Subject: [OTL]: (alt. Betsy/Star Wars) Fanged Butterfly 2: Knightcross 13/? (PG-15) From: Phil Hartman Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 06:59:21 +0000 will1@earthling.net Fanged Butterfly Vol. 2: Knightcross Chapter 13 by Phil Hartman DISCLAIMER: Marvel's are Marvel's. LFL's are LFL's. Any original characters are mine. The rest belong to their owners/creators. No money is being made off of this. Please don't sue. WARNING: More violence, a bit o'the salty language, angst, and some ... colorful imagery ... ------------------------------------------ 40 ABY: GAG Flagship Ganner Rhysode, between Taris and Bogden: Command Deck: ------------------------------------------ Labored breathing - probably a punctured lung, coming from the friend he'd wanted to protect. Continued miniature ripples tugging at his own stomach, threatening to cause dry heaves, coming from his mother. Cold, determined certainty, almost scaring the boy, coming from his father. Ben Skywalker had rarely been so centered in the Force. Now that his life - or worse, possibly his portion of the Force - were on the line for the first real time in his corporeal existence, the not-quite-14-year-old boy respected the effort it took to keep from being overwhelmed. Jori Lekauf's agonized coughing made Ben shudder, and he silently pleaded with Artoo to hurry and finish the docking bay code override. "Ben." Ben looked at his Dad, who managed a faint smile and said, "When we get inside, get your mother to the Jade Shadow. No heroics, no waiting around if something gets between us. Please?" "Yessir," Ben replied, totally without sarcasm. His parents had risked their lives to get him out of Jacen's clutches, and Ben wasn't going to ignore their sacrifice or their greater experience - or take their love for granted again. "Karkit, Skywalker, I'm almost seeing outlines! YOU get Ben and Lekauf to the Shadow!" Mom snapped, but Dad radiated that calm focus in the Force that Ben remembered ... "Mara. Love of my life. Mother of my son. We're all getting out of here, OK?" Dad said, kissing Mom's cheek. "Mas'ers - Skywalker. Leave me ... crew'll put me in ... KAF - AGK! - bacta," Jori - who was floating horizontally in a Force-grip from Ben's Dad - asked. "The crew might, Corporal, but my nephew's probably looking for a scapenerf. `Nobody gets left behind' applies to the Jedi, also," Dad said, and Ben could've hugged his Dad all over again. The airlock hatch finally opened, and the Skywalkers and Artoo started racing toward the Shadow. The Force, of course, HAD to pick that particular moment to throw a "kink," as Aunt Betsy sometimes said, into things. The flight crew were giving the escapees plenty of room when the hangar elevator for storing fighters whirred, and something ... It was like the darkside had ... gotten solid. The ... thing ... was HUGE - half the size of an adult rancor, dark brown, with spines across its back, claws that looked like they could cut durasteel, and hideous red eyes set above a fang-filled mouth in a huge head. Worse, it dripped shadows into the Force ... and for the first time ever, Ben felt his dad actually ... doubt. But only for an instant, and then the Luke Skywalker Ben knew was back, lightsaber ignited. "A terantatek," Dad said - and then Ben was afraid, because Mom - MARA JADE-SKYWALKER - was afraid. "Are you kriffing me?" Mom whispered. "Those things are pure Sith alchemy! Luke, we can't - not even Palpatine tried making terantateks! He wasn't THAT karking insane!" "Then we'll just have to see how closely Caedus followed the mixing recipe," Dad said - and that, more than anything, made Ben fear that the Jacen he knew had to be gone. Because Dad wouldn't call a relative by a Sith name if Dad hadn't given up on them ... "Go?" Ben asked Dad, and the elder Skywalker nodded - That was when the emergency blast wall sprang from the floor, separating Ben from his parents and Artoo, and Dad lost his grip on Jori, who fell with a scream of agony beside Ben. And shadows grabbed Ben's brain, as something scorched and taunting stalked toward them from the airlock. [Did you REALLY think it would be so easy?] Caedus taunted over their Force-bond - trying to twist, to warp Ben's mind, walking in with a lit lightsaber. #NO,# Ben thought - it was HIS fault they were in this mess, even if Caedus had trapped them. The boy opened himself fully to the Force, letting it rush through himself into the bond like a flood of light - - and he and Caedus screamed, as backlash caught them both, dropping them to their knees. The shadows were gone .... but the bond - [BEN! Hang on!] Ben tried to stay conscious - his nose was dripping blood, the cuts on his chest had reopened, and he couldn't focus - he couldn't hear Mom or Dad over the pounding in his head - And he was hearing Jacen. Ben looked up, then glanced over at where Patra Tebut was cradling Jori, fear and horror pouring from her as she pointed at Caedus - and Ben looked up in shock. The ... being who'd tortured him, taunted him, whom Ben's Dad had beaten down, was rising. But the pursuer was bald with pale skin. "An UMBARAN!?" Ben gasped - they were a race with advanced mental powers - if an Umbaran was a Force-user - "I will BREAK -" the Umbaran male rasped, lunging as Ben managed to get to his feet and light his lightsaber. Then the alien was caught in midair and thrown to the deck, screaming. And Ben's jaw dropped when an impossible figure limped in from the airlock, wearing a towel and holding the back of his head, a lit green lightsaber in his free hand. "Ben? Force, Bennie, are you - AH! Shavit, SECURITY, GET THAT BLAST WALL DOWN!" the new arrival ordered - Ben couldn't focus - Jacen. Looking hurt. And an UMBARAN had attacked Ben ... #Jasa's INNOCENT!?# Ben - hoped - "You - AHH!" Ben cried, dropping his lightsaber from the pain - Jacen caught him, projecting worry and love and apology. "The Umbaran jumped me in the `fresher after you and I talked - Ben, hang on! You're got a cerebral hemhorrage from Force overload - you did great, getting that karkhead out of your mind, I'm so SORRY - he attacked Aunt Mara -" Jacen tried to explain. Realization hit Ben like a speeder-truck. Then his gut and head erupted in pain together, and so did unconsciousness. --------------------------------------------- The emergency blast wall had probably saved Ben from that - thing. Unfortunately, like a lot of darkside creatures, terantateks had a disproportionate amount of speed to their size, and Luke was busy keeping alive to cut a hole in the explosion shield. "SHAVIT!" Mara snarled, a worried mother bantha reaching for her cub - she lit her lightsaber, hibernation sickness be kriffed, she wasn't going to abandon her baby now. And Luke wasn't doing too badly against that terantatek - until it managed to negate his Force-push, slipped behind him and ran a claw THROUGH his side ... "FARMBOY!" Mara - she didn't do screaming. Palpatine's training had minimized that in her. It hadn't eliminated it entirely, though. Ben pulsed with pain, shock, and blessedly, unconsciousness - but Mara had to choose. Her son or her husband. Her son was alive on the other side of the blastwall, hurt and Force knew in what kind of pain. And ... Jacen - Caedus - was with him. Her husband was laying on the deck before Mara, still trying to fight, but bleeding out from an abdominal wound with a darkside aberration looming over him. [Mara, get Luke OUT of there! I've taken out the Umbaran posing as me, I'll protect Ben!] Jacen - JACEN? - sent. [YOU CARBON-FROZE ME! I'm not trusting YOU with my son again!] Mara shot back - did he think she was stupid? But ... there was a third Force-signature on the other side of the wall - "KARK!" Mara spat as the terantatek lunged at her, claws skittering off of the blastwall and showering her with sparks. The thing grunted, frustration and hunger pouring from it. And Luke was getting weaker. "Shavit ..." Mara growled ... She reached out, quite aware she couldn't directly affect the terantatek that much with the Force. The monsters were highly resistant to direct Force attacks. Dropping a ship on them, however ... that, Mara could do. The beast spun around, as one of the shuttles came loose of its moring and Mara channeled her entire will into pulling the craft toward the terentatatek. She managed to Force-jump free of the fireball which erupted, ignoring the terantatek's howl and running to Luke. "NO - Ben - Mara, can't -" Luke panted - he was in a bad way. Probably poisoned. Terantateks were walking corruption. #And if an Umbaran DID imitate Jacen, that explains how the kriffing thing got onboard ...# Mara wanted to believe. Mustafar, she wasn't that naive. But Luke wasn't going to last long unless he got into a healing trance. "Tactical regrouping, Skywalker. This isn't over," Mara said, swearing at herself as she levitated Luke onboard the Shadow and Artoo prepared the ship for an emergency launch. No, this was NOT over. Next time, Mara was bringing the rest of the Masters' Council, as well as Luke. If Jacen, Caedus, whatever he'd turned into, wanted a war, he'd get one. And Ben was coming home. ------------------------------------------ Star System MZX32905, near Bimmiel: ------------------------------------------ Cross. Clash. Sparks of conflicting containment fields holding back light streaming to escape. And still, Elizabeth Braddock was getting nowhere against a phantom version of her worst stereotype. "DESTROY YOU!!!" the ... Darth Kwannon ... phantom shrieked shrilly, her/its lightsaber carving a crimson furrow through part of the rust-brown rock wall of the asteroid chamber as Betsy dodged. #When I lashed out at the Sabretooth-phantom, it morphed into this ... tawdry version of my post-Lady Mandarin identity,# Betsy thought, parrying another lunge from the spandex-clad, red-lightsaber-swinging Force-phantom. #The more we resist, the stronger they get ...?# She shut down her lightsaber and her Force-presence, letting herself concentrate ... and the phantom dissolved, while clapping came from the shadows. "Very good. Jacen and Ben fought the phantoms of Luke and Mara, respectively, and barely held on. Typically male response, to strike when holding back would achieve greater results," Lumiya said. "You would know about Skywalkers hitting the target," Betsy replied with ice in her tone - it had, after all, been Luke who'd shot down the Imperial spy Shira Brie during the Rebellion, leading to Shira being rebuilt by Vader into the cyborg Lumiya. If Lumiya was stung by the nettling, she was too ice-cold to let it leak into her Force presence. "Let's not mince words, then. You believe I hold answers about what happened - as you and the Jedi Council so quaintly put it - `twist Jacen.' But what IS twisted, hmm?" the cyborg said, sitting on a throne carved from rock. "The man slammed an unarmed prisoner's head into a table. He mindrubbed Ben. He's been interning Corellians -" Betsy started to rattle off - A shockwave in the Force - Ben in agony, then sudden confused hope and fear, Luke in such pain and desperation that it ate at Betsy's heart, and Mara in resigned planning for a storm of retribution - made the telepath rock on her heels. But only for an instant - - which was more than enough for Lumiya. She leapt, a moue of frustration twisting the scarf covering her mouth as Betsy countered her lightwhip with her combined lightsaber and Force-katana. "No more illusions. I end you NOW," Lumiya whispered, but Betsy just smiled. "Shira, dear, you have NO idea whom you presume to `end,'" Betsy chuckled back ... darkly. The shadows flickered, and Lumiya's eyes widened perceptibly as they spiraled toward the former X-Man - out of the Dark Lady's grasp. ~Did you REALLY think you were the only one to sense the dark power in this place? To play at illusion? To wield weapons of the mind and reinforce them with the Force?~ Lumiya heard, as Master Braddock disappeared within the shadows. Smoke. Jagged durasteel and transparisteel fragments carving her broken flesh, Skywalker laughing in her mind. Medical droids, skipping anesthetic as the prosthetics were applied, a death's-head in ebon watching her outside the bacta tank. "NO!" Lumiya - She did not scream. The Dark Lady of the Sith refused to scream. But she did feel dark, bitter fingers reaching for her mind, and knew she had lost this round. "Then see if you can master this place, Braddock. If it lets you ... and you hold to your precious principles in the process," Lumiya snapped, darting for the auxiliary hangar bay. ----------------------------------------- She EXULTED - *images of Jacen on a leash, Ben bowing to her, an army of Dark Jedi descending on Mojoworld as she prepared to take revenge on all those who'd wronged her* - and gasped, driving back the shadows before kneeling in horror. #DEAR GOD! What did I DO!?# Betsy thought, shocked at the ... depth of what had tempted her. The asteroid's darkside nexus was vastly too strong for anyone not already steeped in darkness to control. Betsy could, given time. Were she willing to become something as foul as Lumiya. #I could send phantoms anywhere in the galaxy if I desired it ... if I gave in to the night,# Betsy realized, shaking her head. She centered herself in the Force, then commed N4-EL."Neal, how's the Wing? Did a crazed cyborg try to get into it?" Betsy asked. The droid toodled a comforting negative, but Betsy wasn't taking any chances. "Activate the defense grid just in case, until I arrive. We're almost ready to leave," she said, pulling her lightsaber. Lumiya's shrouded presence was departing - a backup hangar bay. That satisfied Betsy just fine. The fight had taken a lot out of her ... and she still had questions which needed her remaining reserves to answer. Betsy sat cross-legged and meditated, holding her own against the shadows and casting her Force perceptions back in time ... She was no Longshot or Franklin Richards, but Betsy did understand the principles of retrocognition/psychometry. Essentially, she could replicate the ability to read an object's past by inverting her precognition - not easy, but doable. Usually, there was no risk, or little. But in a place where the darkside ran rampant, Betsy was going to have to be careful ... She cast her awareness outward, then reached back ... and was struck by flickers: Mining - administration. The asteroid had been both a settlement for miners in this system and a mine itself. And it had been run by a SITH. #Darth ... Vectivus ... ambitious, manipulative ... but less a tyrant than an experimentor. Lovely - more in the mold of a Plageuis or Naga Sadow than Sidious or Bane,# Betsy thought, bits of a golden-eyed figure with a garish gold lightsaber floating past. More recently: Lumiya. Finding the asteroid, discovering its secrets - Drawing in Jacen and Ben. The mission assigned to Jacen and Ben, to find the leader of the assassins at Toryaz Station five weeks earlier had led them and the Lorrdian Jedi, Nelani Dinn, to this place. Jacen had been following a tantalizing set of tassles, many of which had Sith connotations, while Ben had been glad of a distraction from his pain over how he'd stopped Centerpoint. Then, their search had led them here ... and Jacen had become not merely standoffish, but cold, and Ben had started to become the eager young cadet in the Guard. And Nelani was - [Master Braddock.] Betsy gasped - she'd never actually encountered a Force-ghost ... but there she was. "Nelani ..." Betsy whispered, opening her eyes as the tan-skinned young woman's spirit coalesced, wearing uncommon green and yellow Jedi robes and smiling sadly. What tore at Betsy's heart was the lightsaber burn hole in Nelani's chest. [You were always kind to me when you visited Ossus. I can't stay long - this place tries to drag the living and dead down into the dark side. But I can warn you: Jacen is acting on a vision. Something about, if I lived, I'd be a `deflector in the Force,'] Nelani said through the Force. "Nelani - did he - Force preserve me, did Jacen -" Betsy whispered. Lumiya's lightwhip wouldn't bore a hole in a victim's body. And Ben had been unconscious during the awful denouement of the Jedi's last visit - not that Betsy ever thought the boy could cold-bloodedly kill an innocent. [Yes,] Nelani sent, tears running down her face as she faded. [Jacen killed me. But ... he may not be lost.] And she was gone. #Oh, bloody HELL -# Betsy thought - Ben had to be rescued, NOW - And then the asteroid shook, Neal squealed across the comlink, and Betsy ran. #Proton torpedoes,# she realized, as the asteroid started to develop cracks. Time was up. #No more, Jacen,# Betsy promised herself as she used the mining car to reach the hangar bay and boarded the Angel's Wing. #It's time I ended this ...# ----------------------------------------- tbc ...