A/N: Apologies, couldn't update yesterday.
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I pushed past the ship's ramp, the desert air hitting like a furnace blast. Arachnae scuttled behind , her tal legs clicking against the tal ramp before sinking slightly into the sand.
The cargo transport we'd rented was nothing fancy—just a big boxy thing that Nari had procured through channels I didn't ask about. The Scythe was too conspicuous for refugee transport, what with being an Inquisitor ship and all.
The makeshift camp stretched out before us. So refugees were huddled around small fires, their faces illuminated in flickering orange light. Others were curled up in sleeping bags or blankets, trying to find rest in the unforgiving desert night.
Obi-Wan sat cross-legged near one of the larger fires, eyes closed. Classic ditation pose. I could practically hear the "wise Jedi master" soundtrack playing in my head. Nari was crouched beside him, talking animatedly with a Zabrak woman who was gesturing wildly with her four horns.
I walked past them, making sure my footsteps were heavy enough to announce my presence without being obnoxious.
"Going for a walk," I said to Nari as I passed. "Feeling a bit cramped after being cooped up for so long."
Nari nodded, his attention still focused on the Zabrak woman. "Don't go too far. The desert isn't exactly forgiving at night."
"No shit. I'll stay within shouting distance."
Arachnae followed as I trudged away from the camp, the sand shifting under my boots with every step. The droid was in her default "curious about everything" mode, her optical sensors swiveling to take in every rock, shrub, and shadow.
Once we were a good distance from the camp, I tried to activate Hyper Perception. Just a small bubble around to start with.
Pain lanced through my skull imdiately, like soone had shoved a ice pick behind my eyes. Nausea churned in my stomach.
"Okay, note to self," I muttered, rubbing my temples. "That's still a no-go."
We kept walking until I found a decent-sized sand dune with a large rock at its base. Perfect backrest.
"Arachnae," I said, settling against the rock. "Pull up the recordings from when I fainted. Eight tis speed."
The droid projected a small holoscreen in front of . I watched as the scene played out— collapsing, Obi-Wan rushing to my side, the frantic attempts to restart my heart, the mont where everything went still, and then the sudden return of life.
Nothing was different from what Obi-Wan had told . No hidden details, no mysterious figures lurking in the shadows, no sudden revelations.
But the weird feeling in my mind persisted. It was like trying to rember a dream after waking up—the more I focused on it, the more it slipped away, leaving just a hollow echo behind.
I knew whatever it was had been important. I just couldn't grasp it.
"Alright, screw it," I said, waving away the holoscreen. "Let's focus on the current disaster."
My Force powers had increased significantly—I'd accidentally crushed a tal canteen earlier, which wasn't exactly normal for . But the control was completely shot. It was like my power had been upgraded from a garden hose to a fire hose, but soone had removed the nozzle.
So what the fuck had happened?
All my problems had stemd from what I'd co to call the "faulty Ezra star" in my head. My soul, basically. It was like a broken transforr that distorted any Force energy trying to pass through it.
The simplest way to get answers would be to go inside my mind and look directly at it. But every ti I even tried to start up Hyper Perception, the nausea and pressure shut down imdiately.
If Obi-Wan was right, ditation should help. But wasn't it comical that my ditation thod relied on Hyper Perception to observe the Force flow around and inside ? I'd tried to learn how others did it—people who presumably didn't have this weird sensory ability—but my senses just didn't register whatever "normal" Force sensing was.
I settled into a cross-legged position, my back against the rock.
"Arachnae, keep watch," I told the droid. "Let know if anything with more than two legs and less than five heads approaches."
She chirped in acknowledgnt.
I closed my eyes. Well then, Hyper Perception was all I had. If it hurt, I'd just have to acclimate my body to it.
I closed my eyes and reached for Hyper Perception again, starting with the tiniest bubble I could manage.
The pressure ca instantly, sa as before. A spike behind the eyes, nausea crawling up my throat, the whole migraine starter pack. I gritted my teeth and leaned into it.
Pain is just sensation, I told myself in my best fake-Buddha voice. Suffering is attachnt to the material body. The flesh is weak but the spirit is willing and all that enlightened crap. I can sit here for ten thousand years if I have to. Om mani pad hum, motherfucker.
The pressure doubled. Tripled. My brain felt like it was being squeezed in a vice made of angry bees.
Okay, new plan. Pain is real, suffering is real, and right now both of them are winning. But I'm not tapping out. Not again.
I pushed harder.
And then everything just… blanked.
One second I was fighting the headache, the next my mind went white and quiet like soone yanked the power cord. Vision tunneled, legs turned to wet noodles, and I felt myself tipping sideways.
Oh hell naw.
I ain't fainting three goddamn tis in one day. That's not character developnt, that's lazy writing. Even fanfic authors would get flad for that shit.
I forced Hyper Perception to shut down hard, like slamming a breaker switch. My eyes snapped open and I caught myself with both palms in the sand before I ate a faceful of Tatooine.
"Fuck," I wheezed, rubbing my temples. "Buddha can suck my un-enlightened ass."
Arachnae tilted her chassis, all eight eyes blinking in what I swear was concern mixed with judgnt.
Piing?
"Don't you start." I sat up, spitting grit. "I almost went night-night again. Third ti today. That's not a streak, that's a dical ergency."
She scuttled closer, sensors flickering over like she was running diagnostics.
Pi-pi-piing.
"Yeah, I know. Brains aren't supposed to do that." I dragged a hand down my face. "But I don't have months to sit in a cave and realign my chakras or whatever Obi-Wan wants. Vasha's on Scarif. Tiline's already half-broken. I need my powers working yesterday, not after a ten-episode training arc nobody asked for."
I stared at the droid.
She stared back.
Then I grinned the kind of grin that has gotten banned from three different spaceports.
"New plan. Every ti I start blacking out, you zap awake. Full voltage. Right in the neck. Don't be gentle."
Arachnae froze. All eight legs locked up like soone hit pause. Her optical sensors went from normal to maximum brightness, the droid equivalent of bug eyes.
Pi-pi-pi-pi-pi-piing!
"Translation: 'You have lost your goddamn mind.'"
She bobbed her chassis up and down so hard I thought she'd shake a leg off. Definitely a no.
"Look, I'm not asking you to tase for fun. This is science. Controlled exposure therapy. Like when you touch a hot stove as a kid and learn real fast not to do it again, except I need to do it again, on purpose, until my brain stops being a little bitch about it."
Piing! Piiiiing!
"Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds insane. That's why it's going to work. Insa-I an innovative people get shit done. Jedi sit in caves for decades. Sith throw lightning at their own apprentices. I'm just crowdsourcing the lightning to my emotional support spider."
She backed up two steps. Actual retreat.
I patted the sand beside .
"Co on, girl. I trust you. You've got perfect aim and you hate seeing drool unconscious more than I do. We do this a few dozen tis, I build tolerance, problem solved. Easy."
Arachnae's legs curled in like she was trying to disappear into her own chassis. If she could vote, the ballot would read: stupidly mad, with an extra side of mad.
I gave her the biggest, saddest tooka eyes I could manage through the helt visor.
"Please? For ?"
A long, suffering chirp.
Then, very slowly, one of her legs extended and the little shock prod on her underbelly flicked out with a tiny spark.
Piing.
"That's my girl." I rolled my neck. "Alright. Round one. Don't hold back."
I closed my eyes and reached for Hyper Perception again.
Of course the whole 'make you uncomfortable package' ca alongside it but I pushed through it, feeling my awareness start to expand outward—
And then my brain decided to take an unscheduled nap.
ZZZAP.
"FUCK!"
My eyes snapped open as electricity arced through my neck. Every muscle in my body seized for a glorious half-second before releasing. I found myself face-first in the sand again, twitching.
Piing!
"Good girl," I wheezed, pushing myself back up. "That's exactly what I asked for. Hate it. Love it. Let's go again."
Round two. Sa result. The mont I pushed past the threshold, consciousness tried to slip away like a greased eel. Arachnae hit with another jolt before I could fully black out.
Round three. Round four. Round five.
By round eight, she'd stopped being hesitant about it. In fact, I was pretty sure she was starting to enjoy herself. The zap on round nine caught right behind the ear.
"OW! That's a new spot!"
Pi-pi-piing!
"What do you an 'variety keeps things interesting'? This isn't a cooking show!"
Round twelve, she got in the armpit. Round fifteen, the base of my spine. Round eighteen, sowhere I'd rather not discuss.
"Laugh it up, you little nace," I grumbled, spitting sand for the umpteenth ti. "See if I upgrade your chassis with a cup holder."
Pi-pi-piing!
The chirp sounded distinctly smug.
But sowhere around round twenty-sothing, sothing shifted. My brain, apparently tired of being electrocuted every few minutes, started to cooperate. The blackout feeling still ca, but now there was a split second of warning, a mont where I could feel the shutdown approaching and brace against it.
By round thirty, I could hold on for two whole seconds before the surge hit.
By round forty, I could feel the edge and pull back before tumbling over it.
And finally, after what felt like an eternity of sand-eating and involuntary muscle spasms, I managed to hold a stable bubble of Hyper Perception around myself.
But sothing was wrong.
In the past, expanding my awareness had been almost freeing. Like dissolving into the world around , becoming one with every grain of sand and whisper of wind. The only friction ca when sothing living entered my field, their presence creating resistance against my expanded consciousness.
This was different.
Despite the empty desert around , everything felt constricted. Tight. Like trying to see through fog while wrapped in invisible gauze. My awareness pushed outward and t resistance everywhere, as if the air itself had thickened into sothing dense and clinging. It was like forcing my way through an overgrown hedge, branches and thorns catching at every tendril of perception I sent out.
"What the hell," I muttered.
The sensation wasn't painful, just uncomfortable. Wrong. Like wearing a shirt two sizes too small, but for my soul.
Piing?
"Sothing's different," I told Arachnae. "The outside feels... crowded. And there's nothing out here but sand and rocks."
She tilted her chassis, sensors sweeping the area around us. Her confused chirp confird what I already knew: physically, we were alone.
Whatever was causing this resistance, it wasn't visible.
"Okay," I said, wiping sweat from my brow despite the cooling night air. "Phase one complete. Now for the fun part."
I took a deep breath and turned my senses inward.
--
I floated in the void of my mind, staring at what should have been familiar territory.
The Alex star was exactly as I'd seen it last ti. A massive, stable white star, bright and whole, rotating with the kind of cosmic certainty that made feel like at least one part of had its shit together.
But the Ezra soul?
"What in the Kentucky fried fuck?"
The last ti I'd looked, it had been a fractured, bleeding ss. A blue star that was more like shattered glass held together by hope and spite, with pieces constantly diffusing outward like smoke from a dying fire. Each ti I'd checked on it, it had been more and more dispersed, slowly dissolving into the void.
But now?
It was vaguely spherical.
The blue star was still there, still cracked and broken, but sothing was holding it together. Semi-solid, goo-like black substance was spread all over the surface, like soone had taken cosmic duct tape and slathered it across every fracture. The substance pulsed faintly, almost alive, binding the fragnts in place.
"Okay, that's new. That's very fucking new."
I tried to move closer, my formless consciousness drifting through the ntal void. As I approached, I noticed sothing else that made my theoretical stomach churn.
The void itself felt different. That constrictive sensation I'd felt earlier with Hyper Perception was here too, but amplified tenfold. The black goo wasn't just on the star—it was spreading through the space around it, threading through the void like ink dropped in water. Thin strands of it drifted everywhere, creating an invisible web that pressed against my awareness from all sides.
So that's what those invisible brambles were. The black shit had been leaking into my perception this whole ti.
What even is it? So bastard sun of Venom who infested my fucking mind?
Near the blue star, floating in the space around it, were the innards. The leaked soul fragnts, or whatever the hell they were. Wisps of blue energy that had bled out from the cracks over the years, drifting aimlessly like debris from a shipwreck.
Except they weren't drifting anymore.
Branches were coming out of the black-covered star. Tendrils of that sa semi-solid black substance, reaching out like roots or veins, spreading across the floating fragnts. They wrapped around the wisps, pulling them closer, drawing them back toward the star.
It looked like ...assimilation.
Like the black stuff was actively reclaiming the lost pieces, dragging them back into the whole and integrating them into the structure. The branches grew steadily outward in every direction, thodical and relentless, claiming more and more of the void.
I didn't have a body in this space, but if I did, I'd be hyperventilating. This wasn't normal. This wasn't how souls worked. At least, I was pretty sure this wasn't how mine worked. I wasn't exactly an expert on taphysical biology, but black goo holding together a fractured soul while tentacle branches assimilated floating debris definitely felt like sothing that should co with a warning label.
The tendrils continued their work, thodically pulling in fragnt after fragnt. Each ti one touched the surface of the star, it seed to lt into the black goo, disappearing beneath the surface. The star pulsed faintly with each integration, and for so reason I could feel the very ambience pulse alongside it.
And what was even scary was that the branches didn't stop. They kept growing, extending further and further into the void, spreading in every direction like roots searching for water.
Then I saw sothing else. One of them reached the White Star.
The mont it made contact, everything seed to go still for a mont, and then the endless void shuddered.
The branch ignited instantly, black substance bursting into flas that were sohow both bright and dark at the sa ti. The fire raced back along the tendril toward the blue star, and the entire structure convulsed violently.
And then it scread.
I didn't have ears in this place, but it didn't matter. The sound bypassed every sensory filter I had and slamd directly into my consciousness. It was like soone had taken a thousand voices, each one shrieking in agony and rage, and blasted them at maximum volu from every direction simultaneously.
My awareness shuddered, stunned by the sheer force of it.
The branches erupted outward in a frenzy, no longer thodical but violent and chaotic. They lashed in every direction, tearing through the void, reaching for everything and nothing. Several shot toward , or where my consciousness was floating, and I felt a spike of primal terror despite not having a body to feel it with.
The screaming intensified, a mind-piercing howl that threatened to shred whatever passed for my thoughts in this place.
I tried to pull back, to retreat from my mindscape, but the sound had locked in place. My awareness was frozen, trapped in the middle of the maelstrom as burning branches thrashed around .
One of them got close enough that I could see the texture of the black substance, the way it writhed and pulsed with sothing that wasn't quite alive but definitely wasn't dead.
Fuck this. Fuck all of this.
I yanked myself out of the mindscape with every ounce of ntal strength I had, tearing my consciousness free like ripping off a bandaid made of razorblades.
Reality snapped back into focus.
I was lying at the bottom of a crater.
Sand walls rose around in a perfect bowl shape, maybe three ters across. The rock I'd been sitting against was gone, probably launched sowhere into the dunes. Arachnae was clinging to the crater's edge above , her legs dug deep into the sand, optical sensors flickering wildly.
And standing at the rim, silhouetted against the stars, was Obi-Wan Kenobi.
His cloak billowed slightly in the night breeze. Even in the darkness, I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hand hovered near his belt where his lightsaber would be.
I blinked sand out of my eyes and croaked out the first thing that ca to mind.
"Well. Hello there."
Obi-Wan didn't laugh. Didn't even crack a smile.
"Ezra." His voice was calm, but there was an edge underneath it that I recognized from our training sessions. The tone he used right before explaining exactly how many ways I'd screwed up. "What happened here?"
I pushed myself up onto my elbows, wincing as my ribs reminded they were still very much not healed. "Would you believe if I said I was doing so light ditation?"
"The disturbance I felt was not light." He descended into the crater with careful steps, sand sliding under his boots. "It was larger than the one on the ship. And that one was already... concerning."
Shit. He'd felt that too.
"Yeah, about that." I sat up fully, brushing sand off my arms. My mind was racing through everything I'd just seen. The black goo. The assimilation. The branches reaching for the white star. The screaming.
None of it matched anything from my ta-knowledge. Not Legends, not Canon, not any of the weird expanded universe shit I'd consud in my past life. Black parasitic substance holding together a broken soul and then throwing a tantrum when it touched the healthy one wasn't exactly a docunted Force phenonon.
I ran through the options. Tell him everything? Tell him nothing? Sowhere in between? Each path branched into a dozen consequences, and I didn't have enough information to predict any of them. If this was so kind of Dark Side corruption, best to reveal it now than later as god knows what it would do if left unattended. Even if not, even if it was sothing else entirely, keeping him in the dark could bite in the ass later.
I couldn't figure this out alone. And if there was one person in the galaxy who might have seen weird Force shit in his decades as a Jedi, it was the guy standing in front of .
I let out a long breath.
"Okay, so." I rubbed the back of my neck, wincing at the residual tingle from Arachnae's earlier shock therapy. "I was ditating. Looking inside my mind with all those stars in the mind."
Obi-Wan's brow furrowed. "Soul stars. Looking inside your mind." He said each phrase like he was tasting sothing unfamiliar. "Ezra, what exactly are you talking about?"
Oh yeah, I'd never actually explained the twin star situation to him. It was not the best option, as my all problems originated from there itself, but I had held back on telling him the situation in depth Maybe because I feared him suspecting the whole transmigration thing...But now was not the mont for to care for his suspicions, there were a hell low of weird things in this galaxy anyways.
"It's going to sound insane," I said. "But you're going to want to sit down for this one."
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A/N: We are down in rankings so would really appreciate so powerstones btw!
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