"
"Take your blasted hands off me, Zayne!" Lucien said, flinging rubble everywhere as he rose to his feet. "Haazen touched you earlier when you had your lightsaber! Why didn't you kill him then?"
"What?" Zayne asked. "I didn't know who he was!"
"That's why I would never have recommended you for Knighthood. You could never strike when you had to!" Lucien declared. "You knew Celeste Morne had become a threat, but you didn't do anything then either!"
"She hadn't done anything wrong!" Zayne countered.
"That doesn't matter. The potential danger was enough! You have to be able to strike even an innocent--"
"What, like you did?" Zayne yelled, starting to lose his temper again. "LOOK HOW THAT WORKED OUT!"
"Gentlemen, relax," Haazen said, fresh from slaughtering the Jedi team. "We're all friends here. Part of the same team. Indeed, the same future." Haazen closed his eyes and repeated a prophecy Raana Tey had told Zayne about once. "'One for the darkness. One for the light. One for the darkness stands in the light. While one from the light stands in the darkness. The last one stands apart from all.' It is Krynda's Prophecy of the Five, telling of a day when old empires fall and a new power rises. A day I have toiled long to bring about. This day!"
As Haazen strode past Lucien, Zayne, and Gryph into the courtyard, he continued, "I once thought the five masters of your circle might suit those roles, Lucien, but that changed as I perceived the role I wanted for myself. And so now we have the cast right here. Q'Anilia of the light stands in blind darkness. Our little criminal, Master Gryph, has chosen the light. I had thought Zayne would be our one for the darkness... but it seems he is our one for the light. No matter. There is another for the darkness."
"Yes! You!" Lucien interrupted.
"No, I stand apart, ruling all," Haazen said, turning around sharply, his red lightsaber and Zayne's yellow saber ignited and held out at his sides. "My parallel armies will wield powers from both sides of the Force. Jedi and Sith, always in balance. Always in competition. And always serving my will. For I am both. I am Haazen, dutiful retainer to Krynda's Jedi Covenant. And I am also, were I to take a name like the Sith of old, Darth Hayze, for the clouds of perception I have crafted. I already have the Jedi followers I require, Lucien. The one for the darkness, YOU will train my Sith."
"What?" Lucien asked, sounding shocked.
"You shall be, what? Something for the illusions under which you have lived. Dark Luzion, perhaps? Darth Sion?" Haazen held the red saber out and floated it over to Lucien to take. "We'll decide later. Fortunately, you've had practice with the role. Gathering artifacts, searching for Sith resources to deliver to me. The Sith relic grafted to my body may have clouded my intentions, but you were only too willing to go along."
"I don't want this!" Lucien said, trying to push the saber away, but finding Haazen's control of the Force too strong to resist.
"But you'll take it. You're a Draay," Haazen said. "You take everything. Including, now, orders from me. And this lightsaber belonged to you, young Carrick." Haazen floated the saber over to Zayne, who didn't have a problem with that gift.
A distruption was caused as the rubble started to move and, finally, Q'Anilia rose. "The madness continues," she said. "Jedi dead, everywhere! But they haven't reached the compound! I've got to get to her. Got to protect..." She started rushing unsteadily toward the stairs, apparently staying on her feet from sheer dedication.
"She's looking for Krynda!" Zayne called out. "Gryph, follow her! Maybe Krynda can help us!"
As Gryph started off with Zayne following, Haazen chuckled slightly. "You're wasting your time. The acolytes will not let anyone interrupt her repose."
"NOT YOU!" Lucien yelled, bringing his red lightsaber down to block Zayne's path. "I told you before, I'm not letting you near my mother!"
*****
Gryph made his way up the stairs, watching out for any Covenant acolytes. Everyone he spotted was already dead, so he quickly realized that the number of people he had to worry about was probably down to just Q'Anilia. His attention was caught by a bouncing droid head, which at least indicated which way Q'Anilia had gone.
Sure enough, Gryph spotted her in a fancy bedroom, draping herself over a large coffin with a crystalline cover, repeating "Too late.... Too late," to herself.
"Uh, Q'Anilia?" Gryph said. "Something happened to your droid. And some people."
"They tried to keep me out," Q'Anilia said, raising her head. The bandages she normally wore over her eyes were gone, giving Gryph a horrifying view at her empty eye sockets. Most people never saw a Miraluka without their bandages. Most people were lucky. It was freaky. "But they couldn't keep me from my Lady, from my Lady Krynda...."
"This is her? You can see her?" Gryph asked, since, you know, she didn't have eyes.
"Yes. But I can't feel her," Q'Anilia said. "I'm too late. Her shining mind, her beautiful spark. I don't sense it at all. The droid said she was meditating when the stroke came. For days, she struggled to speak. Only she couldn't. The droid said their treatments, even Haazens, failed." Q'Anilia stood unsteadily, and a chalice dropped from her robes. As Gryph bent down to investigate the chalice, he noticed several empty tubes. "But I will see my Lady again, because I have my own appointment to keep. ANd I have kept it. It's all happened. The Rogue Moon Prophecy is fulfilled."
Gryph put things together quickly and rushed over to support the Jedi. "Hang on, lady! I don't know what you just drank, but this is no way to act. There's always an out!"
"This is the out," Q'Anilia said. "From a prophecy which has none. Raana Tey. Feln. Zayne has killed us all!"
"Actually, Q'Anilia?" Gryph said, giving a little shrug she probably couldn't see. "I think I did it. I blew up the Jedi Tower under Raana Tey. I stole Feln's lightsaber. And Xamar...."
"Wait, you speak madness!" Q'Anilia said. "The red spacesuit in the vision! Zayne wore it!"
"A lot of people wore it," Gryph pointed out. "Zayne, Jarael, the other Jedi guy, even me. I was looking for a place to sleep in the Last Resort, but it didn't fit." After helping Q'Anilia to the bed so she could at least die comfortably, he started playing with the chalice a little nervously. "That's the problem with you people and your prophecies. When something doesn't fit, you force it."
"I never could read you," Q'Anilia said. "But at least I know Zayne's prophecy failed! 'The one who confesses lives!' Xamar confessed and he's gone!"
"Yeah, about that," Gryph said, putting his hands behind his back humbly. "Those were my words. When we escaped Taris, we knew we'd need a long time to be able to clear our names and we were afraid you'd follow us. I suggested he scare you off."
"But... he said he would destroy us. Hunt us like...." Q'Anilia said, but she didn't have the strength to finish.
"Anybody who really knew Zayne would never have bought that," Gryph said. "If you did, after all those years, I guess you never really knew him at all. Nice play, Gryph."
Q'Anilia turned over on the bed, whispering, "I'm so sorry, my Lady. I'm so...." Befor eshe could finish the sentence, she was gone.
"Terrific. Nobody here but us corpses," Gryph said, walking over to the window, watching the bombardment continue. "Plus two if we don't do something! Hey, Krynda, I don't suppose you kept a couple of jet packs under the bed? No, that would be too...." He stopped suddenly as he finally recognized something. "Wait a minute. This crystal box. It's shaped just like that thingie back on Jebble! It's not a coffin, it's an oubliette! I think this lady's alive!"
[OOC: Adapted from Vindication Parts 2 and 3 by John Jackson Miller, Bong Dazo, and Brian Ching. And yes, I finally hit a scene without Zayne that was too important to the story to skip and/or adapt in some other way. I'm a little disappointed, but hey, them's the breaks sometimes.]