Chapter Text
The flagship hummed silently under her feet, but out in the depths of space it was difficult to feel the Living Force around her. Everything felt cold and heavy, though charged with a current of electricity laced with hatred. It felt like balancing on a ledge overlooking the yawning abyss of Couruscant; behind her lay safety and certainty while one misstep would send her careening into a darkness from whence she could not return.
Falling was a real risk, especially pressed against one of the terminals, huddled against the cold metal inches from the body of a Jedi she had grown up with, trained with, all her life. She could hear the thud of heavy metal soles against the planks of the bridge, the rasping of slow, deliberate breaths through the filter of a mask, and the hum of a lightsaber, burning crimson in her memory.
“You are aware,” drawled the voice of the Dark Lord from somewhere above her and to her left, “that I can still sense you? There is no way you can hide from me, Bastila Shan. And when I find you…”
The footsteps ceased, making the sound of her heart pounding in her ears sound cacophonous. She could feel him reaching out with his senses, like dark tendrils of consciousness groping and grasping for something to hold onto, but she would give him no satisfaction.
Bastila Shan would not give up the element of surprise.
“When I find you…” The Sith continued in his deep, calm voice, resuming pacing like a restless predator. “I’ve reserved a special fate for you, young Jedi. I’m not going to kill you.”
She could feel his intent clawing at her skin, malice raising the hairs on her neck as the air grew even colder, choked with his hatred. Only the voice inside of her, small and calm, kept her centered on her Jedi training, the peaceful eye of a swirling torrent of emotion.
“Killing you would be a waste, and though I know your foolish Masters taught you that I am a monster, I am not wasteful, Bastila Shan.” He stopped, paces from her, close enough that she could feel his presence at her back. He loomed like a shadow, like a behemoth, the namesake of his flagship. “I’m going to make you see reason, Jedi. I was blind once, like you…”
In her mind’s eye, she pictured the Jedi she had known briefly as a girl, smiling and rebellious. That Jedi swayed nearly everyone he met to his way of thinking, that Jedi spoke about nobility and the pursuit of justice for the weakest members of the Republic. He was nearly impossible to reconcile with the being of darkness at her back.
Her Masters had always told her that the Dark Side was a corrosive force never to be trifled with, that it could make monsters of the greatest heroes the galaxy had ever known. She had always understood from an academic perspective what that had meant, growing up in the shadows cast by Exar Kun and Revan, but until that moment Bastila wasn’t entirely certain she really knew what they meant.
Being in his presence now was choking, overwhelming, in a way she hadn’t anticipated and hadn’t been prepared for. Bastila didn’t know if she ever could have been prepared to face a Sith, not when the bodies of her friends littered the bridge of the Behemoth and she could feel hopelessness intrude on her thoughts like a sickness.
“I can feel your fear, but you don’t have to try to suppress it, Bastila Shan.” The Sith continued, the hum of his saber growing so loud that her pulse seemed to synchronize with it. “Embrace your fear, your anger. They’re powerful tools, if you know how to use them. You would be an asset… You are a rare person. Too special for the Jedi to waste.”
His footsteps stopped, the heat from the air leeched by his presence enough of a warning for her to look up to find him looming over the terminal and staring down at her. She was reminded again of how terrible it was to face an opponent who didn’t have a face when her eyes met nothing but her own pale reflection in a black visor.
“There you are, Bastila,” he said in a voice that was almost playfully chiding. “It’s not particularly nice to hide from your future Master.”
“I’ll never serve you,” she hissed through clenched teeth, dashing away from the terminal, away from him, only to spin and face him again. “I’ll die before I give in to you, Revan.”
With a whoosh and a hum, Bastila ignited her lightsaber, the yellow of the blade reflecting off the tiles of the floor. She stared at him, trying to quell the anger that rose in her breast as she stared upon him. Attacking him in rage would give him what he wanted, and right now, not giving in was all that she cared about.
“Stubborn,” he hissed. “But it doesn’t matter. I’ve broken Jedi older and wiser than you. I know how to peer into your mind…” His lightsaber arced into the terminal where she had stood only moments before, sending sparks flying, a demonstration of his power.
“I can dismantle you…” Revan advanced on her, the black shadow that stretched from the feet of the Jedi Order.
“Rebuild you in my image until you wonder what you ever saw in the Light. But don’t worry… you’ll learn how to use the pain I inflict… You’ll learn how liberating this can be.” He outstretched his left hand, and Bastila felt his power grasp her so firmly it nearly bruised as it dragged her forward, though she resisted with all her might.
“They didn’t send you prepared, Bastila Shan. They sent you to die. I am the Dark Lord of the Sith. I am Darth Revan.” Bastila momentarily struggled with her terror as she drew ever closer, the absolute certainty in his voice unnerving her more than any furious outburst could have.
“But I am merciful, and if you bow to me…” He began to force her to her knees, staring down at her from a dizzying height. “Then the entire world will throw itself at your feet. You never have to be someone else’s puppet again.”
“You’re lying,” she hissed through clenched teeth, pushing back at him while he monologued, enough to catch him off guard and break his hold. “I know what you are, Sith .”
“Is that all the Jedi taught you?” he said with a belabored sigh, launching himself at her to try to bring his blade down on her wrist, a move she barely sidestepped.
“You don’t know the power that the Dark Side offers, but you…” Another slash came down near her arm, which she was forced to parry with one blade of her saberstaff.
“Will..” Bastila twisted her body to avoid a glancing blow as he leaped into the air, arching gracefully over her head.
“Learn!” She spun, turning to face him as he charged her again, herding her away from the front of the Bridge toward the wall, where he could corner her.
Bastila glanced around frantically when she could spare him her attention, looking for a way out. If he backed her against that wall, he would incapacitate her and drag her from this ship alive, a fate worse than that her friends had already met. They were one with the Force, and Darth Revan couldn’t harm them now, but here on the bridge, the threat he presented to her was still very real.
He was right in one thing and one thing alone -- Jedi far older and wiser than her had cracked underneath his torture and fallen at his feet to beg his mercy and pledge their allegiance to his cause.
Suddenly, it occurred to Bastila that there was yet one way to freedom, perhaps one way to defeat him and bring him to his knees. She felt the Force stir in her, calmness like she had never felt before falling over her like a shroud as she outstretched one hand to push him back and away from her. If she could just gain some ground--!
Revan went flying, but so did Bastila as a sudden fiery blast shook the ship beneath her feet and sent her tumbling to the ground. The bridge exploded with orange and red light, claxons blazing in the distance as the light flickered and smoke nearly choked her. It took several moments and another volley of fire on the bridge until the ship stopped shaking and the emergency generators switched on the auxiliary lights.
The sudden heat after the cold of Revan’s presence was disorienting enough even without the chaos that she had to use the wall to brace herself as she stood. It took her several minutes to process what had happened as she stared out into the dimly lit bridge of the mighty Behemoth, listening to the distant alarms blaring and a rasping noise that she couldn't quite place until her eyes fell upon the prone body of the Dark Lord buried underneath two flaming durasteel beams.
Momentarily panicked, it took Bastila another moment before she could center herself and suffocate the flames using the Force, moving the beams away from him with her mind. His breathing was growing progressively more shallow, and she could see blood pooling from some unknown point beneath his body.
Though still unstable, Bastila rushed forward to throw herself to her knees at his side. His head turned, and she sensed he was looking at her, though he didn’t seem to be able to speak or she suspected he wouldn’t have shut up. Her certainly hadn’t stopped talking the entire time she had been here.
“I didn’t come all this way to capture you,” Bastila said, searching for the clasps of his mask so she could better see the face of her patient, “just for you to die on me now!”
She found the release and nearly tossed the mask into the rubble beside her, hesitating a moment before tucking it gingerly into the folds of her robes, though she wasn’t certain what compelled her to keep it. She had never taken a trophy before, but for some reason, leaving his mask here on the bridge didn’t feel right. Bastila refused to ignore such an instinct, even if it made no sense to her.
Besides, she would have plenty of time to puzzle over it later.
Finally, she could look upon the face of her patient and had to express… a certain amount of surprise at his appearance. With shaking hands, she soothed dark strands away from a face that looked younger than she had expected, perhaps because she had always been taught that the Dark Side aged and distorted.
He seemed to flinch at her touch, fierce yellow eyes that had seemed so intent upon staring her down a moment before looking away and losing focus. It was then that Bastila realized that he was likely in far worse shape than she thought, and closed her eyes, placing his head in her lap, reaching for the Force, opening herself up to it. She let it flow through her, the power slowly mending his wounds. He still went limp in her arms, and though she felt him stabilize… the coldness she always felt in his presence faded away to be replaced by empty numbness.
Opening her eyes, Bastila stared into the face of a man who held the flicker of life within his breast, but no will to live. His eyes were blank, empty, devoid of anything at all, though he drew breath steadily through his lungs.
Fear spread through Bastila like a sickness, but she fought it off, grit her teeth, and then called on the Force once more for strength, somehow managing to sling Revan’s arm over her shoulder so that she could drag him from the wreckage of his flagship.
“You’re impossible,” she muttered to the comatose Sith Lord. “But if I can just get you to Dantooine…”
She could get him to Master Vandar and Master Vrook. She could get him to someone who had the skill and the energy to repair his damaged mind and maybe… Maybe make it possible for them to find out where the Sith armies came from. Maybe Revan could be rehabilitated…
She tried not to get her hopes up as she dragged him across the bridge toward the exit, glancing back her once last time to see the Leviathan, Malak’s flagship, looming in the bridge window like a promise. She could sense the Sith Apprentice, somewhere in the distance, smug and secure in his victory.
There were two people standing on either side of her, both of them shorter than her, though she had the impression they were both very tall.
The woman on her left, who she didn’t recognize, had a face smattered with a thousand freckles, her pale blue eyes steely and stern, though was something almost soft and patient about her. She was dressed in the brown robes of a Jedi Knight.
The man on her right was Malak, except his face wasn’t cold and his eyes weren’t black. He was smiling a grin so wide and joyful that it split his face in two, his bright eyes glimmering with humor, hope, and an edge of something sharp.
“We’re finally making a difference,” Malak said with a laugh that shook his shoulders. “I can’t believe it. After all this time… finally they listen to us!”
“I always forget how easily excitable you are,” said a voice that Bastila barely recognized -- Revan, though she had no idea where the noise was coming from. “I’ve known you since we were both four years old. You think I would be used to it by now.”
“How can you forget how excitable he is? He’s as enthusiastic as an akk puppy.” The woman glanced toward both of them, a bit of amusement written on her face. “Alek-- sorry, Malak-- never does anything halfway. He never has. Even I know that.”
“Maybe you just have a better memory?” Malak was still smiling, his hand slapping open palmed against her back. “ General Revan has to write everything down so he doesn’t forget like some kind of senile old man.”
Bastila’s stomach lurched and she felt herself growing smaller as she was pushed back and away from the scene violently. She was watching it now, out of body, feeling nauseous as she watched Revan turn on her, Malak and the woman melting away into a bizarre, congealed mass of color at his feet.
“You!”
His voice echoed across the distorted landscape and his eyes, which had been dark before, morphed into bright and staring yellow. Lightning crackled from his fingertips as he advanced on her, and she stumbled backwards, trying to remember what it felt like to have a body, more frightened than she could ever remember being, even on the Bridge of the Behemoth.
“Stop!” She cried as he advanced, but Darth Revan did not stop, reaching out toward her with his hands, his fingers curved like claws as the world about her grew darker.
They reached for her neck, sharpening, brightening, until they were white like bone and as long and deadly as daggers. Bastila screamed as they pierced her flesh, shooting up from where she sat, her heart pounding into the silence of the dark escape pod.
The escape pod …
Relief, followed by a profound sense of peace, flooded her as she stared at the ceiling. A dream. It was a dream. Nothing more than a figment of her imagination, her very active imagination, a product of a mind under duress.
In the darkness, she could hear Revan’s shallow breathing, a quiet undercurrent to the beeping of the navigation equipment and the homing beacon. She barely remembered pulling the massive body of the prone Sith Lord into the escape pod and jettisoning it into space, and calling the Jedi over her holocommunicator was a foggy recollection at best, but at least she knew she had.
Bastila looked toward Revan, who she had propped against one of the walls. He lay there, unmoving, far different from the man in the strange dream she’d just had. Without lightning arcing from his fingertips or eyes glowing like yellow pinpricks against a storm of dark energy, he looked almost normal. Revan was actually rather tall and pale, and his black hair clung to sweaty skin, which made him look thin and frail in the dim green light of the escape pod.
It was only when her mind drifted as she continued to stare at him that she realized she felt a vague throbbing at the base of her neck and in the center of her chest. She couldn’t place the feeling, a sensation that was as foreign to her body as sunlight beating against her skin or the wind tousling her hair in the dimness of the pod. It felt like… pain. Not physical but emotional, a phantom sadness that planted itself like a seed inside of her and grew until she could trace its source...
With horror, she recoiled, her back thudding against the metal casing of the escape pod, her hands scrabbling for something to hold onto.
Her body moved as far away from the prone Sith as it possibly could manage, but the distance didn’t do anything to diminish the throbbing in her chest -- an emotion that didn’t belong to her .
“What have you done?” She hissed at herself, watching the brow of the comatose Revan furrow with the phantom of frustration and confusion. “Bastila, you fool--”
The emotional feedback began to fade as Revan slumped against the wall, more limp than he had been moments ago, but the moment of strange emotional lucidity was enough for Bastila to realize what had happened on the bridge of the Behemoth. Calming her breathing, she closed her eyes and forced herself to relax, placing herself in a state of meditation for a long, silent moment that could have stretched on for hours.
Though the connection was dead now, implying there was nothing much left in Revan’s mind for her to feel, Bastila knew what she had experienced. She had felt other such bonds before, though none with such lucid intensity.
Perhaps it was because the other bonds had occurred naturally, over time and with people she trusted, but something felt different about this bond. It went deep, deeper than she was truly comfortable with, and had likely formed when she had reached into his mind to try to save him, to bring his consciousness back to the surface. Seeing him in a pool of his own blood, Bastila had truly feared in that moment that he had passed on and gone to Chaos. She had reached into him to save him, and when she had…
She had forged a Bond between them, one made of the Force itself, linking them for all time.
The mask tucked into her robes felt as if it might drag her into the floor.
Bastila stared at Revan for a long time after that, as if looking at him and willing the bond away would make it dissolve. Even though she couldn't feel it right now, she knew it lay in wait so that when he was healed, their minds would be connected again. The prospect terrified her -- tied to the Dark Lord, who could very possibly use their link to drag her down to the Dark Side. It occurred to her that her only hope may be the Jedi Council.
She could only pray they could sever the bond.
Another silent eternity passed, leaving Bastila alone with a man who was little more than a corpse and her own thoughts. Eventually, the humming of the pod grew deafening, and she had withdraw within herself in order to pass the time, using the Force to shield her from the outside world.
How much time passed like this, she did not know, she was only aware when the small escape pod lurched in the gravity of a tractor beam. She looked out the porthole, the sense of relief that washed over her almost tangible when she saw the large Hammerhead Class Cruiser in the distance. Hopefully, there was a Jedi upon it, someone who could help her with Revan, someone who could help convince the Captain to take the ship to Dantooine. Even if there wasn’t however, having the comatose Dark Lord of the Sith as her prisoner was guaranteed to get her almost anything she wanted.
“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” she told the man as the pod scraped to a stop in the cruiser’s docking bay. “If you live, I hope you end up a prisoner for the rest of your life, you nuisance.”
She hoisted the giant man over one of her shoulders, using the Force to blast the door of the pod open so that she could descend into the docking bay without incident. A group of soldiers were assembled in wait for her, the XO, possibly, standing at their head, her arms clasped behind her back.
“Master Jedi,” the woman said, severe, tall and blond. “I… We weren’t expecting you to have… A… uh… Prisoner.”
“Quite the grasp of the obvious you have,” Bastila snapped, quickly reigning her her emotional response with a deep sigh. “I’m… sorry. It’s been a long few days. I need this man placed in the medical bay immediately and prepped for transport to Dantooine.”
The soldiers looked between each other, wary, as their eyes fell upon the dark shape draped over her shoulder like a shawl. If they seemed wary, or even afraid, she couldn't blame them -- his silhouette alone was infamous in the Republic now.
“Should we… does he need to be restrained?” The XO looked between Bastila and her prisoner as if she were eyeing up an activated thermal detonator.
“He’s comatose,” Bastila said, transferring him to the shoulder of two soldiers, who sagged under a weight they were not quite prepared for. “Change his clothes, bandage any wounds that he might still have, and make sure his life signs are monitored.”
The soldiers exchanged a glance, but she knew that her orders would be followed as they shuffled away, supporting the Dark Lord between them. Bastila watched them go, feeling a sense of relief wash over her when Revan was finally out of her sight. She really had been carrying him around like a weight in more than just the physical sense.
“Master Jedi?” The XO asked, and Bastila nearly started as she realized she could feel the presence of the other woman at her side. “Do you need to rest?”
Bastila breathed a soft sigh of relief, and then nodded. “Yes, please. I’ve had a long few days and I need to rest before meeting with the Council.”
“I’ll have you escorted to one of the cabins,” the other woman replied, motioning to one of the soldiers still in attendance. “I hope you don’t mind if we post guards outside his door. I trust you that he won’t do anything, but we can’t be too careful.”
“I understand,” Bastila assured her. “Please, send someone to wake me when we reach Dantooine.”
The XO assured her it would be done, though for Bastila’s part, she was simply grateful that she could soon slip into a blessedly dreamless sleep.
Dantooine was quiet, sublimely peaceful in a way that did Bastila good after weeks in space. It was rural, isolated, and filled with the soothing presence of other Jedi, younglings and Knights alike. The Agricultural Corp had a strong presence here, of course, which meant plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit in the gardens of the conclave.
Everything here felt alive, and so she had been able to remove her mind from the traumatic experiences of the Behemoth, to heal and begin to process everything that had occurred. She would be asked to give her report on the events leading up to Darth Revan’s capture just as soon as Master Vandar and the others felt she was prepared to. Bastila was grateful for their Jedi patience, for the fact that they were giving her the much needed time to recover, but she was wary about what it meant for their prisoner.
She had felt weak with gratitude the moment that the Dark Lord had been removed from the Republic ship by means of a gurney carried by two floating medical droids. Now, that relief and gratitude were replaced by the sense that something was horribly wrong with him if they had this sort of time to wait on her own recovery.
She found out exactly what it was the day Master Dorak came to fetch her from the gardens, where she had been meditating, attempting to seek guidance from the Force. Bastila had no idea what the Jedi Council would have her do next now that Revan had been subdued, especially as Malak was still a threat. She had long since realized that Revan might be the key to stopping his apprentice, even as her days on Dantooine had melted into weeks, but how would they use Revan if he still had not woken from his sleep?
“You did well,” Master Dorak said, leading her through the gardens toward the Council Chamber, his fingers laced together behind his back. “I believe I speak for the Council when I say so. I may simply be the Chief Archivist here, but you faced insurmountable odds to bring us the Dark Lord… alive.”
“I let the Force guide me,” Bastila replied, though she had not felt so on the bridge of that ship. “In retrospect, it’s guidance was the only reason I was able to pull him from the wreckage after… After Malak fired upon us.”
Master Dorak nodded grimly, but for the time being said nothing more. It reminded Bastila of why she liked him in the first place. When it came to tact, Master Dorak knew when not to push, preferable to Master Vrook or even Master Vandar, who had a way of needling until he got a response, even if he did so gently.
They continued on in companionable silence until they reached the doors of the Council Chamber, when Dorak announced their presence by speaking a greeting to the other three Masters assembled. Bastila walked in after him, looking at each of the Jedi Masters in turn, her eyes freezing on the prone form in the middle of the room -- Revan, dressed in simple robes instead of the attire he’d adopted as the Dark Lord. He looked paler than she remembered him looking on the bridge, but the scrapes and burns that had been there at the time had all but vanished, leading Bastila to believe that the Masters had healed the wounds she couldn't.
She tore her eyes from Revan to look back at the Masters, specifically Master Vandar, who sat before her in one of the circular chairs the council used while they discussed their business. He was leaning forward, his large, grey-green eyes focused solely on her, sail-like ears twitching as she bowed and greeted him and the other Masters in turn.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why we brought you here,” Master Zhar said as Master Dorak took his seat beside them. “Truthfully, Bastila, we wanted to congratulate you on your efforts and inquire after your well-being. You are nearly the only survivor of a terrible event that claimed the lives of all your companions.”
Master Zhar did not need to affect concern, his manner gentle, as it had always been. He was smiling at her, the look on his yellow face reassuring, and she sensed he was trying to calm and comfort her, should she need it. That little ability of his was the reason he had been given jurisdiction over the training of Dantooine’s Younglings, along with his remarkable patience and his vast wealth of knowledge.
“I’m… not fine,” Bastila admitted, knowing that she couldn't mask her feelings from the Mastesrs. “Recovering has been a slow process, but I’m much better than I was when I arrived.”
Master Zhar smiled, and then seemed to turn the floor over to Masters Vrook and Vandar, who both looked a great deal more grim-faced than their companions. Thankfully, it was Master Vandar who spoke first, staring at her from directly over Revan’s body, the Bantha in the room.
“Young Bastila,” said the old alien, leaning forward in his seat, his hands clutching his staff tightly. “I am afraid we must ask you to speak about your experiences upon the Behemoth in more detail.”
As usual, he was patient, and Bastila sighed deeply and nodded, wavering on the subject of the Force Bond for a moment. “We fought on the bridge of his flagship, and I… I am not certain that I could have beaten him if Malak had not chosen to fire upon us.” Bastila stood tall, forcing the words from her mouth as she grounded herself with the Force. “He was badly wounded, and I attempted to heal the worst of his wounds in order to transport him here and bring him before you.”
For a half a second, she hesitated, feeling the heavy gaze of each Master upon her as she bowed her head to search for the words. Communicating had never really been her strong suit, but in this case, it was necessary that they know exactly what had transpired so that they could make the correct decision.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
“When I healed him, I reached into his mind to try to knit him back together. Everything seemed fine at first, but... I sensed… On the escape pod, I had a dream. It was… It was a shared dream, I believe,” Bastila’s eyes fell to Revan, instead of the searching eyes of the Masters. “I believe that a Force Bond was forged between us the moment I healed him. I think… Revan and I are connected.”
Connected enough that she had his mask hidden in her room underneath her mattress, wrapped in a heavy piece of cloth, something she couldn't bring herself to tell the Council even now, as they exchanged concerned glances.
“This is most troubling,” Master Vandar said after what seemed like an eternity of shared glances and silent deliberation. “I am afraid that, once such a bond is forged, there nothing that can be done to sever it, save death.”
Bastila could not help the terror that suddenly raced through her at the prospect of being bound mentally to the Dark Lord until one of them died. Still, she tried to remain standing tall, to not show or succumb to the fear that crept slowly from the back of her neck, threatening to paralyze her.
“If anything, this makes our next action more clear,” Master Vrook said, his eyes boring into the comatose Lord of the Sith, darker and angrier than one would expect from a member of the Jedi Council. “The Force Bond is only dangerous if Revan remains Revan. If we neutralize his threat, sever his connection to the Force, he is no longer a threat to our Order or to the Galaxy.”
“We both know it is not so simple,” Master Zhar said, making Bastila feel as though she were stuck in the middle of a very old argument, perhaps the same argument that had consumed the last weeks before she had been summoned. “He is the only one who knows the location of Malak’s factory. We need him, with his mind intact, in order to defeat the Sith.”
“Which is why I suggested erasing his mind completely and using a Jedi to draw the memories from him,” Master Vrook said, his voice as steely as always. “He can’t be a threat to us if we rebuild him, make him loyal to the Republic. Severing his tie to the Force neutralizes the rest of the threat he represents.” Vrook paused and snorted. “We both know that he isn’t waking up unless we fix the damage to his mind.”
“You… want to erase his mind?” Bastila asked without thinking, earning the attention of four pairs of eyes, three of which had seemingly forgotten her presence, if their look of surprise was any indication.
“Unfortunately, it may be the only way to stop the Sith,” Master Vandar said, bowing his head and closing his eyes -- she could feel his remorse. “We must use Revan against his own army, and we do not have the time or resources to try to redeem him, not after everything we have lost in the war. Erasing his mind… may be our only hope.”
Swallowing thickly, Bastila let her eyes drift between Vandar and the prone Sith Lord in the center of the room. Her mind raced with a million possibilities, weighted down by the gravity of what they were suggesting. Sometimes, such things were necessary in the pursuit of balance and freedom, she thought, recalling stories of how Nomi Sunrider had torn Ulic Qel-Droma’s connection to the Force from him in order to stop the revival of the Sith.
Horrible though the concept may be, Revan would never help them if they simply healed and restrained him, even if he offered simply to see Malak pay for his betrayal. He was dangerous -- evil, and really, who was she to question the wisdom of the Jedi Council when she had felt the coldness of his hatred first hand?
And yet, Bastila felt something inside her stir, something she recognized as the pull of the Force, small and quiet in the back of her mind. Swallowing again, Bastila kept her eyes glued on Revan as she battled with the feeling, torn between her fear and the certainty of the destiny that called to her.
“Use me,” Bastila said at last, silencing the Council, who had been debating amongst themselves the entire time.
They all looked at her, confused, so Bastila drew a shuddering breath and clarified, taking a step toward them -- and toward Revan. “Use me to draw out his memories. We have a Force Bond, so whatever he knows, I’ll share.”
The Council members exchanged wary glances, Master Dorak, especially, looking concerned, but Bastila wouldn't accept “no” for an answer, not this time. The Force was calling her to do this. It was clear to her now that this was what she was meant to do, that it was her destiny, the reason any of this had happened in the first place. “Another Jedi wouldn't have that advantage, even if they have more experience. Please, listen to me -- We both know I’m the only one who has any real chance at succeeding.”
Everything stood in the balance for one terrible second, a second in which anything could have happened, but at last the tension seemed to drain from the room and all the Masters seemed to look older than she had ever remembered. After facing Revan and coming to understand the nature of the Sith, Bastila thought she finally understood how the years could wear on a Jedi, how wars and time could leave them nothing but a quick. The galaxy’s decisions should not have to be placed on the shoulders of so small a group.
“Very well,” Master Vandar said at long last, standing and walking toward the Sith Lord. “I suspect you are correct, young Bastila. You very well may be this galaxy’s last hope.”
Behind him, the other three Masters converged on Darth Revan, who seemed somehow cold and defiant despite his omnipresent stillness. Before him, the Masters gathered, and of them, only Vrook seemed without regret on his heavily lined face. Bastila understood that a man’s mind, his very identity, was being sacrificed for the sake of the galaxy, but one man was perhaps a very small price to pay for the trillions of lives that were still at risk.
Bastila stood, transfixed, as the four Masters stood over the former Dark Lord of the Sith, their heads bowed as they began to glow a soft grey. Before them, Revan began to reflect the same glow, his stillness breaking a half a moment later as his hands clawed at the material of the platform on which he had been been laid, eyes staring at the domed ceiling of the Council Chamber as his mouth fell open in a silent scream. The Darkness seemed to rip its way from him in a stream of orange and red, color returning to his features even as his yellow eyes darkened to brown, losing their sharpness in the process, his body going limp and prone once more.
Through their Bond, Bastila could sense fear, and then… nothing, though his presence still throbbed quietly at the back of her mind, like a heartbeat.
Still, he glowed, his features slowly easing into the expression of a man who was sleeping. He looked healthier than before, almost… normal, breathing evenly as the glow on his body faded after another few minutes and the Jedi Masters stepped away, looking drained and exhausted. Bastila couldn't help but feel like destroying and rebuilding a man should have taken longer, but she had no place to object as she stared at her future charge.
“He is a soldier now,” said Master Dorak, who had not spoken since he had come to fetch her. “His name is Cassus Jaycen, and he enlisted two years ago to help the Republc fight Darth Revan. He was born on Deralia. He is 38 years old and an only child.”
Bastila couldn’t think of words that felt appropriate, so she simply nodded, still staring at the former Dark Lord of the Sith, who looked so peaceful now that he had returned to his uncorrupted state. She recalled the charismatic young man who so many had admired, the young man who had gone off to fight the Mandolorians.
“He will be assigned to your command,” Master Vrook said. “We’ll work out the details with Republic Command. They will not be aware of his identity -- we must not alert the galaxy to our plans. This is a very delicate situation.”
Looking up into the faces of her Masters, Bastila was about to speak, but was quieted by the intense look in Master Vandar’s eyes.
“Bastila,” he said softly, looking at her so intently that she suddenly felt she was the only person in the room. “You must keep his identity a secret. No one must know who he is. If they knew, not only would the mission be endangered, but both of your lives, as well. For the sake of us all, we are the only ones who can know that Cassus Jaycen was the Dark Lord of the Sith.”
She nodded, and though she understood, she couldn't help but feel as though she had just agreed to keep the world’s loneliest secret.