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commander-krios · 1 year

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Happy KOTOR Exchange @starwers! I hope you enjoy your 'combat angst'. It was super fun to write and I hope it was ok to take some liberties with Revan's personality.

Shoutout to TittyFish for the beta help and the feedback.

Title: Shadows

Summary:

The Kashyyyk Shadowlands. They were eerie, unnerving, and something she couldn’t wait to be far away from.

Bastila Shan has always struggled against the Dark Side, but there is a force in the Shadowlands that scares her.

And its not just the creatures that lurk in the shadows.

Words: 1989

Rating: T

Relationship: Female Revan & Bastila Shan

Additional Tags: Canon Typical Violence, Kashykkk, Shadowlands, Violence, Lightsabers, Canon Compliant, Slight Gore/Blood, Injury

~~~~

Bastila Shan had never felt such an oppressive darkness before. Malak and Revan both carried darkness like a shield, but this didn’t touch the evil she felt the moment she stepped off the lift and into Kashyyyk’s Shadowlands. The Wroshyr trees creaked and groaned as they continued their journey to find the next Star Map. Her eyes sought out her companions in the limited light, barely making out the profiles of Revan, Carth, the insufferable droid HK-47, Mission, and the newest member of their crew, the elderly man they’d run into in these very lands: Jolee Bindo.

He was strong in the Force, Bastila could feel it the moment they’d met. But he wasn’t a Jedi, or so he claimed. In fact, he went as far to disavow the Jedi Council. While it irritated her to see how little reverence he had for the Jedi Order, she kept her mouth tightly shut, knowing an attempt to convince him of the good the Jedi did to be a lost cause before she even started.

The forest appeared to grow darker the farther they walked and she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to ward off the uneasy feeling that descended upon her, like a chill that buried itself deep beneath her skin and into her very bones. She couldn’t shake it, no matter how much she tried to, how much she wanted to. It grew within her, a pit that swallowed little pieces of her, day by day.

Was the Dark Side really so hard to resist? She’d thought herself capable of fighting it, but now, standing in the Shadowlands where the dark seemed to thrive, she found that she didn’t have the same faith.

In the distance, the animals that lived in the bowels of the forest were loud. Branches and leaves crushed beneath the feet of the larger ones while the small chirped shrilly. The forest was very much alive in ways that places like Tatooine weren’t.

It was eerie, unnerving, and something she couldn’t wait to be far away from.

A circular clearing in the forest caught Revan’s attention, if her pause was any indication. The former Sith had been spoiling for a fight since she’d seen what Czerka had done to the Wookies. While they were unlikely to run into any of Czerka’s people in this particular spot, Bastila couldn’t help agreeing that ridding the Wookies of the slavers would be a righteous quest.

“Anyone else think this screams ‘trap’?” Mission’s voice came from somewhere to Bastila’s left. “Because it looks like a trap.”

“I agree.” Bastila said, taking a step after Revan, hoping to head her off before she got them into something they couldn’t get themselves out of. “We should be cautious.”

Before she had even finished her sentence, the ground beneath her feet shook, nearly knocking her to the muddy earth. When she regained her balance and searched the dreary darkness for Revan, she was unsurprised to find that the woman had pulled her sabers from her belt, their green glow reflecting the same color in her eyes.

“Observation: Master, I think we found the fight you wanted.”

Revan’s teeth flashed in a feral grin. “I’d say so, HK.”

Carth shouted something from behind her, but before she could process his words, something came crashing through the trees and into the clearing. Something alive and angry.

The creature wasn’t as enormous as the rancor that Revan and Carth had described on Taris, but it was smarter, faster, with massive claws that swiped at Revan the moment it saw her.

“Terentatek!” Jolee yelled, pulling his own saber from his belt. Its blue glow, along with Revan’s green, helped to keep Bastila aware of where they stood in the fight. Her own lightsaber burned yellow against the dark like a beacon.

Twirling the dualsaber in her hands, Bastila tried to find an opening. While slower than a Jedi, the creature fed on Force users and there were three of them surrounding it. Its focus was on Revan at the moment, but that could easily change.

As much as she hated to admit it, bringing the Mandalorian along would have probably been a wise choice.

One that, unfortunately, they hadn’t made.

Revan ducked another swipe of the creature’s deadly claws, the attack putting the terentatek off balance. Opportunity pushed her to throw one of her sabers, the Force flinging it farther and harder than she could by sheer physical strength alone. It bounced off the creature’s hide, leaving it unmarked as the saber returned to its owner.

“Be careful of its claws, kid.” Jolee was circling the creature’s other side, opposite of where Revan was. “They’re poisonous.”

Bastila had situated herself at an angle adjacent to where both Jolee and Revan were, taking quick steps to keep out of range of the claws. The monster attempted to swipe at one of the Jedi before swiveling around to one of the others, its rage palpable. The darkness she felt was strong in this spot and Bastila immediately knew that most of it was coming from the terentatek. It was a creature of Sith alchemy.

An ear splitting roar erupted from its throat and Bastila had to resist throwing her hands over her ears.

Carth, Mission, and the droid were set up farther back from the fight, using their blasters to distract the creature whenever it got too close to one of them. It worked for a few minutes: a Jedi would attempt to wound the terentatek and when it turned to fight back, the blasters would keep it from approaching too closely. But the beast caught on quickly.

Ignoring the blaster fire on the next round, the creature stomped forward, shaking the ground with each step as it approached Bastila. Her heart pounded in her throat, a very real fear springing up as she realized this creature could easily rip her apart.

“Bastila!” Carth shouted from behind her.

She ducked another swipe and rolled out of the terentatek’s path, but it was quicker this time around. It spun just as she returned to her feet, brandishing the lightsaber defensively in front of her. Another roar and the monster bounded forward, head down and tusks exposed.

She had nowhere to go.

For all of the confidence she had in her skills, for all of her pride in the things she’d accomplished… it would all be for nothing when she was left as a smear on the floor of the Kashyyyk forests. The lightsaber couldn’t save her now, and neither could her Force powers.

Bastila was thrown to the ground, landing hard against the cracked mud and rocks. It knocked the air from lungs, the lightsaber skidding across the dirt a few feet away. The golden glow of her saber abruptly disappeared, leaving her in darkness.

Hands roughly shoved at her arm. “Go!”

She barely caught a glimpse of Revan as she stood, facing the beast. A new sort of terror pulsed through Bastila at the sight. Without Revan, the search for the Star Maps would come to an end, but worse than that, the fight against Malak would be lost. The Sith would win.

Yet the woman didn’t know that. She had no idea how important she was.

“Wait!” Bastila tried to call out, but it was too late.

Revan raised her lightsabers in an attempt to slice through the creature’s thick arm, but it did nothing. No wound cutting through the beast’s thick skin, no blood seeping to the muddy ground, no acrid smell of burnt hair and cauterized flesh.With a rage that burned Bastila through the Force, the terentatek lunged at Revan, who tried to throw herself off the monster’s path. But she wasn’t quick enough. Its claws closed around her body, lifting her from the ground.

She struggled, but nothing would break the hold on its grip.

It must feel the power swirling within her.

With a thunderous bellow, it snapped its jaws, venom dripping from its sharp curved teeth.

Any normal person would’ve been terrified, despairing at the thought of their imminent and gory death. But Revan, however, was no normal person.

“I think someone might be hungry.” She said, smiling up at the monster.

The terentatek tightened its hold on Revan and she wheezed, her ribs being crushed under the massive force. Bastila stood as fast as her feet would let her, her lungs burning as she tried to breathe past the terror that seized her.

Then someone moved out of the corner of her eye.

“Eat this, poodoo breath!” Mission shouted, pulling a pair of grenades from her pack.

They soared through the air, blinking red in the dark. Even with little air squeezing through the monster’s iron grip to reach her lungs, Revan managed to lift her hand slightly, using the Force to send the grenades into the open maw of the beast. The grenades hit the back of the terentatek’s throat and it dropped her to the ground, choking on the foreign object.

Revan managed to orient herself to minimize the impact, her side colliding with the hard ground instead of her lower body. Such a drop would’ve most likely broken her legs had she landed on them.

The sound she made when she hit the ground, however, was definitely full of agony.

The terentatek clawed at its throat, struggling to get at the grenades lodged in its windpipe, to no avail.

The explosion was contained within its body, but its pained screech sent a ripple through the Force.

HK-47 ran in front of Revan’s prone form, lifting his rifle. “Exclamation: Die!”

The droid, Carth, and Mission concentrated fire on the terentatek’s open mouth, turning its insides into something resembling the pulp of a jogan fruit. With one last guttural noise, the creature fell into a heap.

Now that the danger had finally passed, Carth hurried to Revan’s side, a medpac ready in case she needed it. He reached her at the same time Bastila did. As he knelt, holding the kolto injector in his hands, he shook his head, taking stock of her injuries with a quick glance. “You’re crazy, sister.”

Revan laughed between coughs as her lungs filled back up with oxygen. “Remind - me to - not - do that - again.”

Bastila knelt at the woman’s side, feeling grim at the reckless actions of someone who was not only a nuisance, but somehow a friend as well. “ What were you thinking? You could’ve been killed.”

Revan raised an eyebrow at the statement. “Oh? Never crossed my mind.”

The sound of HK-47’s hydraulics were the only thing that kept Bastila from snapping at her. “Statement: Quick thinking, Master. Perhaps it will think twice before attacking a Jedi again.”

Ignoring the droid, Bastila glanced at Carth. “Is she going to be alright?”

“Scans say a few broken ribs, maybe some internal bleeding.” He tucked the scanner into his bag, peeking at Revan with a frown. “I can’t heal that here.”

“I can help with that.” Jolee murmured, settling next to them. Hands hovering over Revan’s body, a golden glow lit the darkness. Force healing flew out of Jolee and into Revan, mending her wounds both inside and out. It took only a few minutes to completely heal her and when she was back on her feet, that carefree smile was on her face once again. It might’ve been infuriating if Bastila’s mind wasn’t elsewhere.

This would be the first of many near misses in the next few hours. With a sigh, Bastila relented. It was useless to fight such a fierce force as the woman in front of her. “Now that that is taken care of, we should hurry and find the Star Map. I wish to be as far from this place as soon as possible.”

None of her companions bothered to respond, all silently agreeing with her words as they continued on, silence falling on them in the darkness.