Chapter 71: Plagueis Ended
A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!
Tylo makes his choice.
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Darth Plagueis’ eyes narrow as the fragment of a Sith Lord looks at him.
“… There is still much I could teach-!”
Snap-Hiss!
Tylo doesn’t hesitate. He can’t afford to. Even as he’s activating his lightsaber, he’s already bringing it up and around in a perfectly performed swing that cuts through the Sith Lord’s shade, momentarily disrupting it. Then, the lightsaber pierces through the Sith Holocron itself, chewing through the protective casing for a moment before reaching the device’s core.
An unearthly scream sounds out through the Sith Laboratory as the shade is permanently disrupted on account of the holocron being utterly destroyed. Tylo’s bright blue blade burns through Darth Plagueis’ Holocron and melts its internals down to slag, ruining the thing beyond repair, beyond recovery.
Silence falls a moment later, save for belabored breathing. It takes Tylo a moment to realize that belabored breathing is his own. It’s hard to hear over the blood pounding in his ears after all. Darth Plagueis’ last words also weigh heavily on his mind. It was obvious what the fragment was saying.
‘There is still much I could teach you.’
And the worse part was, Tylo knew Plagueis was right. He also knew that standard procedure was not to destroy Sith Holocrons on sight, but rather to secure them and ferry them back to the Jedi Temple for safekeeping in the depths of the Holocron Vault.
He certainly could have come up with a dozen excuses not to destroy the Sith Holocron. In the back of his mind, he could even admit that he HAD. For a split second, it had been tempting. But that was just it. The temptation… it wasn’t natural. It would have been perfectly logical to say that they needed to keep the holocron intact and transport it back to the Jedi Temple. And then it would have been all too easy to convince himself that he should sneak over to meet with Plagueis every night and learn all he could from the Sith Lord.
Because that was what the Dark Side did. It took seemingly innocuous thoughts and perfectly rational actions and twisted them. Corrupted them. Until it would have seemed just as logical to Tylo to bring the Jedi Order to its knees, or to do away with it and start fresh, or to go and join up with Plagueis’ apprentice to help him usher in a new Sith Empire. Palpatine. Palpatine was Darth Sidious. Fuck that was fucking ridiculous.
At his side, Aayla places a hand on his shoulder. Tylo gives his Master a look, one that she returns with a nod and a smile.
You did the right thing, Tylo. I’m proud of you.
He raises an eyebrow at that and even though he’s the one that can read minds, Aayla certainly seems to pick up on at least some of what he was thinking.
Standard operating procedures be damned. The Jedi Order has become complacent. We’ve let the Sith worm their way into the Republic, allowed them to make their way to the highest station of government. You were right to destroy Darth Plagueis’ Holocron. Nothing good could have possibly come of its continued existence.
He appreciated that. Aayla’s kind ‘words’ do a lot to settling his remaining fears. Of course, it does nothing about the Dark Side of the Force still suffused through every inch of his being. He needed to-
“No… NO! What have you DONE?!”
All of the sudden, it’s all Tylo can do to push Aayla away from him as he brings his still-lit lightsaber up to block the two burning red blades of Asajj Ventress. He meets her eyes through the red and blue glow of the blade lock and sees the rage and fear in her eyes.
Foolish damn Jedi! I could have learned so much from that Holocron! I could have been out from under Dooku’s thumb! Damn it! Damn it all!
The blade lock comes to an end a moment later with Ventress pulling away only to renew her attack. Tylo grunts as he finds himself under a full frontal assault from the Sith Assassin. He’s still steeped in the Dark Side though, able to hear not just her thoughts thanks to his mutation, but also feel her roiling emotions. She’s so… young.
Funny that. He’s pretty sure she’s actually older than him, biologically. But for all her skill and all her power, her growth has clearly been stunted. Her life has been a hard one, without the possibility of emotional maturity. And being drawn into the Dark Side has done her no favors.
That doesn’t mean she isn’t a capable fighter, however. In fact, Tylo is convinced that she might have been sandbagging at least a little bit before. Either that or Sith Lightning was her great weakness. Given how she’d reacted to it, that actually seemed more plausible than not if Tylo was being honest. But now he’s not so inclined to use Sith Lightning… and in the face of Ventress’ ferocity, Tylo is finding himself hard pressed.
The only reason he’s managing to go toe to toe with her is because of his focus on saber training all those years. Funny how a desire to bed Master Soara Antana had wound up serving him so damn well all this time later. Except… he’s not able to draw upon the full breadth of his own skill because of the aforementioned Dark Side.
The Light Side is lost to him at the moment, given how steeped in the Dark he is. And needless to say, with Darth Plagueis gone, Tylo has no desire to lean any further into the Dark Side for support than he has to. As a result… Ventress is gaining ground in this duel and she’s doing so fast. It’s all Tylo can do to keep up with her, all he can do to hold his own.
Yes! Yes! Die you Jedi bastard! Die for ruining my only chance of growing stronger! Die for making me feel such shameful pleasure! Die with the truth about Boba Fett still on your tongue!
Outwardly, Ventress is much more composed. She has a wide and wicked grin on her face, even as she pushes him back again and again.
“You should never have forsaken the Dark Side, Jedi. Giving up such power has made you WEAK.”
She’s not wrong. In this moment at least, without the Light Side and unwilling to use the Dark Side like he was before, Tylo is weak. But unfortunately for Ventress, that doesn’t really matter.
Smart enough not to give the game away verbally, Tylo just smiles as he lets Ventress push him back again. In doing so, the bald Sith doesn’t even realize she’s stepped into the exact center of the lab. In that moment, with a whirring sound, every turret in the laboratory’s main room comes back online at once, cycling out of the walls and ceiling faster than anyone could possibly react.
Tylo leaps back just as Ventress’ eyes widen in realization.
Oh shi-!
And then the lightning hits her. Wait, lightning? Tylo blinks as blue arcs of electricity instead of deadly blaster bolts come exploding out of every turret. There’s so much of it that it strikes Ventress from every direction, making the Sith Assassin shriek in pain… and something else as well. Indeed, her thoughts and vocalization are one on this as her body bucks and shakes and she… rather shamefully ends up cumming before she collapses to the ground in a smoking, unconscious heap in the center of the lab.
Slowly, Tylo turns his eyes towards Maris. He’d known the Padawan was going to come to his aid of course, but he hadn’t picked up on that last part. Maris, in turn, is staring at Ventress with wide eyes, the Zabrak clearly having not noticed how she truly reacted to Tylo’s Sith Lightning before.
… Wow. That sounded like it was really good for her. I wonder how it would…
“Maris!”
Tylo’s one-word bark pulls Maris out of her fantasizing, causing her to blush as she looks over at him.
“Ah… apologies but I thought you might want her alive. So I set the turrets to non-lethal. I guess… I guess that’s what non-lethal looks like to a Sith Lord?”
Tylo tilts his head to the side at that, regarding Ventress’ twitching, smoking form. He definitely wasn’t experiencing Lightning Envy or anything like that right now. But yes, she was probably right. That was what non-lethal looked like to a Sith Lord.
… Fuck. Now that the fight was over, it was really starting to hit him. Everything that had happened. Everything they’d learned. He needed… well, he needed to sink into a Light Side Meditation as soon as possible is what he needed to do. Of course-
“You done messing around? What did you mean, you rescued Boba from Death Watch?”
He can hardly believe he almost forgot Janga Fett. Turning to the female Mandalorian, its to find that the woman has managed to fix her prosthetic hands and leverage herself up to lean against a nearby table. From beneath her helmet, the Mandalorian probably has a very intense look directed his way.
This Jetii bastard better give me answers soon or so help me I swear I’ll kill them all, turrets be damned.
She sounds serious too. Another bomb of some sort? Well, they can’t have that. Tylo raises his hands placatingly.
“Like I said, your daughter is safe and sound and I haven’t touched her, Fett. The Jedi had nothing to do with her disappearance… it was the Sith who stole her from you in the first place.”
That causes Janga to jerk her head in shock, her thoughts tinged with surprise… but also betrayal. Because she believes him. She believes him immediately. Of course, even if he can see in her mind that she believes him, that doesn’t mean she’s going to say it out loud.
“You-!”
As has apparently become the norm sometime in the last day, there’s a new interruption before Janga can do her growly threatening demands for proof and Tylo can explain what he knows. Namely, a door off to the side suddenly cycles open, causing all of them to look in its direction. There’s a pause as the three Mandalorians that Tylo has brought with him all freeze in place for a moment, taking in the battle-scarred laboratory.
Then, Boba Fett sees Janga’s distinctive armor and her eyes widen in shock and… then anger. She immediately draws a blaster on her own mother, likely assuming that Janga is an impostor who has stolen her mother’s look or something.
Unfortunately, Boba Fett is apparently Tylo’s great weakness, because once again the little brat acts impulsively and without thinking, giving him no warning of her intentions. Fortunately, Tylo still isn’t alone… and while it had been Maris who had helped him to defeat Asajj Ventress, its Aayla Secura who acts to stop a child from potentially murdering their own mother by accident.
Boba’s blaster is ripped out of her hand by the Twi’lek Jedi Master, causing her to squawk angrily while also giving Tylo a chance to call out to her.
“It’s not an impostor, Boba! It’s the real Janga Fett!”
What? That’s impossible. My mother is dead, damn it! Stupid Jetii! Stupid tricks!
Boba bristles and clenches her hands into fists at her sides, looking like she’s working herself into quite the frenzy. But before she can launch into the sort of truly angry tirade that only a child can manage…
“… Boba?”
The voice is quiet and, Tylo realizes belatedly, not modulated. Looking back over at Janga, it’s to find that the bounty hunter has removed her helmet, revealing her features to her clone daughter. Boba stiffens, looking at Janga Fett with wide eyes.
Mama?
But even if her thoughts are tinged with hope and she wants to believe it, Boba is still reluctant to accept the truth.
“… This could be a Jetii trick. You could be a clone wearing my mother’s armor!”
Tylo covers his face with his palm at that. The Dark Side roils just beneath the surface and he decides to make a split second decision right then and there.
Bringing his hands together in a loud clap, he smiles as everyone in the laboratory looks at him.
“Alright. I’m just about done with… all of this. So I’m going to let you all talk this out without me for once, before I do something regrettable. Only rule? Leave HER alive until I say otherwise.”
He jabs a finger viciously in the direction of an unconscious Ventress. Truth be told, he doesn’t even really care if she lives or not… but he might care more once he’s expunged the Dark Side out of his system. IF he manages to expunge the Dark Side out of his system.
Not bothering to wait for anyone to actually answer him, Tylo turns and walks out of the laboratory. He feels Aayla following him but doesn’t have the heart to tell her to stay away. He probably should. He’s dangerous to her and all of them as he is now. Even back there with Janga and Boba’s reunion, he’d almost immediately wanted to just… end things. Force them to see reason. Maybe even use a little bit of the actual Force to ‘persuade’ them.
Better to remove himself from the situation altogether. Better to retreat back to the meditation chamber and… and try to get his head back on straight. Not even looking in Aayla’s direction or trying to make any effort to read the Twi’lek’s mind, Tylo goes straight to the center of the room and settles down, crossing his legs and letting his eyes drift shut.
Once touched by the Dark Side, forever would it dominate your destiny. Those were the wise words of Grandmaster Yoda. Tylo had always wondered if they were true though. After all, he’d touched the Dark Side and been touched in turn, but he’d been able to pull away.
Except that had then led him here. He’d only been able to fool the fragment of Darth Plagueis for so long because of that previous touch. And then… then, he’d gone so much further than merely touching the Dark Side. He’d practically bathed in it. Perhaps Master Yoda was right. Perhaps the Dark Side would dominate his destiny from now on.
… But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to at least try to return to the Light. Letting all of those emotions he’d tightly coiled up inside of him and dominated as Plagueis instructed out is the first step. Only, it’s also exactly when he stumbles right off the bat. Because loosening his iron grip on his emotions, letting them run rampant… it immediately makes Tylo feel everything.
He knows he needs to release them into the Force. That’s what Light Side meditation is. But knowing and actually doing are two very different things. He can’t… he can’t focus. And now that he’s no longer controlling them, his emotions are threatening to control him.
Tylo.
Aayla’s hands are suddenly holding his. Her mind radiates through his mind as she places her forehead against his forehead. Tylo’s eyes snap open and he looks into his Jedi Master’s eyes, even as she smiles at him.
I am here for you. Always and forever. Use me however you see fit.
Similar to what she’d said before, when she’d all but offered to let him kill her in order to sell their cover story and convince Plagueis of his Sith nature. But this time is very different from that. Very different indeed.
Tylo lets out a shuddering breath as he considers his options.
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