Consciousness returned like a knife dragged across raw nerves.
I opened my eyes—yellow, feral, burning—and the world was fire and rain. The battlefield around Handuin was a scorched wasteland, mud baked to cracked clay where my lightning had struck. Droid chassis—two million of them—lay in molten heaps, fused together in grotesque sculptures of slag and circuitry. Pools of cooling metal reflected the storm clouds, hissing as raindrops vaporized on contact. The nationalists' remnants—three hundred thousand souls reduced to ash and charred bone—littered the ground in blackened smears, their TB-2 repulsor tanks warped husks, repulsors melted into the earth.
The sky still crackled faintly, aftershocks of the Force storm I'd unleashed. Distant crashes echoed: Separatist ships—Lucrehulks, Munificents, Recusants—plummeting from orbit, their hulls breached by lightning dragons that had clawed them from the black. Fireballs bloomed on the horizon, marking their graves across Jabiim's tortured surface.
Clones moved through the devastation like ghosts in their modified armor—segmented plates scarred black, wrist blasters still smoking, capes tattered from the gale. Out of the initial sixty-five thousand who had landed on this mudball, only fifty thousand remained. Fifteen thousand brothers gone—KIA, MIA, vaporized in the endless grind. The survivors formed loose patrols, faces hidden behind visors, but I could feel their exhaustion through the lingering threads of Battle Meditation. Fear, too. Not of the enemy—of me.
I knelt in the epicenter, hands pressed to the ground. Ahsoka lay before me, her body still. The vibro-blade wound in her abdomen—Durge's parting gift—had sealed itself. No blood. No scar. Just smooth skin under torn fabric, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. Unconscious, but alive.
How? The Force. My Force. In that moment of rage, when the dark side had claimed me, it had poured through her—cauterizing, mending, binding her life to mine in ways I couldn't yet comprehend. She lived because I willed it. Because the darkness wouldn't let her go.
Relief warred with horror. I'd seen visions—me as Vader, choking the life from her. Yellow eyes. Feral rage. The dark side had shown me the precipice, and I'd teetered on it.
But she breathed.
A shadow fell over us.
"General?" Alpha-Seventeen—Puck—approached cautiously, DC-15 raised halfway, as if unsure if I was ally or threat. His squad fanned out behind him, securing the outer perimeter. They'd found nothing but molten metal—no survivors, no stragglers. Just the remnants of annihilation.
"Puck," I rasped, voice hoarse from screaming into the storm. My eyes—still yellow?—locked on his visor. "Report."
He hesitated, glancing at Ahsoka. "Perimeter clear, sir. No enemy contacts. The... lightning... it wiped them out. All of them. Droids fried from the inside out. Nationalists... burned to dust. Ships crashing planet-wide—sensors show at least a dozen impacts. Casualties on our side: minimal this wave. But we're down to fifty thousand effectives. Ammo low. Walkers damaged."
I nodded, pushing to my feet. The world tilted—fatigue crashing like a tidal wave. Nosebleed started again, warm copper dripping down my chin. Black spots danced in my vision.
Ahsoka stirred faintly, a groan escaping her lips. Puck knelt beside her, scanning with a medpack. "She's stable. Wound healed—like it never happened. Force miracle?"
"Something like that," I muttered.
But the battle wasn't over.
A wet, gurgling sound echoed from a nearby crater.
Durge.
The Gen'Dai bounty hunter's "corpse" stirred—melted beskar pooling around a mass of writhing tendrils. His body wasn't flesh and bone; it was a colony of living nerve cells, immortal, regenerative. Ancient as the Sith he'd slain, unkillable by blade or bolt. The lightning had burned him, fused his armor to his form, but he reformed—slowly, agonizingly. Tendrils snaked outward, pulling slag and mud into a humanoid shape. Yellow eyes—glowing slits in a charred mask—fixed on me.
"Jedi," he rasped, voice like grinding gravel. "You... burn hot. But I... endure."
He rose, seven feet of twisted horror. Beskar plates—forged from ancient Mandalorian kills—dripped like wax, exposing pulsing nerves beneath. Weapons extended from his arms: vibro-axes reforming, flamethrowers sputtering to life.
I ignited my dual lightsabers—blue and white blades humming in the rain. The dark side surged, unbidden. Welcomed.
"You should have stayed dead," I snarled.
He charged.
No words. No mercy.
His first swing—vibro-axe whistling—cleaved air where my head had been. I dodged left, Force-enhanced speed blurring me. White blade slashed across his midsection; nerves parted in a spray of bio-fluid, but they knit back instantly.
He laughed—wet, bubbling. "Immortal, fool. I've killed your kind for centuries."
Flamethrower arm ignited. A gout of fire roared toward me. I raised a hand—Force barrier deflecting it into steam. Then I closed.
Blue blade parried his axe. White stabbed forward, piercing his chest. He roared, tendrils wrapping around the hilt, trying to yank it free. I twisted, channeling lightning through the plasma—purple-black arcs crackling into his core.
He convulsed, nerves frying. But he adapted—Gen'Dai resilience shrugging off the charge. His free hand morphed into a lance, stabbing low. It grazed my side—hot pain blooming—but I ignored it.
The dark side fed on the wound. Rage amplified.
I leaped back, sabers spinning in a whirlwind. He pressed, axes whirling. Clash after clash—beskar on plasma, sparks flying in the rain. His regeneration made every cut meaningless; severed limbs reformed, burns healed mid-strike.
"You fall to the dark," he taunted. "Like the Sith I broke."
I didn't respond. Visions flashed: Ahsoka's eyes wide in horror. My reflection—yellow-eyed monster.
No more.
I poured everything into the Force. Lightning erupted—not from fingers, but from my core. Blue-white chains wrapped Durge, searing his form. He screamed—ancient agony echoing across the plain.
But he endured. Tendrils lashed out, wrapping my leg, yanking me off-balance. I crashed into mud, sabers sinking deep. He loomed over me, axe raised.
"End."
Puck's voice cut through: "General!"
Blaster fire stitched across Durge's back—wrist-mounted secondaries from the clone squad. They charged, disciplined lines breaking into a rescue push. Durge swatted one aside like a toy, clone armor crumpling.
No.
I rose, dark side roaring. "Enough."
Lightning intensified—focused, white-hot. It poured into Durge, not just shocking, but burning. Plasma-hot. His nerves sizzled, bio-fluid boiling. Beskar—unmelting Mandalorian iron—began to glow red, then white.
He thrashed. "Impossible!"
I pushed harder. The dark side gave freely—no price too high. His armor liquefied, dripping in molten streams. Nerves beneath charred black, then vaporized. Layer by layer, his immortal form eroded—centuries of hate reduced to slag.
With a final, guttural wail, Durge collapsed. What remained was a puddle of fused metal and ash, no regeneration left. Dead. Truly.
I stood over it, sabers deactivating. Rain washed the blood from my hands.
Puck approached, squad in tow. "Sir... you okay?"
I looked at him—eyes fading back to normal? Or not?
"Fine," I lied.
Ahsoka groaned again, stirring. Her eyes fluttered open—blue, clear. "Master... what happened?"
I knelt beside her. "You lived. That's what matters."
But inside, the dark side lingered. Coiled. Waiting.
The clones secured the site—fifty thousand strong, holding against the galaxy.
Jabiim wasn't done with us.
And neither was I with the dark