Such a Quiet Thing, to Fall
Disclaimer: I don't own any material contained within this story. All copyrighted content remains the property of the person, people, or organization that holds the copyright. This story is solely for fun. Although I'm taking some artistic freedoms here, the characters and overall plot for this story are lifted from the Hellsing universe. I am, of course, adapting them to fit into the Star Wars rule book.
Timeline: This Story takes place in the ancient time of the Old Republic, thousands of years before Episode one but after the events of KOTOR 1&2.
Order 01: Welcome to Cheddar
A strawberry-blond, young woman sat near the back of the republic drop ship. She opened up her lightsaber and fiddled with the crystals within. It wasn't necessary; the crystals were already perfectly aligned. It was just a habit the young woman had developed, a habit that told her master she was nervous.
Jack got out of his seat. The drop ship was entering the planet's atmosphere now. It shook violently, but the Jedi Knight simply used his knowledge of the Force to stabilize himself as he walked over and squatted down in front of his Padawan Learner. "You are afraid."
The young woman looked up. "N-no... Not really afraid. I'm just a little bit... apprehensive. This will be my first time fighting a Sith."
Jack grinned a little. It was a kind, warm grin, the kind a father might give his child before sending them off to their first day of school. "Don't worry. You'll be fine. The Sith are not to be underestimated, but they lack unity. They are divided against each other, such is the way of the dark side. We are united. Others in the oder will always stand by us. You remember that, Seras. You are never alone. Just stick close to the rest of us, remember your training and the Code, and you'll be fine."
"Y-yes, Master." The padawan replied. Then she recited the Jedi Code in her mind. There is no emotion. There is peace. There is no ignorance. There is knowledge. There is no passion. There is serenity. There is no chaos. There is harmony. There is no death. There is the Force.
Less than an hour later, Seras was running through a patch of woods. She had no idea where she was going as she did her best to hide herself in the Force, to obscure her presence enough that the Sith casing after her couldn't track her through the Force.
It had been a trap. The Jedi had landed and been greeted by a group of planetary militia. The militia informed the Jedi that the Sith had already been dealt with. The Jedi had found that difficult to believe, but the militia had offered to show them the Sith's corpse to prove their claim. So, like lambs to the slaughter, the Jedi had followed the militia men.
They'd reached a large, barn like structure in the middle of which laid a figure dressed in traditional Sith robes. The figure had indeed appeared dead. None of the Jedi had been able to sense any life emanating from within it. So, they'd moved towards the body. But as the first Jedi to reach the body had pulled off the Sith hood, he'd seen the face beneath twist into an evil smirk. The Jedi had turned to warn the others, but he'd been to late. The militia behind them had already raised their blasters and opened fire.
The fire had cut into the Jedi, killing most before they even had a chance to raise their lightsabers. However, Jack had had a 'bad feeling' since they'd landed and had mentally warned his padawan to stay on her toes. As a result, Jack and Seras had been the only two Jedi to raise their sabers in time to block the blaster fire.
As, the not quite dead, Sith started to rise from the floor. Jack had told Seras to run. At first she'd refused to leave her master's side. But then Jack had told her that it was more important to get a message back to the council than to stay and fall beside him. Still, she'd hesitated for a moment. But when Jack shouted at her to go, and the padawan found herself obeying her master's order.
So while Jack had stayed behind to buy his padawan the time she so desperately needed, Seras had run; and she was still running. She was panting now. As a Jedi, she could normally run for hours without tiring, but trying to keep her pursuers from tracking her through the Force meant drawing on it as little as possible.
As Seras continued to run, she suddenly felt her connection to her master severed; and the padawan couldn't keep tears from forming in her eyes, for she realized that her master was gone. For the first time, since Seras was eight, she was alone, truly and completely alone. Now, the padawan was afraid.
And perhaps it was that fear which acted as a homing beacon to her pursuers, for not more than a minute after her master's death, one of the militia men leapt out of the nearby trees. Seras flicked on her lightsaber and brought it up into a striking position, it's blue light illuminating the left side of her face.
The militia man was foolish. Seras may have only been a padawan, but she could easily handle one rank and file soldier. However, the Jedi Padawan didn't get the chance to. For just as she was about to lunge at her enemy, a red beam sprouted from his chest. The soldier stood for a moment and opened his mouth as if to speak, but the only thing that came out was a small stream of blood that poured from his mouth and coated his chin before dripping to the ground below.
Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the beam retracted itself from the militia man's chest; and as the dead soldier slumped to the ground, the ebony lightsaber hilt floated back into the hand of its master. Seras stared at the new man for a moment. He was tall and broad-shouldered. His hair was dark and far too long to be so unkempt. Locks of it hung down in front of his face and swayed in the wind. He was clothed almost exclusively in red including his hat, which was oversized and almost comical in appearance; and upon his face rested a toothy grin that, even giving her present predicament, managed to further unnerve the padawan.
At first Seras could sense nothing from the man; but as she continued to stare into his shaded eyes, she began to feel... something. It was not so much a darkness, but a kind of gnawing hunger, a 'lust' intermittently mixed with pain and feelings of betrayal. It made the padawan's blood run cold. She again raised her lightsaber, having lowered it when the man's pierced through the soldier's chest. "Don't... Don't come any closer."
The man smirked. "Beautiful night... isn't it, Jedi Girl?"
"Huh?"
"It's especially beautiful, of course, if you're a creature of darkness!" At that Seras lunged at the man, and severed the arm holding his lightsaber. The man merely chuckled as if amused. Then his severed arm dissolved into an auburn mist of dark side energy, and reformed where it had been cut.
Seras saw this and her big, blue eyes grew wide. She took a few steps back and exclaimed, "You... You're not human!" Then she began running again.
Rather than chase after her, the man just watched her run and mused to himself, "Why? Would you have killed me if I was?" Then the man extended his reformed arm, and his lightsaber floated up into his hand.
Seras's legs were starting to hurt, so she slowed her pace. "I just wasn't ready for this, Jack. I.. I just can't. It's too much." Seras paused and waited for a moment. She'd been taught that there was no death; and that in times of extreme hardship, one's deceased mentors would be there to offer advice and guidance. But the padawan received no reply through the Force. So, she sighed, hung her head and continued on.
It wasn't long before the woods thinned and a large structure came into view. Seras instantly recognized it as the planet's Jedi temple. And immediately the padawan perked up slightly. The temple was where the first distress signal, the one that warned of a Sith insurgence and summoned her and the other Jedi to the planet, had come from. She could fulfill her master's last wish and get a message to the Jedi council. If she were truly lucky perhaps there might even be a few survivors left from the planet's original Jedi. Maybe the Force hadn't abandoned her after all?
But when Seras stepped through the temples closest entrance, her hopes fell away; and she reactivated her lightsaber. The place was tainted. Even the air she breathed seemed to have been corrupted by the dark side's perversions. The stench made her want to gag. But before the padawan could gag, or raise her saber, or turn to flee... or do anything at all; she felt herself being lifted from the ground.
She struggled to fight against the Force grip. But the area had become a hub of dark side energy, and it was a battle the Jedi Padawan could not win. She was pulled through the temple, into its center where a dark robed figure awaited her. Upon reaching the dark robed man, Seras stopped moving and instead merely hovered in place. "Let me go you, Schutta-spawn!"
The man holding her captive chuckled. "Schutta-spawn? What a nasty mouth you have, for a Jedi." He placed a hand under Seras's chin then trailed it downward to the bottom of her neck as he walked behind her. "But then, you aren't like most Jedi, are you? No, your emotions are too near the surface. I can sense your fear... and your anger." The man brought his nose up to Seras's hair and inhaled deeply, then brought his mouth around to her ear and whispered, "And so much, anger. You would make a fine apprentice. You have far more potential than my current one."
"I'll never turn to the dark side!!!" Seras shouted in protest.
"Oh, yes you will." The man cooed. "All that rage, you will fall... and hard. We merely need to bring it to the surface. Now, I wonder, how best we can do that." The hand that had been resting at the base of Seras's neck moved further south and the man groped her large breasts. "Such a lovely body, it's a shame it's gone to waste among the celibate Jedi."
"You try it, and I'll... I'll cut your head off. Then... Then..." Seras did her best to lift her lightsaber, but she could raise it no more than a few inches.
The man just smirked and replied, "I'm going to enjoy turning you." Then his hand grasped the top of Seras's tunic, and the man began to rip it. However, before he even tore it down to the top of her breasts, the temple's main doors burst open.
Where the sealed doors once hung, the red clothed man from before stood. "I've had enough of you, Hutt-Spawn Di'kut!"
"And who are you?" The man holding Seras asked in an arrogant tone.
"My name is Alu-card. I am but a servant of my master. And this... you filthy piece of scum... This is HER world!"
"Scum? Ha! Who do you think you're talking to? Have you lost your mind?!"
"Perhaps you're right. You are even worse than scum. You are nothing more than a chuff-sucking leech!" Alucard began to slowly advance on the man. "And just look at you, trying to pass yourself off as a Sith. Don't you have any shame? I thought di'kuts could, at least, feel shame."
The man's only response was, "I think you should die now." As if summoned by this statement over fifty militia men poured into the central chamber.
Alucard ignored the new arrivals and continued his slow advance. "You are a dwarfnut who corrupts others and relies on them to do your dirty work, an incompetent di'kut, incapable of doing anything on your own. You're not worthy of the lowest pits of Hell!"
The man turned to his corrupted followers and ordered, "Just kill him!" In response, all the militia men raised their blasters and opened fire. Alucard didn't bother going for his lightsaber. Instead, he just let the blaster fire rip him to shreds; and as his mutilated body fell to the floor, the man holding Seras captive boasted, "It looks like somebody was all talk."
The man grinned and Seras's expression fell. Even if that... Alucard 'person' was a Sith, he'd helped her once before; and he'd seemed to be the only hope left for her. But then Seras's expression brightened, and the man's changed from one of smug pleasure to fear as a disembodied, dark laughter filled the air. Reddish orange lines of energy were pulled from the various militia men and combined above the mutilated corpse which had been Alucard. Then they funneled down into it; and as the militia men dropped, their very life force drained from them, Alucard regenerated and raised himself back up.
"What?!" The shocked man exclaimed.
Alucard answered, "Shooting me isn't going to do you any good. You'll need more than blasters to kill me."
The man moved behind Seras again, activated his lightsaber and placed it against her neck. "S-stay... Stay back!"
Seras could feel the heat emanating from the violet blade as Alucard's voice invaded her mind. I'm going to kill the faker behind you. But in order to do that, I'm going to pass a bolt of lightning through your chest. I know you don't want to die tonight. Alucard half smiled as he continued, Do you want to come with me? Then he hesitated for a brief moment before finishing, I can't force you into this. The decision must be made of your own free will.
Seras thought about the question even as the 'faker' behind her babbled nonsense about joining forces and overthrowing Alucard's master. Yes, this Alucard was a Sith. Yes, Seras's masters had taught her to believe the Sith were evil. But this one... he didn't seem so evil. This was the second time he'd 'come to her rescue', and this time she had really needed it. He was a day to night difference from the 'Sith' who now held her captive, who'd wanted to rape her.
This Alucard was being honest, at least he seemed to be being honest. He'd told her exactly what he was going to do and even gave her a choice on whether or not to come with him. Sure it was a Hobson's choice, but it was a choice nonetheless. And Seras found that she really didn't want to become one with the Force, at least not yet. Besides, she could always sneak away later, right? Still, the Jedi Padawan could not quite bring herself to utter the word 'yes', not even in her own mind. Instead, she nodded her head in response.
And then... then she felt it, the Sith Lightning, a pure expression of dark side energy coursing through her entire body. It made her tingle and took her breath away. She could even sense the raw power behind it, could almost draw on that power herself. Still, it hurt... a lot.
In a moment, it was all over. And Seras found herself lying on the floor of the, onetime, Jedi temple. She could feel her life force slipping away, becoming one with the Force itself. In just a few minutes, she would be dead.
Then Alucard walked over and kneeled down beside her. He cupped her head slowly, gently, almost affectionately. "Remember that the choice was always yours, Jedi Girl." Seras tried to speak, but only managed a slight moan. Alucard continued. "Close your eyes." And Seras found herself obeying her first direct order from her new master.
(Well, what do you think? Is this worth continuing? Or should I make it a one-shot? Please let me know, thanks.
Have a good day, and God bless.
Metropolis Kid.)