Before - Legends Victory - Kessel Run Challenge 2023

quite confusing. What is the flash of light? Something evil?

 

The flash was - hopefully - something opposite of evil. But time will tell.




Day -1 Hour -23

Ra'an Na'al drew her robes tightly around herself. It was risky coming to the enclave, but she had all she needed, provided the device worked. What better place to test it than where she'd felt the emptiest? The Jedi treated her like a disease. They'd told her she was mad, even as they thrust the mantle of Knight on her. Why not just spit on her and all her accomplishments since coming to this galaxy?

Another figure lingered at the entrance to the enclave. Robed, the hood was drawn over the face. "I shouldn't be seen with you," the other said. "Do what you came to do and be gone quickly."

"Never fear," Na'al replied. "Rest assured, my precious, no one will ever know I was here."

Vandar would be sleeping quietly, dreaming little dreams of kindness, peace, compassion. The private training room at the bottom of the enclave was unoccupied. It was the best place to set up the device she'd found in a long forgotten cave.

*

Vek meditated in his quarters. He never slept. It was something that had slipped away from him the last few years. He'd been here more than twenty-six years and hadn't aged a day. Now, he didn't even need to - he couldn't - sleep.

A familiar feeling came over him. It streaked through the Force. He'd... been in this position before. There was a difference in the air, but it wasn't that different. To say it was strange would have been an understatement.

The moment passed, but he didn't allow it to completely disappear. He closed his eyes and resumed his meditations, but this time he cast his essence out into the wider world. The future was there: it tugged at his sleeves like a playful hound.

*

Na'al began her incantations. If she'd deciphered Drybeam's archaic dialect, the device would suck power directly from the Force. If she'd misinterpreted the text in any way, the disaster might not leave her a moment of regret. No, there would be no regret, for she had no doubts about her interpretations. She would go out and grab what she wanted - grab it with both hands. Nothing would stand in her way.

Purple light swirled. She clapped her hands giddily. In her mind's eye, Vandar stirred a bit in his peaceful slumber. The nothing would quickly consume him, drawing his essence to the device, and to Ra'an Na'al. The Force shifted. Aspect and circumference, depth and essence coalesced just for a moment. She gazed into the promise of eternal void, spoke her request - her demand.

The device shimmered and mewled, its melodic maundering music to her ears. She felt Vandar's essence dragged from the pitiful form, sucked down and through - into the nothing. He would never know the threat as his consciousness was rent asunder.

*

Vek stood bolt upright from his position on the floor, eyes wide, searching. "The future's past," he whispered, then his legs took him to flight, out of his quarters to a destination at first unknown, and not of his own choosing. Still, when his feet stopped, he knocked heavily on the door, rather than use the call button.

It didn't take long before Vizif, wrapping herself in her robe, opened the door, her face red, her hair in a shambles. "Vek? What in the Sith hells are you doing-"

"Master," he said, not interested in the usual cat and mouse they often played. He reached out, touched her forearm. He wouldn't have done it on any other day - or night for that matter - but this was vital.

Their connection forced the feelings, the partial visions he'd been having, onto her. "What?" It was an exhale of a word, breathless and frightened. It gave Vek a chill, but it was genuine. She felt and understood things the way he did - in a very abstract way.

"This isn't the Unifying Force, or any other Force I've experienced," Vek said and his former master could only nod. "Xova is the key." Once again, though more reluctantly, she nodded. Xova had just been knighted the evening before in a typical Jedi ceremony.

Now, they both banged on the door to her new quarters, Vizif still shabbily accoutered. When Xova answered the door, lightsaber hilt in hand, she cast a confused look on her former master, and a glare on Vek. "This better not be some kind of hazing ritual, or I'll use this thing," she threatened.

"There's no time for our usual angsty banter, my young friend," Vek said as he hurried in, after Vizif led the way. "We don't have much time."

"But we have to prepare you for what's to come," Vizif said.

"O... kay," Xova said, watching them both very carefully.

 

It is evil sucking consciousness from Vandar. Great scary post

 

Yes it is. Poor Vandar didn't have much of a part in this one, and what he had... sucked.

All right. I dragged this out as long as I could. Sadly, the last post of the last story for the Kessel Run Challenge. Gonna be hard waiting 9 months to do it all again.




Day 0 Hour 0

"This is a disaster," Vizif said as the party hurried down the last corridor to the small room at the end.

The bloodied body of Tech Babry lay stretched along the wall, Administrator Lessel beside her, hands to her own throat, as if the victim of a Force choke. Vek, ever the optimist, knelt beside her, touched the side of her neck, where the carotid artery is on a Togruta. It was easy to see she was dead, but he was always looking to save everyone, while ignoring himself. Foolish ideology, Xova thought as she watched him.

The master shook her head sadly. "The entire enclave, slaughtered. Is this why we were sent on that wild porg chase?" The bodies of Knights and padawans were scattered about in the upper levels. None of the Knights were holding their lightsabers, as if they were killed before they knew what was going on.

When Vek remarked on this, Xova snarled, "It doesn't matter. We're aware of what's going on and we can end it. Or did you not notice I have my lightsaber in my hand?"

"Well and truly noted, my fellow Knight," Vek said, giving her a bow at the waist. "As to the wild porg chase, Master, perhaps whoever did this required that one or all of us be absent for their plan to come to fruition? An inside source, possibly?"

"Possibly," Vizif granted. "Did the Unifying Force tell you that, or did you just speculate yourself?" Xova's former master was still a little bitter about what he tried to do when Xova was given her test. The newly Knighted Zabrak wasn't quite as happy with Vizif's vitriol against Vek as she thought she'd have been.

And her venom hit home, for he cast his eyes to the floor and said nothing in reply. Xova guessed Vizif would get over it soon enough. It was enough that Xova had at last opened up to her master about the sexual abuse she's suffered at the hands of the sorry excuse for a man who'd raised her. Before the Jedi rescued her from that foul creature, at any rate.

Suddenly, Vek looked up from the floor, stared at Vizif. Xova's former master just as abruptly turned his way. They exchanged subtle energies that were at first dissonant. Xova didn't understand it, but the energies twisted together until they became one. As one, they both turned to Xova.

"Do you remember?" Vek asked.

"Allow the Force to guide you, my former padawan," Vizif said. They'd spoken almost at the same time, but Xova heard them both clearly.

Purple sparkling light shone from beneath the door to the private training room at the end of the corridor. A shadow slid along the length before receding. Someone was in there, all right. Xova was about to activate her blade when their words penetrated her anger, struck down into her core.

Now all three of them exchanged knowing glances. Though there were a lot of unknowns, Xova knew that something was too familiar to ignore. Whispers of keys and dichotomies filled her mind. It was all still a jumbled mass in her head, but it was there. It made her finger depress the button of her lightsaber. Blue mingled with the purple in the distance. Her anger rose and she readied herself to charge.

Vizif activated her blue blade as well. "I don't know what, or who we'll find in there, so we should remain mindful," she said. "I think we have the opportunity to rewrite a great wrong, though I'm not sure how."

"With the Force, all is possible," Vek said. His yellow blade hummed as well, the light blending well with the blue of the others' sabers. "I will endeavor to seek out the lock for our key," he said, bowing his head to Xova. She still had no idea what he meant, and at the same time, felt as though they'd had a conversation about that very thing, though it was fractious in her mind.

As they stormed into the private training room, Master Nur'rovo hung in the air, the life sucked from her frame. The soft blue flesh was sunken, tinted a light, deathly brown as her legs kicked their last, her lungs heaved one more time, her eyes rolled back into her head and she gave up the ghost.

Cackling, the mad woman behind the corpse exploded into wrath. Some infernal device stood behind her, sickly yellow strands of light connecting the master and the monster. When Nur'rovo dropped to the floor with a final thud, the villain turned her full attention to the Jedi. Carmine light screeched from her body, filling in the shadows and crevices of the room, swallowing whole the purple and yellow light that had once held sway.

"Ra'an Na'al," Vizif said. "I suspected you were involved in this somehow. You must stop this madness before it consumes you."

"Pathetic Jedi." Na'al launched the words like daggers at her foes. "Did you think I'd come crawling back to you... my old friend? Do you remember that last night, as I lay in your arms? You'd told me it was foolish to seek answers outside the Jedi, even as you made love to me. How far outside the Jedi way was that, Vizif?"

While they talked, Vek was busy, his eyes closed, the Force pouring from him a different tint than Xova was used to. It was aggressive, angry. Her own rage at the slaughter of the enclave made her feet move her forward, a snarl on her lips.

"Tsk, tsk, my precious," Na'al said. A flash of her eyes and from the device froze Xova's feet in place. It felt more than the Force holding her still, as if supra-cosmic hands had stopped her in her tracks. "Oh, you're angry with me, aren't you? Don't you worry, all that will end soon." Her words bathed in vicious sarcasm.

And then it happened. Na'al simply wasn't in the same place from one moment to the next. It was as if something - that infernal device behind her, maybe - gave her powers far beyond the natural, even supplemented by the Force.

Vek seemed to fade into the wall of the training room. He was nearly consumed, Force flowing through him like a river.

Vizif slashed and cut in every direction, instant fury filling her, augmenting her natural abilities. She used Ataru like a master with twice her experience. But it made no difference. Ra'an Na'al seemed to allow the saber strikes to flow right through her and she took no damage.

Vizif, exhausted, struck out with the Force. Na'al laughed with glee as she kicked her former love in the ribs, stealing the wind from her lungs. Vizif doubled over and Na'al slid her blade through her back, down and out through her stomach. Xova screamed, but her voice was empty. The device glowed bright red, flashed its fearsome light across the room, as if growing in its own power.

"You know what to do, Xova," Vek said as he suddenly sprang into life. He was enraged and pure, the exact opposite of his normal self. "Search your feelings," he said as he rushed toward Na'al. Rather than attack when he reached her, he stopped, waited until she fixed him with a crooked glare. It was only a momentary lapse - Na'al skewered him, drank in his Force presence as he fell to the floor.

"The Je'daii of old held greater power than we can ever understand," Na'al said. Xova felt Vizif - and Vek's - energy draining into the device. It filled Ra'an Na'al up with some kind of vicious power. Something beyond... everything Xova had ever perceived.

Juxtaposition. Dichotomy. Key. Xova let go of her anger, anger for what had happened in the enclave. Inhaling deeply, she allowed her hatred of her uncle to radiate off her, out of her, and into the Force. She stepped from the grasp that had been holding her in place as easily as taking a step. Na'al seemed consumed in her moment of victory.

Xova hurried to the device, peace and love for once flooding from her. One wish was on her mind. She made it, reached for the device.

"Foolish girl, how dare-" Ra'an Na'al screamed, but her voice turned into an echo, melted away from Xova's ears. The enclave vanished around Xova to be replaced with... the enclave. Everyone was alive.

*

Day 0 Hour +8

Vandar was there, whole and hale. They were in the arena on the main floor. Almost as one, Vandar, Vizif and Vek all swung their gaze to Xova. "What was that?" they all asked in unison. Nur'rovo and Iobat gaped at them, more oblivious to what was going on than usual.

"A key," Xova said simply. The others didn't seem to get it, but Vek - always Vek, she thought, nearly groaning - winked at her.

~fini








I don't normally do this, but not as much information was appropriate to put into the actual story, so if you want a few more details, here's a Spoiler for you. And thanks for reading. There isn't more story. Go away.

Spoiler: Notes

In her travels, Ra'an Na'al discovered a powerful artifact hidden away for nineteen thousand years, created by a former Je'daii named Carmel Drybeam, who dreamt of ultimate power and sat up on a mountain on Tython for twenty years meditating on the Light and Dark Sides until she disappeared into a series of caverns and was never seen again.

Drybeam invented the device, but perished in its first use, as she wished for ultimate power, a concept that is familiar and sought after by many, but impossible to actualize, so the device consumed her instead. Na'al, thinking she was smarter than that, wished for a way to bring the eternal void into being by playing upon the weaknesses of all beings. Vek and Vizif realized this on an abstract level, convincing Xova - the one Na'al would care least about - to release her own way of being as a way to escape her own inherent weakness, thereby nullifying the effects of the device, freeing her to touch it and make a wish of her own, which was that the device itself had never existed.

And, she's the only one who remembers precisely what happened. The memory of their deaths and what caused them was wiped from the minds of all in the enclave. And Na'al is still out there... somewhere, with other murderous plots going.

 

Yes all ends well for Xova and Vek and the enclave. Ra'an Na'al was the truly evil one. Great ending for the Kessel run and congrats

 

As a Trekker, I'm thrilled to make the connections with Things! My head is spinning, but as little Ani Skywalker says, "Spinning is always good." Congratulations on completing this story and the Run - now for particulars.

This is truly a new form of writer's lingo, like simile or onomatopoeia, because it's foreshadowing of an event that will prove important to the story, only backwards.

Chilling prose here ...

She's on the right track!

Did I say effective prose yet?

And here we have the payoff for a most intriguing use of the prompt. I'm just going to walk around outdoors for a moment to process.

 

I've been reading this as you were posting, but now that we have the whole story I went and re-read it all from the beginning – and of course, I opened two-windows side-by-side to compare the two versions of the Day 0 Hour 0 entry but more on that later – and I'm finally back for a review.

The arrival of our trio back in the Temple in D0H-1 was so typical of their relationship and tied the stories of this thread nicely together.

This is where I picture Xova thinking, "Just shut up, man, just for once."

Nice bit of foreshadowing here as to the final resolution of the situation

I loved how you made use of Vek's knowledge of the future for this fic. It makes sense, given the nature of the prompt, but you really used it to great effect.

The whole scene with Tech Babry was priceless. It's great how she managed to be soooo Tech Babry-ish and irreverent, and yet to perform her role in the plot without missing a beat.

Then...

Riiiight, she had inside help. But who's that?

And finally, the D0H0 redux. I loved all the subtle differences between the two versions, the small steps that result in a different outcome, from the moment they ignite their lightsabers to the thoughts they have or don't have the second time around and the different way they fight. In a way, this felt like it was Xova's knighthood trial, but one that was put forth by Vek to make up for the way he wronged her in her official knighthood trial. And she passed with flying colours, but...

... she hasn't got rid of Vek yet

This was a great little story, like all of those before it. Congratulations on completing the challenge and I'm looking forward to seeing these characters again.

 

Congratulations on finishing the Kessel Run!
Belated congrats, I know.

Yep, I'd say this was a great tribute to "All Good Things..." and it's a neat way to use the prompt and tell an interesting story. Your OCs are fun as always, and there's a nice mix of banter and action to keep up the pace.

But seriously, this place really needs to revamp its privacy policy.

Focus, man!

Great work as always!

 

Thanks, @earlybird-obi-wan Sadly, now I need to find someone to give me more prompts to do more writing, lol. I find it's a lot easier to churn out my rubbish when someone gives me some guidance.

Thank you! I'm glad it came across what I was trying to do. As sad as it is, All Things was one of my favorite episodes. I wonder how Patrick Stewart dealt with them reviving the old first season uniforms? He was the major reason they changed as the jumpsuit was aggravating a back injury, or some other such back pain he dealt with.

And I agree, Ani, spinning is good.

Thanks. I knew I wanted Xova to undergo a change to be how the problem was solved, as she certainly needed to mellow out a bit, lol. I'm glad you appreciated that bit of foreshadowing her change.

I can't honestly say I just wrote it the way I wanted. I asked before writing this fic if that would be an acceptable use of the prompt to not have it be a 'true' backwards narrative and was approved. I honestly don't think I would have come up with another idea in time if I'd been denied, lol. My stories just sort of... come out, whether I like the outcomes (sometimes) or not. I was afraid if it wasn't acceptable, I'd still write it and post it separately, but this was what the muse insisted on for the final entry. And she can be very... demanding. *ducks the whip*

Sweet! I'm glad you've enjoyed this.

Thanks.

Absolutely. But he never will, will he?

I appreciate the feedback, my friend. It does help to point him in the right direction.

She knows how to dissect a problem, or a brain, eh?

Heh. Heh. There's a clue in that story... somewhere, I've forgotten where now. And Loss finishes that little side story, as you'll see in 8-9 chapters or so.

She did pass with flying colours. She couldn't have done it without Vizif and Vek, but they couldn't have done it without her, either. Truly a team effort.

None of us will, I fear.

Thanks. I can't wait till the muse hits me with them again... or has she? I might have another idea already (in its embryonic stage atm)... but I have so much else going at the moment with a totally new OC crew & Springo starring little Sheev Palpatine, etc.

No worries; I know you've had a lot on your plate.

That one and any one with Q are definitely favorites. Q is so irreverent it's practically annoying.

Do you really think that would stop Tech Babry? Especially where it concerns Vek? I was personally rooting for her to give him her towel. He certainly could have used to mop up his own sweat at that.

He IS focused, lol.




Thanks to everyone who read and enjoyed all my works in this challenge. Can't wait for next year! For everyone who participated! Y'all are awesome.

 

This is one of many Kessel Runs that were really stellar, as they say, and that I meant to comment on much sooner. Superb conclusion to a Run with all sorts of different genres! The use of the backwards-narrative prompt as an actual driver of the plot was really clever and I was definitely cheering for Vek and Xova to find some way out of that rat trap of a doom-y time loop!

I really like how the elements of each successive story in this thread ended up combining to be crucial by the time it gets to the last story -- from Xova's first appearance to her very central role in helping Vek avert catastrophe in the last installment. And Aloshla, who is kind of alarming and yet so much fun to read, has also become a really enjoyable recurring character and part of the resolution. It's really fascinating to see how the various aspects of the Jedi community in this time period work (or aren't working, since there's definitely some serious dysfunction going on there from the ham-handed interpretation of the Code to the Sith-obsessed Council members and all ).

It's also great that we get some insight into Ra'an Na'al, which both illuminates and adds to the mystery; her history is definitely intriguing as it may make her a parallel to Vek in some ways. They've taken their fish-out-of-water status in the GFFA in very different directions but it seems they started not so different with the way that they were treated with wariness for their origins.