Gem-in-Trash
Tilon Quill
Casaana
Verathos didn't protest being sedated or shuffled aside. He let the Jedi go, then lay back, eyes half-lidded as if already drifting. Time would tell how each of them fared in the end.
Deeper within the ancient temple, the young Cathar,
Gem-in-Trash
, would indeed find someone, a Jedi woman pinned beneath a massive fallen column.
She was barely alive. Her body lay twisted, broken beneath the weight, a crimson pool spreading beneath her. Agony rolled off her in waves, raw and tangible, thick in the Force. Yet when her dimming eyes caught the Padawan's small form approaching, something flickered, awareness, maybe even hope.
A harsh, wet cough broke the silence. Blood on her lips. Her voice rasped out, pulled from the edge of death:
"...Don't… let it find you."
A chill swept through the corridor. The kind that crawled up your spine and settled between your shoulder blades, where instinct lived. The woman's breath rattled again, but her eyes were no longer on Gem. They were staring past her, wide and glassy with terror.
Something shifted deeper in the dark.
There was a sound like stone dragging against stone. Slow... and heavy. Then a low vibration rumbled through the floor beneath Gem's paws, like the thud of something massive taking a step. Dust trickled down from the broken ceiling above, disturbed by distant tremors.
Another step.... And another....
The Force warped...
twisting. It recoiled, not in warning but in mourning, as if the temple itself wept for what approached.
Then it came into view.
Half-shrouded in shadow, the thing that emerged was too large to be anything living. Towering. Humanoid only in the vaguest of shapes, its form was forged from ancient, jagged stone, limbs bound in bands of forgotten alloy and temple-forged bronze. Its massive hands were slick with
fresh blood, its forearms blackened by carbon scoring, as if entire duels had been burned into its skin. The faint glow of dying lightsabers still lingered on its fists like afterimages.
But worse—
far worse—was what pulsed in its chest.
Embedded in its core was a radiant, fractured kyberite shard, warped and unstable, bleeding malevolent light through the cracks of its stone torso.
It had once been a guardian. An ancient sentinel of the Jedi, carved from the temple's own foundation to defend the sacred site. But now, that kyberite heart had been poisoned, corrupted by the dark side, twisted by pain and loss until the thing could no longer tell Jedi from invader. Only
targets remained.
And now it had seen
her.
The creature's head...more a crown of jagged stone than a face...turned slowly, lockstep with the kyberite pulse. Its torso followed with a grinding groan as it registered the small figure standing by the dying woman. It paused....Calculating.
And then it began to move.
Each step was ruinous. The walls quivered with the weight of it. Its fists flexed, muscleless but brimming with Force energy, like a battering ram charged with purpose. The kyberite in its core flared, projecting a low hum that drilled into the mind, making every heartbeat feel like a countdown.
It had once been made to protect the Jedi....Now it hunted them. And Gem was
alone.
⚠
Core Directive Detected... System Alignment Degraded... Initiating Override Protocol...
[00:00:08] ›› SYSTEM BOOT... MEMORY CORRUPTION: 84%
[00:00:13] ›› RECOGNITION SCAN: INTRUDER PATTERN // JEDI
[00:00:18] ›› THREAT CLASSIFICATION: MAXIMUM // EXECUTION ENABLED
[00:00:27] ›› AUDIO BROADCAST // UNSTABLE
"Sanctuary... [glitch] ...violated."
"All Jedi... must be... judged."
"Defense protocol... engaged. [static] Target acquired."
~ Initiating Force Pulse Deterrent // Contact Imminent ~
