The Darkening: Chapter Thirteen

You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward, art thou also dead - - dead to the World, to Heaven, and to Hope! In me didst thou exist - - and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.

As she stands over the dead body, flashes of memory come to her, a series of nightmare realizations; ones which she wishes she could wake up from. Yet as the memories of killing Kai and Corran fill her head, all she wants to do is cry.

Glancing around, she notices that no one is around, and she quickly runs back to her room, back to the Custodian.

Once there, she notices the calm, smug expression on his face. "What have you done to me?"

"Merely what you asked me to do."

"I didn't ask for you to make me kill my father or the girls from school."

The Custodian lets out a laugh. "That is not what you asked for? You asked for the power to be liked, to be accepted. I taught you how to use that power, how to take that power for yourself. You killed those others yourself"

"I don't want power. I want my daddy back."

A gnarled finger points out towards her. "This is the life that you chose Jysella. There is no turning back."

As the Custodian speaks these words, Jysella finally drops the bloody knife and sinks to her knees crying. As she kneels there sobbing, she is unaware as yet another red mist starts to ooze from the holocron, slowly approaching her.

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Ben sits at his desk, staring at a flat image of the burn pattern on Kai's head. He knows he recognizes that particular marking style from somewhere, but where just refuses to surface. Frustrated he tosses the images to the surface of the desk and stands up, just as someone knocks on his bedroom door.

He opens it to a Jysella who is smiling at him coyly. He looks her up and down, noticing that she is once more dressed in a short halter top, and skin tight pants. In her hands she is holding the puzzle box which she brought back from the Errant Venture.

He smiles at her, happy for the distraction. "Hey Jysella, how are you?"

She doesn't answer, just walks into the room, and closes the door behind her. He watches her as she carefully, almost reverentially sets the box down on his desk and then turns to him. As she stalks closer to him, he steps back, unsure of what is happening, of where this is going.

Finally she gets close enough, and tosses her arms around him, dragging their bodies together. She presses her lips against his, aggressively kissing him. At first he is surprised, shocked at what is happening.

Then he remembers that he likes this girl, and begins kissing her back.

Then he hears a ripping sound, and a sudden blast of cold air, shocks sense into him. He pulls away from her and looks down, seeing that she has ripped his shirt open. He looks up at her, as she once more has that coy smile on her lips, and she quickly lifts her halter top off.

Ben closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, calming himself. "Jysella please, put your shirt back on."

He gasps as she presses herself against him, and begins nuzzling his neck. "Don't you like me Ben?"

"Yes, I do, a lot, but this isn't how things are supposed to happen."

She moves from his neck to his ear. "If you liked me, then why wouldn't things happen like this?"

Ben takes a step back away from her, and once more closes his eyes. He takes another deep breath, focusing on that simple act. "No. This isn't how this should happen."

Then he can feel a flash of fire ripping across his chest. Looking down, he sees four long, deep furrows going down and across his chest, just beginning to ooze. He looks at Jysella's hand, still hooked into a claw shape. Then up into her eyes, and takes another step back as he sees the reds and yellows, where normally a beautiful green is.

"I thought you loved me Ben! I thought you accepted me and wanted me!"

Then she stretches out her hand, and a blast of Force lightning flows down her arm and sends him flying against the wall. Jysella lifts her saber, looking at the carefully polished silver handle. Then she activates it, and a silver blade shoots out, a silver blade with an odd reddish tint to it.

She steps forward, her face a mask of hate and pain, and stabs Ben in the stomach.

Through the burning fire in his gut, he can hear Jysella's words. "Why couldn't you love me Ben?"

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Jysella comes to walking up the steps to the Jedi Temple. Odd flickers of a memory of kissing Ben in her head. She frowns at what it all means, and begins making turns through the building on instinct. Following some sense of where she should be going.

Finally she enters the archives, but instead of heading towards Tionne's desk, she turns down the stacks, and follows a hallway that is rarely used.

Finally she comes to a heavy door, set into what appears to be the bedrock of the planet itself. Yet for all that this area of the temple appears to be rarely used, for how heavy the door appears, even though there is an advanced cipher lock attached to it, the vault door hangs open.

Jysella steps forward and pulls the heavy door towards her, throwing it open wide. Something in this room beckons her, calls to her, needs and accepts her. Without bothering to turn on the light, she steps forward, and is soothed by the glow of the numerous red lights that appears along side the walls.

She focuses on one of them, and sees a holocron with markings similar to hers. She smiles and caresses the device, feeling a surge of power as she does so. She lets out a laugh, and sits in the midst of them, allowing the power and the darkness to fill her.

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Ben wants to scream, yet he knows that will take too much energy. Energy he desperately needs if he is to save Jysella. He pushes himself up, the wound to his stomach sending waves of agony through him.

He staggers forward, catching himself before he falls. Finally he achieves balance and carefully strides from the room, picking up his saber on the way. As he slips into the speeder he closes his eyes and stretches out with the Force, trying to find Jysella.

A flash of Hapan marble fills his mind, and he turns towards the Temple, noticing the spire of Hapan marble as it stands shining in the afternoon sun. Nodding to himself, he turns on the landspeeder and pulls back on the stick, launching the speeder into the air.

Driving recklessly, he swings around traffic, not caring about his own safety, just about getting to the Temple as fast as he possibly can. Yet even as he speeds around others, he can't help but feel that he is already too late. That something irreversible has occurred.

Finally he arrives at the Temple, and he parks the speeder right in front of the steps, ignoring the looks he receives from other Jedi standing nearby. As he jumps out of the landspeeder, and the pain of his landing sends him to his knees, he finally realizes where he had seen that particular burn pattern before.

Jacen.

Most specifically, he had seen them on Jacen's head after Jysella had lobotomized him with the Force. Muttering a number of curses as he once more gets himself into a standing position, he closes his eyes, trying to sense Jysella.

After a moment of searching, he finds her presence, a silvery-line, with red highlights and a black core. Nearly crying at what he fears those colors mean, he traces the line of where she has been, and slowly walking the halls, taking what appears to be random turns.

Finally he stops and opens his eyes, his heart dropping in his chest as he stares into the black interior of the Dark Side Objects vault.