Sianid Ascendant: Chapter 20

As Galadina's attack struck home, she found herself unsure of what had just happened.

She had figured out that Dianiss was about to use a powerful, highly lethal attack against Denevee--the same one Denevee was summoning to use on Dianiss--and that she needed to disrupt Dianiss' attack. She had also realized that she could not get there in time when she saw just how much easier and faster Dianiss was at summoning the dark energy. She was actually expecting to have to drop into a defensive posture to avoid being hit by the attack herself.

But somehow, she felt this . . . assurance . . . that she should fight on, not give up, stay on the offensive.

And the unthinkable happened: In the critical last moment, for just a second, Dianiss appeared to just . . . stop . . . as if distracted by something unseen. It was exactly the opening she needed to complete her kick to Dianiss' face, which connected perfectly and sent Dianiss sprawling backward onto the floor . . . dissipating the energy buildup before release.

Zarvell opened his eyes to see Dianiss mid-fall, and couldn't suppress a smile. But the battle was far from won. As he sensed that Denevee was about to complete her attack, he immediately shouted out "WAIT FOR IT!"

She didn't answer with words, but in the Force he could sense both her understanding and a touch of annoyance in response. She knew what she was supposed to do and didn't need his reminder.

"Ah, good! You're awake again. Can you stand?" Drellik asked.

Zarvell considered the question, and to his surprise, the feeling in his arms and legs was returning. It was being replaced by a painful burning sensation, which for now was better than total numbness. "Almost." he replied.

As Dianiss stood again, her attention was unwaveringly focused on Zarvell now. Before he could act, he could feel the presence of Galadina in the Force, projecting a part of herself in between Dianiss and Zarvell, as she shouted out "Giving up already? After all that talk about POWER and DEATHS and whatnot? Not sure about you, but I'm pretty sure I'm still alive over here!"

The blast of raw power came without buildup, without warning. But Galadina was expecting it, and fast enough to defend against it, focusing all her strength in a narrow, nearly microscopic pinpoint that disrupted the blast just enough to create a cone-shaped space where the intensity was reduced enough to be survivable. "I will tear you APART!" Dianiss shouted, slowly.

The power of the blast seemed to waver, as if Dianiss was trying to increase the intensity but not entirely succeeding. It didn't really matter, though, because Galadina was weakening under the onslaught--the intensity of her own counter-attack was steadily dropping. Galadina's strength was failing and she could feel Dianiss' attack beginning to tear at her skin creating bruises and bleeding, even as Dianiss had a smug look of cruel enjoyment on her face.

Zarvell still had a few tricks up his sleeves. "Lord Kallig!" Zarvell shouted, just able to sit up now. "May I introduce you to the one and only . . . Khem Val."

Zash, Khem/Qyzen, and Ashara had been retreating to the far side of the room, hoping to avoid being drawn into the battle, and unsure if Dianiss is now friend or foe. But Dianiss' look of enjoyment instantly turned to intense hatred at the mere mention of the name, and she turned directly to Zash. "YOU! YOU were the one he sent to TAKE MY LIFE!"

Zash was speechless, and unsure what to do at first. She decided to make a desperate run for the relics on the altar, hoping to use them to take over Dianiss' body for herself.

She didn't make it.

The blast of raw dark energy hit her like a starship cannon, pushing her back against the wall, screaming in pain. It was the same kind of attack she'd used against Galadina, but MUCH stronger.

"Allow me to return the favour, Khem Val." Dianiss said, with a venomous tone. "And know that you have failed...and that you will pay dearly for Tulak Hord's betrayal. The revenge of Lord Aloysius Kallig begins HERE and NOW."

Khem's body was withering under the assault. The only thing keeping the attack from being instantly lethal was the Dashade body's innate resistance to Force attacks.

"NO . . . WAIT . . . you DON'T UNDERSTAND!" was all that Zash could barely get out of her mouth before succumbing to the attack.

Meanwhile, the REAL Khem (in Qyzen's body) was standing at the corner of the room, weapon in hand, shaking. The look on his face was a strange combination of bloodlust and confusion, as if he was struggling with whether he should attack or not.

Dianiss swept a look around the room, trying to decide whom to attack next, and saw Denevee struggling to hold the dark energy of her unreleased attack. "Is the little green one afrai--"

She was interrupted mid-word and almost knocked forward to the ground by the blast of a small shotgun in the back between her shoulders. Behind her, Kari's stealth field generator auto-deactivated, unable to cover the sudden muzzle flash nor muffle the sound of the weapon. "Sorry, Annie." she said.

Kari tried to immediately activate the stealth generator's emergency escape function, but Dianiss was too fast. With a wave of her hand, Dianiss lifted Kari into the air and threw her back down on the stone floor, hard. After the impact, she didn't move or make a sound. It wasn't clear if she was even still breathing.

Galadina was still hurting from the punishing energy blast, even after the brief respite from it. But as Dianiss turned her attention back to Denevee, Dina called out once again. "If you're just about done tickling me, I was thinking we could move on to the pillow fight and then maybe go get our nails done or something . . . since you're apparently nothing but talk on the whole 'killing me' thing."

Once again Galadina was bearing the brunt of the powerful Force attack, though this time it was not as powerful as before, thanks to Dianiss having to devote some of that power to healing herself at the same time. Galadina was still slowly weakening, slowly failing. "I wonder what Master Nora would think about THIS...." she thought to herself.

"Come ON, girl! You can DO it." Zarvell whispered to himself. He was running out of cards to play, and the defeat of Galadina would mean the defeat of all of them . . . maybe the entire galaxy.

It was time for Zarvell to call upon another ally for help, to buy the precious time that they needed. "DAKKU OSSSET, OOSHUKK RISSST!"

Khem was uncertain what those words meant exactly, but he suddenly felt his control of Qyzen's body slipping away, as if Qyzen hadn't actually been trying to push him away until now. He realized too late that where he thought he was winning the battle for control, the hunter within was merely stalking him, patiently watching and waiting for the right time to strike.

The struggle between Qyzen and Khem intensified as the uncertainty he displayed up until now slowly melted away, until his demeanor and body language abruptly changed. "Scorekeeper, monster is moulted away. I reclaim self, reclaim points." he said--in Dosh, not Dashadi.

At the same time, Khem started waking up and looking around, a bit confused. On seeing Dianiss, however, he seemed to snap back to his senses quickly. "At last..." he said, "...I devour my Master Tulak Hord's enemy." It was NOT the voice of Darth Zash.

Khem's attack was ferocious and focused, unlike the confused retreat of Zash. Khem was eager, excited even, to finally have the chance to face an actual enemy of Tulak Hord . . . and to defeat him again.

Dianiss actually had to focus all her strength on Khem now. Unlike Zash, he knew how to fight as a Dashade and how to leverage his innate resistance to the Force like a weapon. The Force attack she'd used on Zash was slowing his approach, but not stopping him.

Galadina used the distraction of Khem to point to Kari. Qyzen understood her meaning, and carefully picked her up and carried her to one of the corners of the room, away from Dianiss. Drellik also used the distraction to make his way over to Galadina to help bandage her wounds and apply kolto to the bruises. She appreciated his help, but at the same time recognized that her battle with Dianiss was not a physical one at all. It was a battle of wills--one that she was losing, honestly--and all the kolto in the galaxy couldn't change that.

Khem was confident as he made his way to Dianiss, one step at a time, moving forward against the pushback of raw power. Dianiss responded by intensifying the attack, little by little, to a level that was an order of magnitude stronger than what she was using against Galadina.

Still Khem kept coming. "I . . . will . . . devour . . . you."

As Khem got within striking distance, he brought his weapon down hard on Dianiss' head, only to be stopped by her powerful shield before it struck home. Now it was Dianiss who was smiling.

Khem tried a few more times to bash her with his weapon, but failed. So instead he simply dropped it on the floor and reached out with his bare hands.

As his hands made physical contact with her shield, he pressed against it with all his strength, and it held firm . . . at first. He could see that although the shield was painful to touch, it was also a bit painful for her when he touched it, and that its power was starting to weaken at the spots where his hands were.

With great effort and considerable physical pain, he kept up the pressure, and after about eight seconds, found that he was starting to be able to reach through it. It was his turn to smile now as his hands slowly approached her neck.

The amount of raw power Dianiss was generating to oppose him was now like nothing anyone in the room had ever seen, becoming visible to the naked eye--even by Drellik, Qyzen, and Violet--and was starting to shake the walls and floor.

Still, Khem's hands came closer.

Close enough to touch her.

Close enough to close around her neck.

Close enough to squeeze.

Close enough to crush her windpipe and prevent her from breathing.


Except . . . it didn't seem to bother her at all.

She was unable to speak, but with a smile on her face she looked Khem Val right in the face and mouthed the word "Revenge".

Khem was completely focused on strangling her, thinking that victory was--literally--within his grasp. She watched and waited until she was certain that he understood that he had failed--that he COULD NOT kill her . . . before she struck back.

At this point-blank range, all she had to do was point her lightsaber in the right direction and activate it just as she released the barrier, letting IT do all the speaking that she needed. As it stabbed cleanly through his chest, she felt his grip on her throat slowly release as his own breathing stopped, before he fell backward to the floor.

"Next?" she called out, defiantly.

Dianiss caught the look of horror on Denevee's face, having just seen both Dianiss' brutality and her immunity from death itself. "Poor little alien girl playing at being a Sith . . . too afraid of the knowledge you possess . . . and now you see the futility of even using it."

Zarvell's heart sank, and tears began to form in his eyes, as he found himself in the unenviable position of having to say the next four words--knowing what the inevitable result would be.

"Fallen Angel!" he called out. "Dolus Redemptio!"

In less than a heartbeat, both Dianiss and Denevee were surprised by a pair of blue lightsabers suddenly appearing through Dianiss' shoulder and chest, from another surprise attack. As she doubled over in pain, the look on her face made it plain that she was simply letting the pain from what should have been a killing blow feed her anger.

"I'm very sorry, Master Jedi." Ashara said, as she deactivated her lightsabers, effectively retracting them from the open wounds, then reactivated them in a standard Juyo combat stance.

Dianiss' strength was now split between healing her own wounds (now much worse), and throwing a blast of lightning at Ashara. Ashara deflected some of it with her sabers, but not enough to prevent it from making contact with her body in multiple places, disrupting her nervous system and paralyzing her as the static physically lifted her off the ground and held her there.

Galadina could do little more than watch in horror as Dianiss threw her own still-ignited lightsaber at Ashara's helpless body, skewering her in the abdomen and sticking there. The attack was followed up with a lightning strike that charged the saber with additional energy, before Dianiss used the Force to throw Ashara across the room towards the chamber entrance, so that she hit the wall hard just above the entry. As soon as she did, the additional electrical energy released itself over her body like an explosion. Ashara fell to the floor immediately below, just behind Zarvell, with a look of incredible pain seared onto her now-lifeless face.

"Drellik!" Zarvell said in a panic, almost involuntarily.

"I'll do what I can, of course." he responded, scrambling over to where she fell.

"Please, my love, stay with us." Zarvell said under his breath.

Denevee once again became the object of Dianiss' attention after she pulled an electrical charge over herself, forming a pocket of space where time itself was slightly disconnected. She looked Denevee right in the eye as she summoned the dark power of the Death Strike once again, this time even faster than before.

Denevee recognized the technique that Dianiss' was using to shift the flow of power around herself which not only made her faster and more powerful, but also effectively isolated her from the possibility of being distracted by a simple physical attack like before.

Galadina saw it too, as her thrown lightsaber made a cyan-colored arc across the room to Dianiss and made full contact, slicing a deep gash into her side that probably punctured a lung . . . it was impossible to know for sure. Dianiss was completely unaffected even as Dina used the Force to pull the saber back to her hand.

Without looking away, Dianiss reached out a hand--halting the Death Strike--and caught Galadina's saber mid-air with the Force, preventing its return.

"Are you joking?!?" It was Violet's voice that Zarvell heard in his earpiece.

"Do . . . NOTHING." was all he said in response.

With just a hand-gesture, Dianiss made the saber continue its flight toward Galadina with renewed velocity. Dina had less than a second to act as she leaped straight up to avoid being hit by it, and was almost able to grab it as it passed by. As she landed, she instinctively dropped flat on the ground, and just in time to avoid being hit a second time by her own saber as it passed above her on a return trajectory toward Dianiss.

Well, almost toward Dianiss. Dina watched in shock as Dianiss pulled the saber in an arc back and to her side, catching Qyzen off-guard as he was charging toward her from behind. The saber sliced his right leg completely off above the knee, causing him to tumble to the ground, immobile.

Dianiss' attention was back on Denevee as she returned her attention to summoning the energy for the Death Strike. For the next five seconds, Denevee knew mortal fear, knowing that her own death was now inevitable. And worse--she knew that Dianiss saw it in her eyes.

But the attack took Dianiss six seconds to conjure, and that sixth second was a completely different cocktail of a hundred emotions at once, as she saw Galadina leap in front of her and attempt to deflect the deadly incoming blast away...

...unsuccessfully.

Denevee had not known Galadina for very long, maybe 4 hours total, including the time observing her during the battle on Ilum. There was no reason to feel anything, really, for this young Jedi. She was a sworn enemy, after all.

There was no reason at all for her to be affected like she was at the sound of Galadina screaming briefly in pain--something she had never heard this Jedi do up until that moment, despite having seen her endure some of the most horrific attacks she'd ever seen. There was no reason at all for her to feel anything at seeing the light of Galadina's bright white aura sharply dim, and go out.

And there was definitely no reason to feel the sort of murderous rage that was bubbling up inside her because of it. Zarvell would definitely not approve. No matter. It was time for this bitch with an ancient Sith Lord in her head to DIE already.

Zarvell told her that it wouldn't matter, that it wouldn't work on her. But maybe he was wrong. And maybe, even if it wouldn't kill her, it still cause her an ocean of pain. That would be worth it. That would be . . . fun.

Denevee both heard and felt Zarvell's plea not to attack as she released the dark energy of the Death Strike directly at Dianiss.

It struck home, and Denevee felt immense satisfaction at the obvious look of pain on Dianiss' face.

But it was only momentary, and Dianiss simply looked upon Denevee with contempt...as if to dismiss her as any sort of threat.

"ENOUGH!" Dianiss shouted. "Your feeble attempts to stop me have been entertaining, but YOU . . HAVE . . . FAILED. I am IMMORTAL and my power is LIMITLESS. The entire GALAXY will bow to me!"

Dianiss looked directly at Zarvell, who was now finally on his feet, and pointed a finger at the ground just in front of him. "...and YOU will be the first."