CHAPTER 47: THE MORTIS CALLING
POV: Kael Vorn
The visions began on the third night after the failed Senate investigation, bleeding through his sleep like whispers from a dying god. Kael found himself standing on crystalline platforms suspended in impossible space, watching monolithic structures crumble against a background of swirling cosmic energies. Three voices called to him across the void—one like sunlight made sound, another like midnight given voice, and a third that balanced between them with the weight of eons.
"The balance is breaking. The instruments we placed grow unstable. Come to us, gray seeker, before the foundations crack beyond repair."
He woke gasping, silver energy flickering around his fingers like static electricity. The Codex interface materialized in his vision without prompting, displaying coordinates that made his blood freeze.
MORTIS GATEWAY COORDINATES AVAILABLE. QUEST: DISCOVER SYSTEM ORIGIN. WARNING: EXTREME DANGER.
Mortis. Where the Force Gods died. Where Anakin faced his destiny and chose poorly.
Three more nights of identical visions followed, each more urgent than the last. The Force itself seemed to be pulling at his consciousness, demanding answers to questions he'd never thought to ask. Who created the Codex? Why did it bind to him specifically? What was his true purpose in this timeline?
"You look terrible." Ahsoka's observation carried genuine concern as she found him reviewing star charts in the sanctuary's main planning room. "When's the last time you actually slept?"
"Sleep brings dreams. Dreams bring... complications."
Ventress emerged from the children's dormitory, her expression shifting from nurturing gentleness to sharp attention as she sensed the disturbance in the Force around Kael. "The visions are getting stronger. I can feel them bleeding through your shields."
"Mortis is calling me back."
The silence that followed was heavy with implications. Both women understood the significance—Mortis was where the Force Gods had maintained cosmic balance until Anakin's interference led to their destruction. Now it was a dead realm, its power structures collapsed, its purpose unfulfilled.
"Qui-Gon would advise against this," Ahsoka said finally. "He's warned us about the dangers of that place."
"Qui-Gon isn't here. And these visions... they're not optional. Something there needs to be completed, and I'm apparently the only one who can do it."
Ventress crossed her arms, her tactical mind already working through the logistics. "If you're going, you're not going alone. That realm has a history of driving Force users insane or transforming them into things they weren't meant to be."
"I won't risk—"
"You won't survive without backup." Ahsoka's interruption carried the authority of someone who'd faced cosmic forces before. "Whatever's calling you, it's powerful enough to reach across star systems. You'll need anchors to reality."
The journey to Mortis required careful preparation. The realm existed partially outside normal space-time, accessible only through specific hyperspace coordinates that shifted based on the observer's Force sensitivity. Kael plotted their approach using data from ancient Jedi archives, hoping the coordinates remained stable despite the Force Gods' deaths.
Their shuttle translated to realspace in a region of impossible beauty and devastating emptiness. Mortis hung before them like a dream half-remembered—crystalline spires jutting from a surface that seemed to shift between solid stone and flowing energy. But where the realm had once pulsed with cosmic vitality, now it radiated only the profound silence of abandoned purpose.
"It feels... hollow." Ventress shivered despite the shuttle's climate controls. "Like walking through a tomb."
The landing was eerily peaceful. No guardians challenged their approach, no cosmic entities tested their worthiness. They set down near the central plaza where Kael remembered the Father's palace standing, but found only ruins of structures that seemed to have aged millennia in the years since the Force Gods' deaths.
"The altar." Kael pointed toward a massive stone platform that had somehow survived the realm's collapse. "That's where the Father held court. Where the balance was maintained."
As they approached the ancient structure, Kael's Codex began reacting violently. The interface flickered and sparked, displaying error messages in languages that shouldn't exist. When he placed his hand on the altar's central depression, the reaction was immediate and overwhelming.
Reality exploded into cascading information streams.
Holographic records erupted from the altar itself, projecting directly into Kael's consciousness with force that drove him to his knees. Images, data, conversations between entities that existed before recorded history—all flowing through his mind faster than conscious thought could process.
Ancient Force entities, older than the Jedi and Sith, detecting fractures in the timeline itself. Reality-breaking events threatening the very structure of existence. The decision to create insurance—tools designed to activate when the Force detected temporal catastrophes.
"Kael!" Ahsoka's voice sounded impossibly distant as the visions consumed his awareness.
The Codex wasn't created by technology or conventional Force techniques. It was woven from the Force itself—a living system designed to bind with displaced consciousnesses and provide them with tools for timeline stabilization.
His transmigration from Earth hadn't been accident or cosmic joke. It had been the triggering event that activated protocols established eons ago by entities whose names were lost to time.
The revelation hit like physical trauma. He wasn't just Kyle Ford given a second chance or Kael Vorn blessed with meta-knowledge. He was an instrument created by the Force itself, shaped and guided to prevent reality from collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.
"You understand now." The Father's voice echoed through the visions, somehow speaking despite being dead. "The Codex is not a gift. It is a responsibility. The timeline fractures, and you must choose whether to stabilize or surrender to chaos."
"But first, you must prove worthy of full authority."
The trial began without warning. Light exploded through Kael's consciousness—not the gentle illumination of normal Force energy, but the absolute radiance of perfect compassion. The Daughter's essence flooded his mind, showing him every act of kindness, every moment of love, every selfless sacrifice across the galaxy. The beauty was overwhelming, crushing in its intensity.
Then came darkness. The Son's rage crashed through his awareness like a tsunami of pure hatred, showing him every cruelty, every betrayal, every moment when beings chose selfishness over compassion. The agony was indescribable.
Light and Dark simultaneously. Perfect love and absolute hatred occupying the same space in his consciousness, threatening to tear his sanity apart from opposing directions.
"Choose," came the unified voice of the Force Gods. "Embrace one, reject the other, and remain as you are. Or accept both, balance them perfectly, and become what you were meant to be."
The choice should have been impossible. The human mind wasn't designed to contain such extremes simultaneously. But as the opposing forces threatened to shred his consciousness, Kael remembered something fundamental about the gray path.
Balance wasn't the absence of extremes. It was the presence of both, held in perfect tension.
He stopped fighting the contradiction and embraced it instead. Let the Daughter's love flow through him while simultaneously accepting the Son's rage. Felt perfect compassion and absolute hatred as equally true aspects of existence that could coexist without canceling each other out.
The transformation was agonizing and ecstatic simultaneously. Power flooded through him—not raw Force strength, but understanding. Authority over the Codex that went beyond user permissions to something approaching true partnership. He could feel the system's deeper functions activating, granting access to abilities that had been locked since his arrival in this timeline.
When awareness returned, he found himself lying on the altar with Ahsoka and Ventress kneeling beside him, their faces tight with concern.
"How long?" His voice came out hoarse, transformed somehow by whatever had occurred.
"Twenty minutes," Ahsoka replied. "You were... glowing. Silver light pouring from your skin like you'd become a Force ghost without dying."
Ventress studied his face with clinical intensity. "Your eyes flashed silver. And your Force signature..." She shook her head. "You feel different. Deeper. Like you're connected to something vast."
Kael sat up slowly, testing limbs that felt subtly different—stronger, more responsive, humming with energy that seemed to flow directly from the Force itself. The Codex interface had stabilized, but its appearance had evolved. Where once it had resembled a sophisticated computer system, now it felt like a natural extension of his consciousness.
ADMINISTRATOR ACCESS GRANTED. TEMPORAL STABILIZATION PROTOCOLS ACTIVE. NEW FUNCTIONS UNLOCKED.
As they departed Mortis, leaving the dead realm to its eternal silence, Kael processed the magnitude of what he'd learned. The gray path wasn't just a philosophical choice—it was his fundamental purpose, written into the Force itself by entities that had foreseen the need for balance agents when timeline fractures threatened reality.
But with understanding came weight. He wasn't just responsible for his own choices anymore. The stability of existence itself rested, at least partly, on his ability to maintain balance between Light and Dark.
"You're different," Ahsoka said as their shuttle entered hyperspace. "Not just more powerful. More... present. Like you're finally fully here instead of partially somewhere else."
Ventress nodded agreement. "Whatever happened on that altar, you've stopped fighting yourself. The conflict between Kyle and Kael is gone."
She was right. For the first time since awakening in Kael Vorn's body, he felt completely integrated. Kyle Ford's memories and Kael Vorn's experiences had merged into something new—a consciousness shaped by two lives but belonging fully to this one.
The Force had made him its instrument. Now he had to prove worthy of that trust.
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