It had been going so well...the enemy was crumbling...
And then the Sith snatched the taste of Victory from everyone's mouth when the Senate exploded.
The Debris went
everywhere, flying into the sky. The blast had killed most of her Airborne Siege Troopers in their flyers, and as she herself tumbled from the sky, she crashed violently through a window in a skyscraper, having been knocked out of the air not just by the powerful shock wave but by the horrifying snuffing of life in that entire area. Two thirds of the Offense Troopers had been slain in the destruction, and the Defense Troopers were just barely holding on amidst the chaos.
She rose, on the verge of suffering a breaking point from pure rage at what the Sith had done. They
could not lose Coruscant. Too much was riding on it. She could not bear the horror she knew would result for the Citizens of Coruscant if the Mawites won. Debris rained down in buildings everywhere, with a senate Podium flying by a window on her left. Whole buildings were demolished by pieces of the Senate killing people.
Dammit, are we gonna have to Base Delta Zero Coruscant just to make sure the fethin' Sith don't take it?! a dark part of her thought.
But this eventuality, being overwhelmed, had also been prepared for, and Nathan was just as capable of treachery, just as capable of pulling the rug out from under the feet of enemies as they were.
No choice. For anyone who had survived, Epsilon had to be implemented in it's
full, murderous form if
anyone was to obtain victory over the Maw.
Old, terrible power coiled within her as she prepared to unleash
untold destruction from the Atmosphere. The day was to erupt in flames--
Syd, called out her student,
Starlin Rand
. He was here, she remembered. He was fighting, battling the same darkness.
And he was in trouble. In trouble so much he had reached out to her for help. Her growing fury at the Sith vanished, replaced by an all too motherly concern.
He wanted her to Master him. Now of all times. He warned her to stay away. The wrongness of it...
After all they had been through, all he had suffered both directly and indirectly because of her...he turned back to
her for help.
Syd had moments to think. To pull back from the Darkness and suffering. From Nathan's silent, persisting desire to see her dead no matter where he was, what he was doing.
Feeling the Darkness eat away at Starlin, Syd decided to act like a Jedi, a
real Jedi, for the first time in years.
She concentrated, even though she was at great risk, and winced as she began to draw in
all the power from her own enchanted armor, rendering it gray as it flowed into her, shifting her back to her prior, fiery orange red head Atrisian appearance, and getting some of her old memories and skills back.
The Battle was serious. She couldn't go to him, not
fully even though she desperately wanted to. She was needed *here".
But she had regained enough power for the moment to do what Starlin
needed.
As Syd rose into the sky, calling on the full strength of her magic to aid Alliance Forces and her own units, an image of her
Original Self, catsuit no longer shiny and now totally ordinary gray fabric, appeared before Starlin, holding out her hand.
"Rise, Starlin. I would not oversee your full transition to Master wearing the face of the Beast who stole your eye. But I cannot pull this trick for very long either...it's one of my oldest tricks. I...think I am really only going to be able to do it once. After that...it may be a
long time before you see this face again..." she cautioned, just the projection of her exuding a Light Side aura that momentarily drove the Dark back for both of them. Starlin was her moral anchor to this life. She had only survived what happened on Korriban because she had held on to what memories she could of Starlin, even as her mind was being devoured by The Battalion.
Starlin was her son in spirit, if not flesh.
"I have often wondered, what my life would have been like, had I not met you on Zeffo that day so long ago. And I can only conclude each time that I would have been poorer for it. Lesser. Had you not been present I...I might have fallen completely under Laertia's sway, with no one to pull me out of the trap I was building around myself unconsciously with her...."
Her hands clasped his artificial one. The hand Laertia had made for him....
"Had you not lost your hand that day, on Dantooine...had you not been
around to lose it....I might never have questioned what she was doing at all. I might have been on
her side at Kerest...." she trailed.
She looked at him and smiled faintly.
"Knowing you changed me. Teaching you was as much a journey for me, as it was for you..." she trailed. "The journey was painful, and we both suffered for it. Yet here we are, at the metaphorical end of that journey...and the start of a new one..."
Syd looked at the shadow of the Battlecruiser looming closer. She threw her arms around him, squeezing as much as this force energy construct of hers could manage without hurting him.
"I
love you, Starlin Rand. As a Mother loves a Son. I know you have an actual Mother, and maybe you never saw
me as a parent...but that changes nothing on my end. Know that no matter what happens from this point on, I will
always be your friend. Not even death, the cold jaws of Oblivion will stop my Love for you from surviving. My love for you would survive the heat death of the universe..." she whispered to him as she hugged him before clasping him by the shoulders.
"And
now, my student, kneel."
Once he had done as she asked, she held her hands over him....and
glowed, hovering over him, as she split into
every single witch inhabiting her body, all in the same drained gray catsuit, along with herself at the forefront.
"STARLIN RAND. SORCERER. MUSICIAN. JEDI. FRIEND. SON. YOU ARE EVERYTHING THE COMPONENTS OF SYD CELSIUS COULD EVER HAVE HOPED FOR AND MORE." The personas of Syd said in unison.
"BY THE WILL OF THE FORCE, BY OUR MANDATE TO RESIST THE DARK SIDE, AND BY OUR COLLECTIVE LOVE FOR YOU, WE PROCLAIM YOUR KNIGHTHOOD ENDED. BUT KNOW THIS, STARLIN RAND: A TITLE IS SIMPLY THAT WHEN BESTOWED ON
ANYONE. IT IS THE CHARACTER AND BELIEFS OF THE PERSON, AND THE EFFORT THEY PUT IN UPON HAVING THE TITLE BESTOWED THAT MAKES SUCH A PROCLAMATION TRUE OR NOT.
THIS IS OUR
FINAL SECRET WE IMPART TO YOU AS A KNIGHT....AND THE
FIRST SECRET WE TELL YOU AS THE
JEDI MASTER WE NOW KNOW AND DECLARE YOU TO BE. WHEN THE DAY COMES THAT
YOU MUST RAISE A STUDENT TO FULL MASTERY,
ONLY THEN SHALL YOU TELL THEM THAT LAST SECRET AS IT WAS TOLD TO YOU...." The Witches trailed, all merging back into Syd's form, who opened her eyes.
The magic spell that had no name, but would only work once, began to fade, Syd's Atrisian looks began to subtly melt into the face she had gotten merging with The Reflection, as the color and shininess bled back into her suit somehow, the Force Construct she created to help Starlin mirroring what was happening to her elsewhere.
"The Force will be with you... always..." Syd spoke in the last few seconds before her old face vanished and submerged disgustingly under her new guise, her gold and navy blue catsuit now fully back to normal..
"I need to go back to focusing fully on the battle now, Starlin." she explained. "But...as your
former Master....I have one more gift...
She snapped her fingers, and in a plume of red fire on the ground, appeared her own
Double Bladed Lightsaber ....and a fully knitted loose fit sweater.
"For those days you get cold." she explained before vanishing herself.
Meanwhile, the real Syd was, instead of casting highly destructive spells, now instead began to cast
massive protective spells springing up giant Force Bubbles to momentarily stop and deflect debris and protect allied forces...
Minerva Fhirdiad
Gress D'ran
Thomas Barran
Scylla AI
DARKCOM