Beyond - Legends The Earth/Kesh War (LOTF AU; SW/Marvel/many others, v. Sith Tribe; 1st post 8/13)

A/N: Finally ... the beginning. My apologies that this took so long - RL's been very hectic.

This is the sequel toThe Girl Who Would Steal Mars, found here:

http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/31629712/p1/

DISCLAIMER: LFL's are LFL's. Marvel's are Marvel's. OCs are their own. Everyone else belongs to their owners. This is a work of fiction. No money is being made off of this. Please don't sue.

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What Has Come Before ...

Charles Lehnsherr, embittered teenage son of the mutant rights activist/sometimes militant Magneto - and, unbeknownst to father or son, a Force-sensitive - swept the planet Earth with a mutagenic energy wave in July 2007. In response, the mutant heroes known as the X-Men, most especially the telepath Elizabeth "Psylocke" Braddock, attacked young Lehnsherr's Antarctic base and arrested him and his followers. Elizabeth stopped Charles, but seemed to vanish through a teleportal.

On Ziost, the Force-disruption caused by the youth's outrage awoke Ship, an ancient Sith meditation sphere which once had visited Earth millennia ago. Seeking a worthy apprentice, Ship fled Ziost, narrowly evading a Galactic Alliance Guard flagship commanded by Jacen Solo, and found the lost world of Kesh - and, Vestara Khai, teenaged Sith Tyro.

Telling Vestara of Earth and its rich potential for conquest - and its location within the Unknown Regions - Ship took Vestara on as its student. The eager apprentice learned of the Madripoor Set, six space-bending gems that when used together could open vast portals in space-time. The last time the gems had been used, however, the ancient Terran continent of Atlantis had fallen ...

Undeterred by the dangers of the gems, Vestara searched Earth, making enemies of the X-Men, as well as other groups and individuals - the SG-1 field team of the Stargate Project; the Crichton clan and their houseguests; the Aurors of Britain's Ministry of Magic and their American counterparts, the Watchers Arcane of National Defense; the mysterious Ssi-ruuk warrior Shaitan; and the Force-sensitive master swordsman, Vargas, who had slain Psylocke before her restoration by the teenaged Omega-level mutant Franklin Richards.

The gems' menace could be charted through Terran occult folklore, to their first recorded use - an attempt to transfer the spirit of Terran dark-side adept A'mal F'ruk, leader of the ancient Autarchs of the Outer Dark and follower of the Bogan, into an immortal techno-organic shell. The original Order of the Phoenix, a group of light-side Atlantean Force-adepts/"wizards," partially stopped F'ruk by calling on the Phoenix Force - an avatar of the Force itself. F'ruk became a disembodied entity of psionic energy, the horrific Shadow King, who would later menace the X-Men.

Despite attempting to frame the X-Man Remy LeBeau, AKA Gambit, for murder in an Australian court, Vestara failed to stop her pursuers entirely. The X-Men were thrown off of Vestara's trail after the Chiss - at the orders of Grand Admiral Thrawn - kidnapped the mutant heroes and took them to the Fel holdings on Nirauan. Soontir claimed that Rogue, AKA Anna Marie Raven and Charles Lehnsherr's mother, was actually Soontir and Syal's daughter, and Jagged Fel's twin sister.

Before the truth could be proven one way or another, the X-Men fled, but damage to their ship's hyperdrive meant they wouldn't reach Earth for five months. They also learned of Elizabeth Braddock's true fate - she'd been thrown back in time and across space to join the New Jedi Order, at the opening of the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Vestara, seeking a place to hide, temporarily allied herself with Silri, a Nightsister of Dathomir who'd found ancient Sith troopers carbon-frozen in Siberia. However, Vestara's allies were seemingly wiped out during an orbital plasma beam strike ordered by Valerie Cooper, director of the American Commission on Superhuman Affairs.

The strike faile