Star Wars: Dark Future

(Otoh Gunga, Naboo, Five seconds later. 21.9 BBY)

Backing in the face of my charge with raised blades and cold laughter, the arrogant Dathomiri mistook the intent behind my rush into Boss Lyonie's receiving room. Sweeping the chamber with a quick glance, the first thing I saw was a positively sinister-looking Gungan.

Between the long, two-pronged bone through Rish Loo's nose, and a permanent squint that gave him a downright shifty air I was surprised others didn't instantly pick up on, I wanted to smack myself for not recognizing him by name earlier. Other than the witch standing a couple steps in front of me, an obviously stupefied yet still shouting Gungan head-of-state was the room's only other occupant.

Coming to a sudden halt a body-length short of said witch, I glanced to my right at the regular entrance to Lyonie's room for a moment, then at the hatch on the opposite side of the room. The one Nuri had indicated led to the Boss's bedchamber. Letting out a quiet sigh of exasperation as soon as I'd done so, due to the sound of pounding feet carrying clearly even through the closed portal.

Drawing in every bit of air my lungs could possibly hold, I locked eyes with the pawn of a pawn, then, just as I allowed the air to begin escaping my lungs, I reached deep and grasped the manifestation of the only method of Force-obfuscation that had ever come naturally to me. A technique that had been researched, designed from first principles, and ultimately finished by my Master.

She had, in turn, passed the method to me on my fifteenth life-day, not long after our return from Mimban. Dark Woman had begun teaching me how to manifest and maintain the result of her studies, and with these latest teachings had come an explanation as to the Dimming's necessity.

"The intensity of your presence within the Force continues to increase far too quickly, Apprentice. I have limited the amount of time you spend in the Temple, to avoid bringing that fact to the attention of the entire Order, but you and I both know there are more dangerous watchers than Masters Piell and Rancisis. Upending the plans labored upon for so long by the Sith was an unequivocal good, but every action has its consequence.

In this case, the consequence of our helping to torch the spider's web was setting its spinner at liberty to scuttle off and spread his poison wherever else he wills," My teacher had told me, during one of the lengthy private conversations that had become increasingly common just prior to my going through the Trials.

Growing more serious than I'd ever seen her look, Dark Woman had gone on to ask me, serious as death, "Anakin, what do you imagine the foreseeable consequence of Palpatine coming to believe you represent a genuine threat to his dreams of domination sooner rather than later is likely to be?"

Seeing I understood the nature of the Sith Lord's inevitable response, she'd finally come to the point. "Fortunately, my investigation into possible solutions to this problem has finally borne fruit. Since we cannot, and would not want to, actually weaken your ability to perceive and interact with the Force, we must instead decrease your influence upon the Force in your immediate vicinity.

Doing so will muffle the echoes that propagate outwards to inform the discerning, but it will also amount to much the same thing as limiting your ability to sense and draw upon the Force in most practical respects. Still, I believe that learning how to achieve more with less raw power will, in the long run, be good for you."

Faced with my reluctant acceptance of necessity, my teacher had shown an uncharacteristic gentleness. She'd hastened to reassure me that the demands of the present were only a temporary measure. I could still remember the conviction in her voice, when she'd told me the day would come when the Dimming would cease to be necessary.

Now, feeling the self-imposed barrier that had constrained my capabilities for years finally shatter beneath the hammer-blow of my gathered will? I suddenly found myself sensing the currents of the Force which surrounded me with an acuity so exquisite, it was a joyous sort of almost-pain. My resurgent sensitivity was a trumpeting peal. A clarion call, which continued to reverberate outwards, announcing an end to my time in hiding.

Advancing a slow and very deliberate step on the Dark Sider who'd known nothing but one sort of slavery or another for most of her life, I abruptly lowered and deactivated my lightsaber with an equally deliberate series of movements, before answering the smirking assassin. My voice just loud enough to be heard over the enthralled Lyonie's continued shouting, "I'm done appealing to your better nature, Ventress.

You can either choose a new path, one that doesn't involve you supporting the monsters who just consigned the Force alone knows how many children to slow deaths by suffocation and dehydration in Coruscant's sub-levels, or else I'm here on behalf of the Force to ensure you don't proceed any further along this one."

The number of militia members responding to Lyonie's cries for help must have finally begun to oversaturate IG-1's ability to stun them, because the door leading out into the main corridor on my right began sliding open with a slight pneumatic hiss.

A flick of the fingers on my right hand, and a slight shift of my will, however, persuaded the Force's song to trill upwards in a sharp scale. Instantly, the normal lighting in Lyonie's sitting room was replaced by surprisingly blue emergency lighting cutting in, as a formidable looking bulkhead-like hatch dropped to cover the still-opening doorway.

A shrill alarm-klaxon began to sound, finally drowning out the mind-controlled Gungan leader's shouts, while another such bulkhead dropped directly behind me to seal off that doorway. A split-second later, the Force made me aware that a third and fourth such emergency-measure had descended in Lyonie's bedroom. That anti-flooding bulkhead securing both the main exit, as well as the room's concealed emergency egress."

The assassin opposite me had bunched to pounce forward as the lighting shifted, but the multiple bulkheads slamming down all around us had clearly caught her off guard, because she snarled at me, all traces of her previous haughtiness gone, "What did you just do, Skywalker?"

"Oh, you mean the tempered duranium bulkheads isolating this chamber from the rest of the city? I just accessed the city's emergency flood-control systems. Seemed prudent, to keep you and the traitor in the corner from using Lyonie's current state to worm your way out of the mess you've made. Given a couple of minutes, I'm sure you could cut your way out through the floor or ceiling.

A few minutes more, and I figure the militia will have made a decent start on cutting their way in with plasma-torches. Pity this is all going to be over in less than one," I promptly replied. Deliberately misunderstanding the now somewhat discomfited witch, because doing so was sure to rattle her.

"Whatever is the matter, Asajj? Don't like having all your possible escape-routes cut off? You didn't have any problem with your side targeting power-transmission systems that have trapped tens, if not hundreds of thousands of innocent people on sub-levels devoid of even emergency lighting.

Look on the bright side, I'm nowhere near as frightening as the packs of man-eating Cthon, undoubtedly drawn into the higher levels by all the screaming, weeping, and the pounding of those desperately trying to free themselves." I pressed in a much more pointed manner.

"That's not what I'm talking about, fool! You, you did something to the Force, just now. I would have had to be comatose, not to notice. Tell me what manner of game you're playing at, or I'll take it out of the Gungan's hide.

You're fast, but you can't get to him before I can!" The normally cold and collected assassin snapped at me. The uncontrolled anger in her voice betraying the uncertainty I could sense slipping through her shields.

Probably thinking I wasn't paying attention to him, the thin, purple-skinned Gungan "priest" had begun to edge toward Lyonie. He held a small, but rather sharp looking stiletto-like weapon pressed unobtrusively against his left thigh. Not that I'd needed to actually watch the traitor, with the Force singing across my every nerve ending like an orchestra making a command performance.

"Drop the knife and take a seat, Rish Loo. I won't ask you again," I declared, careful to keep my tone even and deliberate. The Gungan villain inched forward another half-step, but when I began to raise my hand, the knife dropped from his suddenly loose grip.

In my mind's eye, I saw the blade hit the deck plating. Almost, I could hear the discordant clatter as it finally came to rest on the floor. The impact serving as the perceived distraction that provoked Ventress into feinting toward the Gungan head of state, before coming at me from my left, both crimson blades leading.

Stepping in to the leading high-to-low, left-to-right slash of her right-hand blade, I twisted the right half of my body back and away at the last moment. Lunging low into a "U" by bending at the waist, until my head swung below my groin, I dodged the left-hand cut meant to bisect me, before finally corkscrewing my body as my upper half rose into the momentary gap between the two blades.

The palm of my left hand slammed into Ventress's breastbone like a punch from an angry Wookie. Folding Ventress forward over the point of impact, even as she was blasted backwards into a ragged stumble amid a great ooph of air escaping her shocked lungs. It was only the anger and fear she reflexively poured into her slender frame which kept her from being set down hard in the middle of the floor.

Every tiny detail of the blindingly fast exchange precisely as the Force had shown me. I'd always had a gift for this sort of immediate foresight, but this, here and now?

This was like being omniscient. Oh, there were numerous tarry streaks drifting about the room in crisscrossing non-patterns, but the contamination of the Dark Side permeating the chamber was wholly insufficient as an obstruction to my Sight went.

Watching Ventress try to draw an even breath in real-time, I announced in a tone so mild, it was almost a caricature of the term, "We can continue whenever you're ready, Asajj."

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