Before - Legends As the Darkness Takes Me - A Malak short story

I just finished Kotor for the 2nd time and I had to get this out of my system. So, here goes...



The dark side of the Force is a powerful and horrific tool. You can use it in so many evil and hateful ways. You can use it to reach into your enemy?s mind and understand his deepest fears?and once you understand them, you can enlarge those fears in his mind. You can create a picture of pure horror in his brain that renders him completely defenseless. He drools and screams and shouts?begging for mercy and that the image in his mind that he hasn?t seen since childhood be removed. And then you do the cruelest and most inhumane thing anyone could do. You don?t grant him his wish. You could kill him, end his life and destroy him?but instead you choose to leave him there surrounded by his greatest fears.

You can use the dark side to peel the flesh from your enemy?s bones?electrocuting him and torturing him with an incredible pain that will never be matched in all of his life. You poor your hatred into his eyes, his ears, his chest, his legs, his feet, until finally you couldn?t even recognize that he was once human.

You can use the dark side to rip the life from your enemy?s body and replenish your own strength. You can transfer whatever keeps him alive use that now soulless energy to make you a powerful beast.

I know how to perform each and every one of these acts of vengeance with ease. It is almost as natural to me as walking.

Death, torture, murder, pain, hate, evil?this is but a taste of the dark side. This is but a taste of what I have become. This is but a taste of the power that I have achieved.

And in the end, as I am about to die, I realize that all that power is pathetic compared to that which I have shunned and laughed upon all of my life. I thought myself great and powerful ? an undefeatable figure of strength and evil. Now I realize that I was wrong.

When he came confidently down that walkway and my back was turned to him, I laughed, as I had always done. Darth Revan, the master of the dark side, now converted so easily to the light had come to face me. The gizka had come to kill the fully grown rancor. Ha! He was a fool?or so I thought.

I turned. We exchanged words. I couldn?t believe that he tried to convert me to the light. I would not so easily sway from the power that he had denied. The battle began.

I knew that I would win. There was no way that he could defeat me?not with the power of the Star Forge. Finally I had the chance to show that fool what the machine could do. Behind every strike, behind every lunge, behind every moved the Star Forge fueled me, granting me a strength that none had ever or will ever know. I was like a sieve, and the Star Forge poured its energy through me.

But there was something that I noticed about Revan as I battled with him. He drew from a similar power ? one that seemed so close and yet so far away at the same time. With every attack that I brought down upon him with the fury of the dark side, he deflected easily with something unknown to me. And as we stood there, each facing one another and pushing against the other?s blade, I looked into his eyes. There I saw peace, calm, and purity. It scared me. It not only scared me, but it scared the darkness and the evilness inside of me. And what?s more is I could have sworn that it scared the Star Forge as well.

I tried to remove that image from my mind. I tried to blur it with the dark side and with my hate. But Revan?s light pierced through it like the sun piercing through shadows.

And that is where I am now?fallen, broken, and defeated. The dark side that I have held onto for so long leaves from me like a man deserting his brother in battle. I am alone. I always have been alone.

I realize that the power Revan fought with isn?t unknown to me. I have just forgotten it. It has always been there. I once wielded that power, so very long ago when I was a Jedi Knight. It was not Revan who was blind. I was blind ? blind and stupid.

 

The dark side of the Force is a powerful and horrific tool. You can use it in so many evil and hateful ways. You can use it to reach into your enemy?s mind and understand his deepest fears?and once you understand them, you can enlarge those fears in his mind. You can create a picture of pure horror in his brain that renders him completely defenseless. He drools and screams and shouts?begging for mercy and that the image in his mind that he hasn?t seen since childhood be removed. And then you do the cruelest and most inhumane thing anyone could do. You don?t grant him his wish. You could kill him, end his life and destroy him?but instead you choose to leave him there surrounded by his greatest fears.

What a great description of the Dark Side of the Force!

And that is where I am now?fallen, broken, and defeated. The dark side that I have held onto for so long leaves from me like a man deserting his brother in battle. I am alone. I always have been alone.

I realize that the power Revan fought with isn?t unknown to me. I have just forgotten it. It has always been there. I once wielded that power, so very long ago when I was a Jedi Knight. It was not Revan who was blind. I was blind ? blind and stupid.

And as I lay here, waiting for the blackness of death to take me, I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if my position had been reversed. What if fate had decreed I would be captured by the Jedi? Could I have returned to the light? If Revan had not led me down the dark path in the first place, what destiny would I have found?

Isn't it funny that those who follow the Light never seem to be asking, "What if I had followed the Dark Side?"

But, of course there is Sidious, and the only regret he seems to have is that he couldn't do more evil!

Good job!

I really enjoyed this!

Star

 

I am so glad that Star_Drifter told me about this!

That little piece of the light briefly flickers. I reach out towards it, but it is far too late. The light that I could have been flickers and dies, just like me. And in the end, as the darkness takes me?I am nothing.

Wow.



This is an amazing look at the dark side, and how it deceives those who use it. I really enjoyed it!

Ani-maniac

 

Wow...I'll never watch that ending of Kotor the same way again.

 

Star Drifter - Hey, thanks for finding this! Didn't think it would ever be looked at.

Ani-maniac- Glad you liked that part. I really wanted to focus on Malak's thoughts at his death and especially that line: As the darkness takes me...I am nothing. Thanks for reading.

LadyAngelic - Thanks for the comment. Glad to "enlighten" the Kotor experience.