I tilt my head, Zha-Korran's judgment a weight against my will. Beneath my mask, the Force draws tight behind my ribs, a held breath before the break. A guttural cry splits the silence, raw and primal. My violet saber ignites, its note a defiant hymn against the shadows. Ahsoka's white blades flare beside me, poised for war. Galen's twin sabers wake, their unstable white-blue glow carving the gloom, his breath sharp with caged fury. Shapes erupt from the murk, mercury-skinned armor shimmering, their silhouettes too fluid, as if the walls birthed them whole. The Force warns of ambush, a cold spike in my chest. My blade meets the first strike, a shimmering edge that resists my plasma. Sparks shower, the weapon's alien frequency grating against every instinct my long centuries have sharpened in me.
"Spread out!"
Shifting my stance, boots grinding wet stone underfoot.
"Do not let them flank us. Ahsoka, left. Galen, push the alley!"
Acknowledgment answers through the Force, theirs brushing mine. Ahsoka sidesteps, her twin sabers a bright wall against the dark pushing in from the alley's mouth, her movements a discipline carved by years of war. Galen dives into the fray, sabers arcing low, his strikes quick and brutal, every step a predator's calculus. My answering slash buckles its barrier and lays the torso open from flank to spine, the wound smoking shut even as it gapes, the reek of split hide and smoke sharp in the choked air. The enemy shrieks, half-metal, half-animal. I duck as a warped blade hisses past my head, its heat brushing my scalp.
"They are faster than they look."
Ahsoka spins in, intercepting the next blow with a sharp twist of her wrist, her weight already shifting to the next angle. More come, shapeshifters peeling from the walls with a hunter's grace, their evasion twisting the Force's clarity. The alley is a butcher's altar and we are the sacrifice on it, yet the Je'daii Code stirs in me, balance in all things, even in this slaughter.
A blast of unseen energy tears through a stone slab, its shards biting my shoulder, blood warm beneath my rune-etched robes. The Force falters, my foresight clouded by a haze I have not felt since Vitiate's mind-traps, the same suffocating blindness the Sith Emperor used to hold me prisoner for centuries. I spin, the Force flowing through me as I clap a hand toward its blade-arm and wrench the limb wide with the push alone. My saber follows the opening, carving a diagonal furrow from hip to shoulder, and its weapon spins into the muck while the arm hangs dead. Ahsoka's Jar'Kai is a storm of white light, her blades parrying another shimmering edge, her strikes precise.
"Hold them here! If they split us up, we're dead."
She calls, voice tight but steady. Galen snarls, clipping the legs from a shifting form with a savage sweep.
"Let them try."
I sense Ahsoka's pause, a flicker of rebellion, a gray pulse in the Force that mirrors my own balance. Galen lets the dark and light war inside him and channels it into a sudden sweep. His saber carves low, not only through the shapeshifter's thigh but igniting the air with a Force repulse that flings the enemy against the wall. As it slides he finishes it with a swift underhand thrust through its exposed back. Rakata tech, dark and alive, snares him, its filaments drawing taut. His lightning answers, frying the trap, arcs dancing across his sabers, but the swarm presses, their blades relentless, each strike a test of his redemption. The city's breath is violence, blood painting dark stone, vines burning to ash, the air reeking of split flesh and molten alloy. Older shadows move with ours, Rakata ghosts whose whispers claw at the Force. A figure lunges, its form shifting from a crouch to a scaled threat. I Force-push it into a wall, bones crunching, the impact a dull crack in the alley's throat.
The alley shrinks around us, my back brushing crumbling stone, the air crackling with every clash. For a heartbeat, time slows. Ahsoka meets my gaze, unyielding and determined, while Galen's eyes blaze with the memory of every scar. The Force moves between us, less an energy than a dialogue of warning, support, and challenge. We fight as one, a trinity of light, dark, and gray. Ahsoka's Jar'Kai guards our flanks, her movements fluid and exact. Galen's Juyo breaks their ranks, each strike carving through shifting plate with a fury that borders on art. My Niman holds the center, blending saber and Force, every motion a meditation on the balance the Je'daii died for on Tython millennia ago. A foe's strange blade grazes my thigh, its edge alive with alien power. I counter, stepping into its swing and guiding the attack past me with a Force-augmented shove. My saber cuts a crescent through its ribcage, plate and bone parting in a single pass, and I let the weight of the dying foe carry it to the floor, never breaking stride. The swarm's numbers rise against us, their forms melting into shadow, striking from angles the Force cannot trace, but our unity holds.
The alley births us onto a flooded causeway, its cortosis bridge swaying under murky water, mag-lev tracks converging on an underground station ahead. Pillars loom, their cracks weeping dust, and the Force pulses with Rakata malice, a dark side hunger woven into the stone. A shadow peels from the water, its blade slashing for Galen's back. I Force-pull him clear, my saber severing the foe's spine. He stumbles, catching his balance.
"Good save. Still trying to catch me off guard, Herald?"
His smirk is quick, vanishing beneath another parried blow. Ahsoka leaps from a broken pillar, landing beside me with silent grace.
"We need an exit. Now."
"Eyes on the mag-lev."
Glancing toward the shaking tracks.
"That is our choke point and best shot."
Ahsoka's blades spin, parrying a strike, but a pillar cracks, its collapse forcing us to leap. The causeway sways like a deck in heavy seas, vines tangling underfoot, and the ghosts whisper louder, kill or be killed. We reach a ruined plaza, toppled statues sprawled like fallen kings, their Corusca-gem eyes alive with dark side spite. Altars still pulse, their energy a lash against the swarm, weakening their strange fields. A foe shapeshifts from a statue's shadow, its blade clashing with mine, resisting my edge. Ahsoka springs off a toppled statue's flank, Ataru carrying her over the shapeshifter's guard, and brings both white blades down in a scissoring cross through its collarbone. The cut shears it open to the sternum, and it folds beneath her landing in a single twitching motion. Galen's blades carve through three more, his fury a controlled blaze. He advances, sabers whirling, and one, two, three, four more foes fall, their bodies twitching on blackened stone.
A commanding figure steps from the gloom, salamander-slick, her energy blade shimmering with the same power I've seen Shepard throw. Her slitted eyes glint, cold and certain, her scales shifting as she comes in for a kill strike.
"Your Je'daii will bleed and break, Herald. The Great Ones, I will see them rise, and the galaxy will remember it was your weakness that opened the way. You're a relic, Revan, clinging to a dead order's ashes."
I bare my teeth, saber pressed to hers.
"I have outlasted empires. You think I will fall to the likes of you!?"
The taunt stings, a thorn in my doubt, conjuring Vitiate's shadow, the Sith Emperor who broke me centuries ago, who locked me inside my own mind and played my choices back to me without mercy until I understood each one from the inside out. Am I a fracture, as she claims, or the balance I swore to uphold? I meet her blade with Niman, sparks showering as her weapon holds against mine, its alien field resisting the plasma. Her speed is a predator's, each slash surgical, and that same Vitiate-blindness rolls back over me, her psychic presence dragging a veil across my foresight I cannot shake. I parry, my violet saber a blur, but her words burrow deeper as she rebounds.
"You think you're balance? You're chaos, Herald, a fracture in the Force, leading your followers to ruin."
Her blade slashes, grazing my arm, blood sizzling on stone. Doubt claws, memories of the Jedi Civil War flashing, worlds burned, lives lost under my command, the weight of my fall as Darth Revan. I stood on the bridge of the Interdictor flagship above Malachor V and watched the Mass Shadow Generator crush the planet's surface, thousands of voices screaming through the Force before they went silent, and I told myself the math was worth it. The Force surges, Ashla's clarity cutting through the old wound, and I counter, my saber striking her shoulder, the scale there splitting and peeling back from the edge. Ahsoka's Jar'Kai spins, shielding Galen, her strikes mirroring my resolve. Galen lets his rage spill through his fingertips, lightning crackling from his hand into the nearest foe. The shapeshifter's armor warps and smokes, scales popping as the current cooks it from the inside out.
Before the corpse hits the ground his saber sweeps through the smoke, bisecting the twitching body, the stench of burnt sap sharp in the air. The plaza bleeds chaos, an altar pulsing, its dark side wave shattering a dome, debris raining over us. I Force-push a shapeshifter into a statue, stone cracking, but their leader presses, her taunt cutting deeper.
"The Je'daii fell to their own arrogance, Herald. You walk their path to extinction, and when my masters rise, your fall will make their legends look like a mercy."
My Niman weaves saber and Force, a vow to prove this foe wrong, but the blindness presses in again, her alien power a psychic snare that tests my balance. The fight spills into a dark spire, its halls a labyrinth of pulsing conduits, their dark side resonance a scream in my bones. The air burns, conduits sparking, and foes shapeshift from the walls, their blades relentless. I Force-push one off a ledge, its cry lost in the spire's din, but their leader's saber grazes my torso, blood seeping through my robes. The spire's traps flare, their arcs biting raw lines across exposed skin, and Rakata specters flicker, their forms urging blood. A foe pins Galen to a stairwell, but Ahsoka's Jar'Kai frees him, her strikes precise, a crack in her restraint I feel as harmony. My saber spins in a sudden feint, drawing the leader's blade wide. I slam my hilt into her solar plexus, knocking the wind from her lungs. With a rising arc from hip to opposite shoulder I leave a smoking furrow in her armor as she drops. Even on her knees, venom burns in her eyes. She spits blood at my boots and snarls.
"You're a shadow cast by history, Revan. My masters will erase you."
I press forward, sweeping past her as she clutches her wounds, leaving her words in my wake, blade ready for the next onslaught. Behind us, she forces herself upright and follows.
The spire opens into a marketplace, a warren of rusted stalls strangled by vines, their tangle a betrayal waiting to spring. The open center, ringed by obelisks, is a slaughter pit, chaos erupting like Mustafar's heart. An obelisk collapses, its dark side pulse shattering stone, violet arcs blistering everything they touch and weakening their alien power. A mag-lev track surges, hurling shrapnel that bites my shoulder, blood welling. Vines burst, their sap stinging my eyes, a toxic mist clouding the air. Conduits rupture, showering sparks, bleeding violet ruin as the dead pass judgment on the living. The shapeshifters swarm, their forms melting from stalls and shadow, their blades shredding everything they touch, their intentions lost to the Force.
For a breath I meet Ahsoka's gaze, sweat streaking her brow, her mouth set in a hard line.
"We stand together now or we die here."
Her tone low but unyielding. Galen bares his teeth.
"No one's dying but them."
The marketplace festers, its stalls sagging under decay, vines slithering through cracked frames. Fungal rot and scorched metal foul every breath, a staleness that clings to my robes. Ahsoka's white sabers spin, parrying a blade, its resistance sparking as she strikes again, her Jar'Kai weaving through the vines. Galen's twin blades flare, lightning pouring into a foe until it locks rigid and drops smoking. I push forward and turn its lashing blade aside with my own, then throw a pulse of the Force into its chest that slams it back against a splintering stall. Before it can peel free I pin it there with a thrust through the gut, twist, and tear the blade out sideways, dropping it in the wreckage.
The Force surges through me, Ashla and Bogan entwined in the balance I wield unbound. The specter hisses, prove your worth.
My crimson saber ignites, its howl rising to meet the violet, a whirlwind of wrath and harmony. My blades spin, Force-enhanced, carving through foes whose forms come apart in sprays of fluid and torn plate. I slam attackers into stalls, cortosis splintering, my Niman ruthless, Darth Revan reborn, if only for a moment.
The leader's saber pulses with a familiar alien resonance forcing a clash with my violet blade, unyielding in her advance.
"Your Je'daii bleed easy, Herald. Reports promised more strength. Disappointing. Your order will bow to the Great Ones."
I counter with crimson, sparks flying, my violet saber striking her barrier. Galen's lightning flares, but the leader rolls off my block and slashes for Ahsoka's throat while another foe pins Galen. Ahsoka's offhand snaps up and turns the strike aside. The dead lean in, patient and certain. My blades become a tempest born of balance, violet and crimson spinning through shrapnel, shaping the Force into a honed weapon, slamming foes flat in a straight line, borrowing one of Shepard's tricks to turn the fight in my crew's favor.
I hurl another scaled foe off Galen, his twin sabers reigniting. She lunges for my exposed side, fast, but I am faster. I pivot, my saber flicking up to meet her overreach. The blade takes her hand at the wrist. It drops with the weapon still in its grip, the stump smoking, but she barely flinches, staying upright, eyes fixed on me with naked hate. The specter leans closer, hungry for the next. The marketplace quakes, roofs sagging, shrapnel flying, an obelisk's pulse fading. Their leader staggers, spent, saber lost, her slitted eyes burning.
"You were never worthy, Herald of ruin, architect of the galaxy's extinction. The Je'daii fell for less before. You're just a shadow in their grave, and when my masters rise, the galaxy will curse you for every life they take."
She spits, blood spilling from her lips, her venom a poison in my resolve.
The city seems to pause, an expectant hush before the next storm. My senses tingle with the old, cold dread of judgment, but I stand tall. The Force is a blade and a shield, and right now I am both. The specter's whisper grows louder, we demand sacrifice. I turn to the leader, and command the Force to clamp her throat, lifting her into the air, her gasps ragged as her form writhes and her boots kick at empty space. Her eyes widen, resistance fading, and I release her, letting her crumple to her knees, gasping, broken. She looks up, blood a river from her mouth, eyes burning with hate even as the last strength bleeds out. Her final curse is a hiss through broken teeth.
"You are nothing."
I meet her glare, letting the silence thicken, the Force curling cold around my intent. My voice is a verdict, low and absolute.
"Let the Force judge us both."
I step in, sabers crossing, judgment rendered in a violet and crimson blur. Her head parts clean, tumbling across cracked stone, the scent of scorched blood lingering. Her body folds and goes still. My grip does not falter.
The specter's laugh fades, the surviving foes falter, their power dimming, and flee. We stand, blood dripping onto stone, smoke curling off the dead. Ahsoka's blades dim, her gaze steady despite the pain. Galen's sabers crackle in his underhand grip, his balance ready for more. The Rakata ghosts shift, their presence a shroud, but we hold the ground where this empire died, and the dead keep the tally. This city will never be clean.
The water is a cold grip, chest-high and thick with muck that drags at every step. The walls loom, their edges snagging the humid dark. Bioluminescent algae flickers, a fever-dream shimmer that makes the tunnel feel like a coffin one size too small. The air stinks of rot, brine, and spent plasma, heavy enough to choke a krogan. Beneath it runs a pulse, not mechanical but alive, a migraine scraping my skull like the Reaper whispers from my dreams. Zha-Korran's underbelly doesn't want us here, and it isn't shy about saying so.
"You sure this is the right way?"
I call up to Vicrul, my voice bouncing off wet stone.
He doesn't answer, just keeps moving, shoulders hunched like a man pushing through artillery fire. My boots slog through the murk, N7 armor creaking, the Wraith shotgun clipped to my lower back a familiar anchor. My omni-tool flickers, its orange glow spitting static. Vicrul trudges ahead, his black armored suit clanking, the silver phrik blade catching the algae's light. He moves like a hunter, eyes scanning the shadows, but a restless edge betrays him, the same itch I get chasing my own demons. Huyang trails, optics scanning, data-slate clutched, muttering about Rakata glyphs.
"These structure designs predate the Republic."
Half to himself, his voice dry.
"Professor, we're a little short on time for a history lesson."
Glancing back as I sweep my omni-tool in a slow arc, scanning for movement. My HUD flickers, hostile signatures popping and vanishing, the city's heartbeat hammering in my teeth.
Vicrul snorts, his helm tilting, a flicker of Wrex's battle-hardened grin in his stance. The tunnel tightens, walls closing in, water dragging my legs. A tremor shakes the stone, dust sifting, and I freeze, hand on my omni-tool.
"Vicrul, report."
He pauses, eyes scanning.
"Nothing yet…"
A skittering rises, metal on stone, and the algae dims. Vicrul's scythe snaps up, his stance low.
"Eyes up, we have movement."
Tone shifting to a combat veteran's intensity. Huyang's optics narrow, his frame tensing.
"Rakata automatons. Their cores are vulnerable, but their cortosis plating resists most attacks."
I unclip my shotgun, its weight steadying my hands.
"Short version, please, professor."
Four spider-like mechs burst from the shadows at once, core-lit eyes flickering, plated limbs slashing through the water from every side. Plasma bolts spit from their barrels. One grazes my shield while another is already past it, heat kissing my armor like a Cerberus flamethrower as I dive behind a conduit. The shotgun barks, pellets sparking off plating that will not crack. Vicrul wades into the nearest one, scythe clanging against a claw, and takes a rake across the arm for it, blood clouding the murk.
"You want a piece, come get it!"
He roars, not slowing.
"The core, Shepard! Go for the core!"
Huyang shouts, wrestling a third against the wall, servos whining, its legs still carving at him.
No time to line them up. The tunnel lights blue as my biotics surge and I charge, smashing one into the wall as Vicrul's phrik finds the core of another, the two of them dying in the same breath, oil spattering my visor. The third is already climbing Huyang's frame. I bring the shotgun around and finish it over his shoulder, and the blast paints oil and sparks across the water before the body stops twitching. The final mech lunges through the spray. Huyang catches it by two legs, swings it into the wall, and drives a fist through its exposed core. The tunnel shakes, stone groaning, a tremor from above.
"That's gotta be them up top. And it sounds like they've found something big."
Vicrul's eyes narrow, his grip tightening.
"Or something found them."
The passage narrows, water rising. My omni-tool flickers, nothing useful on its screen. Vicrul freezes, scythe raised, eyes distant, like he sees something I can't. Then it hits. A roar in my mind, not sound but presence, the same voice that haunts my dreams.
The Normandy burns, its hull splitting, Garrus's voice pleading, "Turn back, Shepard, or we're lost." Liara's eyes flicker in the flames, Tali's mask reflecting the blaze. The voice curls into a serpent's promise.
"Abandon Revan's vision, his friendship. I'll take you home, to your universe, your stars. We are not a threat, but a mercy."
It's real, a telepathic claw digging into my will, tempting me with home, my crew, a life not drowning in this galaxy's wars. I stagger, water sloshing, hand gripping a conduit. Vicrul's armored hand clamps my shoulder, his voice rough but steady.
"Pull it together, Spectre. Zha-Korran will eat the weak."
His grip anchors me, the vision fading, but the voice lingers, a splinter I can't shake. I see the same shadow in his eyes.
"You've seen something too."
He nods, helm dipping, a warrior's confession.
"It lies. Always does."
I force a breath, anchoring myself in the moment.
"Earth's gone, Garrus. I'm stuck here."
The words feel like a prayer, a lie, or both. But I keep moving, hand steady on my gun.
I fumble for my comms, omni-tool sputtering.
"Revan, you copy?"
Static crashes, then saber tones, Ahsoka's shout, a guttural cry. The signal cuts, but it's enough. They're fighting, bleeding, maybe dying. My teeth set hard, the tunnel's weight bearing down. Vicrul carves through debris, his relic-hunting instincts sharp.
"This way."
As he traces patterns along the tunnel. Huyang follows, data-slate active.
"These conduits power something close. A massive energy source."
We hit a gate, its metal frame etched with Rakata runes, the city's heart pulsing beyond. Vicrul's helm tilts, urgency sharp.
"Our exit's through there. We need to get to the others."
I hold up a hand.
"Slow down. Rushing in gets us killed before we can help them."
His eyes flash, but he nods, respect cutting the tension. My omni-tool flares, Revan's signal spiking. They're right above us. Vicrul points to a side passage.
"Hovertrain terminal, should be this way."
We slog forward, water receding, the tunnel yawning into a cavernous chamber.
The metro station sprawls, a rotting cathedral of decayed platforms, mag-lev tracks sparking and spitting, their pulse a heartbeat ready to break. The camp ahead looks abandoned, amplifiers glowing blue like Cerberus shields, holo-terminals flickering with alien glyphs. The tech is too familiar.
A shadow stirs, shifting, slitted eyes catching the torchlight, wet and yellow, biotic barriers flaring blue. From their wrists orange light flares, omni-blade edges wrapped in warp fields. They've seen us. I bring the shotgun up, its promise always the same. A smirk tugs my lip, the kind before a fight you might not walk away from. Vicrul twirls his scythe, the silver phrik blade flashing through the algae's blue haze.
"Finally, real opposition."
He mutters, a battle-hungry grin flickering. Huyang retreats, data-slate clutched, fading into the tunnel's mouth. The city tenses, as if the ghosts of lost wars lean in. Zha-Korran's pulse is a drumbeat of doom, and we are three names waiting to join the ruin.
The marketplace is a cortosis graveyard. Old stalls splintered into thousands of pieces, vines smoldering low, blood pooling on cracked stone, dark and slick. The chemical reek of dead shapeshifters hangs in the air alongside fungal rot and ash, Zha-Korran's breath a crypt's perfume. Rakata obelisks flicker, their dark side pulse a low murmur, and the silence after slaughter sits heavier than the fight itself.
Revan's violet and crimson sabers snap off, the hiss of their silence louder than the battle's end. The Zel'thar leader's head lies at his feet. Her final words hang in the decay like smoke that refuses to clear, but Revan's strike was swift, a judgment rendered without cruelty, without hesitation, the gray vow I carry in my own twin blades reflected in his crossing of violet and crimson. My grip tightens on my saber hilts, pride rising sharp as their crackling hum. I chose to follow this man. Moments like this are why.
The marketplace is ours, claimed by Je'daii and Jedi alike. For a breath, the world holds still. Only my own pulse and the rasp of battered lungs fill the air. Ahsoka's white sabers dim, her montrals rigid, a thin burn seeping ash down her lekku. Revan adjusts his rune-etched robes, mask unreadable, his silence a commander weighing the cost of victory. We are battered, bloodied, but unbroken, the Force binding us like the stained stone beneath our feet.
I kick aside debris, clip my sabers, and press a hand to my side. The wound stings, blood clotting under my coat. I pull the medi-gel from my gear, squeezing it onto the gash, and the gel cool and sharp as it knits the gash. Ahsoka's voice breaks my thought.
"What is that stuff?"
Her eyes narrow at the gel's glow, curiosity cutting through her pain.
"Shepard's magic healing tech."
Keeping my voice level, fewer words than the storm inside me.
"Fixes you faster than bacta, hits sharper than any stim."
Revan snorts, his voice a rasp.
"Effective and messy."
He pulls a vial from his robes, smears medi-gel on a graze across his torso, movements sparse. He tosses another vial to Ahsoka, who catches it, dabbing the burn on her montral, her lekku twitching as the gel works, her eyes flickering with questions.
"Messy's better than bleeding out, I guess."
A spark of camaraderie in her gaze as she seals the vial and kneels by a fallen foe, tracing the hilt of its weapon, its liquid-metal armor a dull sheen in death.
"Veiled Covenant."
Voice sharp with certainty.
"These are Zel'thar, their elite shapeshifters the computer spoke of. I fought Varnis, one of them, who shifted from human to something like this at Echo Prime. They're more than warriors, Revan, they're a warning of something greater."
Revan goes still, absorbing her words, his silence a Herald's weight.
"The Thalassian vassals…"
He murmurs, voice low, piecing together the leader's taunts about the Great Ones.
"She spoke of their rise being on the horizon. We need to know more."
A thermal detonator's roar shatters everything. Blaster fire erupts from the marketplace hovertrain terminal's entrance, the ground trembling. My twin sabers snap to life, unstable white-blue plasma crackling with the hunger I keep leashed. Ahsoka drops into guard, her white blades flaring. Revan grips his violet saber as it springs to life, stance alert.
"Someone's throwing a party."
The humor a reflex, a mask thinner than Revan's. The terminal's arch glows, rusted cortosis framing a call to war.
"We move. Now."
Revan's voice a Herald's command. Ahsoka adds, her voice iron, forged in the fight's fire.
"Agreed. Let's finish what they started."
I follow, the causeway stretching, the terminal's glow pulsing like a heartbeat. Explosions roll down the causeway, blaster fire a ragged staccato, Zha-Korran's ruin watching as we descend.
The causeway's rust flakes under our boots, a cortosis skeleton groaning as we drop into Zha-Korran's subterrain. Screeches sharp as shattered durasteel, mingled with the thunder of a shotgun I know. Shepard's Wraith. The sound of it hits me like a fist to the sternum, relief and urgency tangled together. Scorched metal and the reek of blood roll down the causeway, a killing ground's call pulling us deeper. My twin sabers hum in my grip, my blood roaring. Revan leads, his rune-etched robes catching flickers of dying light. Ahsoka's Jar'Kai stance a taut promise of ruin. The terminal's chaos is a war drum, and we are its pulse.
We weave through upper causeways, drawn by flickering blue light below. A broken platform juts overhead, overlooking a makeshift Covenant outpost, machines alive with cold blue light, holo-screens flickering with alien runes, crates strewn like a scavenger's hoard. Two shapeshifters lunge from the shadows, their slitted eyes gleaming, scaled limbs flexing under liquid-metal armor. One blurs, evading my Force sense, but I feint and lunge. My blades punch through its chest, smoke hissing off the cut, the taste of blood thick in my throat. Ahsoka's Jar'Kai deflects an enemy's blade, her sabers weaving through the hanging vines like a raptor's talons. She lets its lunge overreach, slips to its flank, and flips to a reverse Shien grip, ramming both blades back through its spine so the points break from its chest. It arches against the vines and slides off her sabers, dead before it settles. Revan shifts his weight, using the opponent's momentum against it, his saber flickering up, raking across the throat in a shallow crescent. As the enemy recoils, clutching the raw cut, he presses a palm to its chest and sends it flying with a Force push, hurling it into the path of an incoming attacker.
The others battle in the central pit, a sunken arena ringed by causeways. Shepard, Vicrul, and Huyang stand swarmed by elites in liquid-metal armor, their blades glowing blue and twisting like living things. Revan's mask tilts, his voice a low command, hard as cortosis.
"Galen, Ahsoka, sweep their left flank, cut them off! Keep Shepard and Vicrul on the right. I will carve through the center!"
His saber flares as he readies for the clash, rallying us to shatter the enemy's heart.
We leap, the Force surging cold beneath us, lifting us over the platform's edge. I land in a crouch on a lower causeway, sabers blazing, their heat warming my knuckles, their crackle sharp in my hands. Ahsoka touches down beside me, balanced on a rusted strut, Jar'Kai poised like drawn talons. Revan lands ahead, violet saber at the ready, a mythic shadow against the blue glow of the outpost's machines. The shapeshifters spin, their scaled limbs shimmering, but Shepard, fighting on a right-side platform, catches my eye.
"Way to be the one that's late this time, Marek!"
Something cracks open in my chest, a ghost of Juno's grin flickering behind my ribs, warm and aching and gone before I can hold it.
"Told you I'd end up cleaning up after you, Shepard!"
His nod from the right platform, weary but resolute, grounds me the way a brother-in-arms grounds you when the galaxy is falling apart. The terminal sprawls, a durasteel kill box where scaled armor glints under blue glow, their forms shifting like quicksilver. A foe lunges, its blade glowing inside a field that has grown all too familiar, slashing my arm. I vault past the creature's wild swing, boots skidding over fractured stone. It lashes out, but I drop my right blade low and take the leg off at the knee, and as it pitches forward I bring my left saber up to meet its falling skull, plasma splitting bone with a sharp crack. Its shriek dies in a spit of sparks, and I rip the blade free before the body lands. Ichor hisses, pooling like a dark sacrament, its reek thick and chemical.
Ahsoka flips onto the higher platform, spinning as she lands. She binds the first blow against her main blade, drives her shoulder into the shapeshifter's chest, and pitches it back into the platform railing. As it folds over the rail she opens its throat with her offhand saber, and it tips into the pit below trailing smoke. She lands beside me, breathing hard, her resolve a beacon that steadies the edge of my paranoia.
Revan storms the ramp, Niman precise, his violet saber piercing a shapeshifter's torso. A faint blood mist sprays, sealed by plasma, the body falling smoking.
"We end this now!"
He shouts, deflecting a blade's shifting arc, sparks raining. A foe slashes his leg, the wound smoking, but he counters, thrusting through its chest, the cut sealing black around the blade. The terminal rumbles, mag-lev tracks groaning, sparks flaring near the pit. On the right platform, Shepard's kinetic charge crushes a shapeshifter into a crate, cortosis splintering, his Wraith blasting its head into pulped ruin, his eyes weary but steady. Vicrul's vibro-scythe sweeps up in a brutal arc, the phrik blade splitting a Zel'thar trooper from groin to shoulder. Blood sprays across his armor, his face impassive beneath the helm. He doesn't break stride, using the dying enemy's corpse as a shield against a hail of blaster bolts before casting it aside, pressing on into the melee.
"They'll burn in the name of the Je'daii!"
Huyang emerges to grapple in the center, crushing a skull, arm sparking from a blade's cut.
"That one's form lacked precision."
Unyielding despite the damage done to his arm. A thunderous shockwave staggers Ahsoka mid-strike, pinning her against a railing. She rolls, dodging a blade's whip-like arc, sparks flying.
"Move, Marek!"
I vault over debris, sabers deflecting a shapeshifter's blade, its barrier field buzzing. The Force falters, their intent clouding my senses, but I shove it into a Rakata amplifier with a Force push. Ichor vaporizes in a blue-white flare, scales cracking and sloughing away. Ahsoka moves in a blur, sidestepping as her foe's blade hisses past her lekku. She traps the overextended arm against her crossed blades, steps through its guard, and rides both edges down its back from nape to hip. It buckles open and falls, silent but for the hiss of flesh on stone.
Shepard kicks a shapeshifter into a mag-lev track, a shimmering force shredding its torso.
"Keep 'em boxed in, don't give 'em room to breathe!"
Vicrul's vibro-scythe lays a foe's chest open to the bone, fluid hissing where the phrik passes. Huyang snaps a neck, his sparking arm steady, durasteel calm in the firefight. The others hold. My sabers hum, white-blue glow a defiant scream in the terminal's rotting gloom, but blood is the toll.
A holo-terminal flares when a scaled humanoid slams a clawed hand on the controls, and the air shudders. Mag-lev tracks spark violet, three hovertrains thundering awake, cortosis hulls gleaming black, angular and scratched with Rakata runes bleeding dark side malice. Rakata cores growl, Lehon's ancient craft a warlord's dirge. The shapeshifters break rank, some sprinting, others morphing, liquid-metal armor flowing into crates, trooper forms, quicksilver cloaking scaled limbs. They vault into cargo bays, hurling force-like pulses akin to Shepard's craft, a power alien to the Force, their intent a blank my senses cannot read.
"They flee! Push forward, do not let them vanish into the shadows!"
Revan's command rings out, his violet saber a beacon as he surges, guiding us toward Zha-Korran's portals.
"Left side! They're gaining an opening, cut them off!"
Ahsoka calls, eyes tracking foes with the sharpness of hard-earned caution.
"The amplifiers control the tracks, disable them now!"
Huyang's tone analytical. I charge, sabers spinning, Juyo all controlled fury. I cleave a crate-form foe, its armor sliding back to scale as it falls open, fluid spilling, the stench sharp as a battlefield's dregs. Mag-lev tracks spark, Rakata traps flaring, dark side arcs withering vines, conduits collapsing in violet sparks.
The first train screeches, its last car swallowing shapeshifters, armor shifting back to trooper forms. Revan leaps, Niman carving a straggler's arm, scales smoking in rune-light. Ahsoka follows, Jar'Kai parrying a glowing blade, boots denting cortosis, sap hissing on her blades. They hold the first train, a spearhead against the Covenant. The second train hums, its Rakata core a dark heart, and Shepard surges toward it, a kinetic push blasting a foe, his wrist-blade carving blood-soaked scales. Vicrul vaults a barricade after him, his scythe splitting a trooper-form foe, aura a pyre, eyes scanning ahead. Huyang advances toward the cargo car, grappling another straggler, his data-slate pinpointing controls for the train's navigation.
Revan and Ahsoka have the first train, but the second roars, another cargo car at its end. Shepard, Vicrul, and Huyang sprint across the buckling platform, eyes locked on the second train's cargo car, where the Covenant's lieutenant who signaled the retreat flees. Zel'thar stragglers swarm, force-like pulses staggering them, liquid-metal armor morphing into surroundings mid-stride, a desperate bid to block the path. I shout, sabers severing a trooper-form foe's leg, the foe crumpling lifeless, the reek of split hide and spent plasma rolling off it.
"Go! I've got you covered!"
My sabers blaze with every stroke, white-blue arcs slicing through scales and armor. Shepard's barrier shimmers, deflecting a pulse, but rusted cortosis splinters beneath him, shards biting his boots. Vicrul's scythe slashes at an enemy, a glowing blade grazing his arm, blood seeping through armor's seams, his aura a controlled blaze through the pain. Huyang's sparking arm strains, data-slate teetering as a pulse blasts him back, durasteel skidding. The train's core-hum surges, tracks screaming to life as it begins to depart, and my heart sinks.
I thumb off my sabers, white-blue plasma folding into silence as I clip them to my belt, and extend both hands. The Force surges, Ashla and Bogan entwined. I grip the second train's cargo car with the Force, clawing a leviathan of cortosis and dark-forged power, its mag-lev surge a comet's rush, the hull's groan a beast's death knell. Mag-lev tracks buckle, violet sparks showering, its Rakata core flaring like a dying star, its dark side pulse lashing my will. My arms tremble. Blood flecks my lips. Vision blurs at the edges, bruises burning beneath medi-gel's seal. Hold. They're not aboard yet. A Rakata ghost taunts, show your strength. The taunt dies in the gathering shadows. Vader's lightning, Kamino's floor, "Break it or die, boy." I broke it, I broke all of it, and I'm still here. The train shudders, rune-light stuttering across scratched crates, amplifiers, and relics. The grip's backwash fells the Zel'thar still clawing for the doors. Shepard leaps, kinetic surge carrying him aboard, wrist-blade slashing a straggler's throat, crimson spraying across the train's hull, the scaled hide gaping open, his grit a soldier's defiance. Vicrul vaults, scythe arcing, boots denting cortosis, aura scouring the air. Huyang grapples on, data-slate clutched, durasteel frame steady, wisdom anchoring chaos. Everyone is aboard. The Force pours through me white-hot and my legs are shaking and I don't care. I gather it, the surge building, and release, flinging myself forward from the platform, a slingshot through chaos. I thumb my sabers mid-air, white-blue plasma igniting with a crackling cry, unstable glow flaring, shroud billowing.
I land hard, cortosis denting, the cargo car's hold sprawling, rune-etched crates looming, amplifiers dim, relic shards glinting, shadows pooling like a trap, runes holding a portal's veiled threat. The train plunges into a tunnel, Lehon's rot receding, its hum a fading dirge.
"This train will be their grave. May Bogan's Justice be done."