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suitably_heroicAtton ran.
Of course he did. He was a coward. He always had been. Running was what he did best, and... and that wasn't true, was it? He wasn't running because he was a coward; he was running because he knew. Knew, from years of experience fighting beside Jedi, that they weren't Jedi-- just idiots running around with lightsabers and Force tricks. Knew that Kreia was far more powerful than she had pretended to be during their journeys. Knew that Meetra was the only one with the ability to take her down.
And so while Kreia used a combination of Force power and manipulation to take down his compatriots one by one, well, he'd fled. Because he also knew that he'd be no use there, and there were still a ton of Sith between Meetra and the woman known as Darth Traya.
Atton wasn't a Jedi, no, but he was here to protect her. And that's what he planned to do.
Which is why when he heard ashes and flame and grit snarl, "And I get the fool," he stopped running. Didn't try to get out of it. Didn't do anything but this:
He lit his lightsaber.
He turned around.
He said, "Funny. That's just what I was thinking."
Then Sion's red blade struck his own yellow one, and the fight was on. If this was it - if this was the end of it, fighting this Sith Lord for all he was worth to keep her safe, it'd be enough. More than enough.
Funny. He could see the resemblance between him and Sion now - Atton might've carried his scars on the inside, but looked just the same.
The fight was brutal; Atton wasn't stupid enough to say they were evenly matched. Sion was strong, and he was nimble-- he would meet two strikes with his lightsaber and then duck away, throw off Sion's concentration by vanishing briefly from the Force before slashing at him again. He took Sion's knee out the third time. That didn't seem to stop him. No, it did less: the next hit was Sion's, and Atton found himself running-staggering just to get out of the way, the tear in his side twice as big. Couldn't breathe so good now either.
He called on whatever healing energies he could in just that short span of time, dragging some oxygen back into his lungs. But Sion was on him again, and he parried with difficulty, the blow glancing off and skimming past his shoulder, close enough to singe his jacket.
Leaping out of the way of the next blow, Atton slid behind one of the pillars. Struck at Sion again, clipped his shoulder this time. Another short-lived victory, as one-blow two-blow three-ow-- nearly took his arm off.
That's how it went. Give and take. One blow after the next. Keep going until everything's hurting, until all he could feel was the burn of his muscle and the burn of his injuries, until his Force gift was completely tapped and there was nothing left but pain and movement; the building blocks of his life, the building blocks of the wars that echoed through him even now.
---
The final strike had cost him. Atton was bleeding now, a steady drip on the floor. Not as much as if Sion had been wielding a vibroblade. He guessed he should be grateful for that. He couldn't tell where it was coming from, but he knew it came from him. Probably several places. Who knew? The energy to slip into a healing trance escaped him; the best he could do was stagger towards a pillar, to help him keep his balance.
He'd done it. He couldn't save Meetra from Kreia, but he could spare her this fool. Either of us, he thought.
He slid down to the floor.
He should have expected what came next. After all, their reflection of another was more than metaphorical. Still it struck him with a sense of dull surprise, to watch Sion do to him what he had done to so many others: bring them hope with the brink of his death, only to rise again.
Like a monster from a nightmare, it looked from this end of the equation. Sion's messed-up scarred body rose again, and there was nothing but malevolence in his eyes.
"Oh, good," Atton rasped. A stumble sent him straight into the pillar. "I was wondering when you were going to wake up."
"Atton."
His attention was ripped from Sion's pockmarked frame. There she was, gorgeous, smelling like cooked Sith, her robes frayed. Meetra.
"Don't worry," he gasped. "I'm good-- gimme a minute... heh."
Meetra's glance skipped away from him, and it fell back on Sion. Probably had a few extra scars on him now, courtesy of Atton - but it was hard to feel any kind of satisfaction about that, the way he was doing, the fact that it hadn't mattered.
"You should not have come to Malachor," Sion said. Did his voice seem softer? "She will break you. Your mind, your body... you will be lost. Return to the surface, let the planet claim you, as it claimed the other Jedi... there is no reason for you to suffer at her hands."
The voices were starting to get a little fuzzy. Or maybe Atton was; he wasn't sure. He sank against the pillar he was sitting by and let his eyes drag up to the ceiling.
Meetra said something. He wasn't sure what. Then Sion responded. Then Meetra. Then vaguely, he heard, "...I have waited years to see the last of the Jedi fall before me..."
Snap-hiss. Snap-hiss.
Lightsabers, flashing. Atton could catch just about the tail end of their light as they swung through the air. Calm, not desperate like his own fight with Sion had been. In charge. Like an actual Jedi. He brought his hand up and looked at it. Red, but not a lot of it-- the blessing of fighting with lightsabers. At least most of his wounds had been cauterized.
"Space," he mumbled.
The lightsabers stopped humming.
"As long as the dark places of this world flow through the cracks of my flesh, I cannot be killed." That was Sion, he was pretty sure.
"This battle is not about the flesh. It is about belief," Meetra said quietly. Then there was humming again, and loud strikes.
Belief? Yeah. Belief. Years Atton had believed he was... he didn't know. Something. But he'd believed in it enough to keep himself going. So did Sion, he guessed. So did. Something. Sigh.
The rest of the conversation dripped in through his ears, leaving an unimaginable jumble of words.
"...You are strong... as strong as I had believed. But she knows you cannot defeat me. Surrender now, return to the surface of Malachor... do not force me to destroy you..."
"Kreia respects one who can turn away from power, Sion. Not one who is a slave to it."
"There is no life without the Force... the Force is a blade, without it, one is defenseless."
"If you are afraid to let go of power, then that is a weakness."
"Those are the words of Jedi, Jedi who over thousands of years, have never turned from power, from inflicting their will on the galaxy. They know power. The only weakness is not seizing it when it lies before you.
Sion, Atton thought fuzzily, had more of a point than they probably gave him credit for. At least where the Jedi were concerned.
"Do not let her deceive you," Meetra said, "and stop deceiving yourself."
"Oh, shut up," Atton mumbled. It took him a moment to realize she wasn't talking to him.
"You intend to make me doubt her... doubt myself," Sion said, ignoring Atton. "This is not a battle of words, Exile. It is one of blood."
Flashes of lightsabers. The humming was starting to give Atton a headache.
"... if I die here, Exile, then you will have sealed your fate..."
"I am stronger than you expected - and I am stronger than Kreia expects. Let me confront her, and we shall see.
"There is truth in your words... but there is nothing left for me except my master. I fight because it is the power that the Force fills me with. To survive, to inflict the pain on others. I can die a hundred times, Exile, and still I will rise again, as strong as before."
By now, the flash was little more than a flicker. Atton's eyes were starting to drift shut, and it was hard to focus.
Something fell.
I will not fall. I cannot die," Sion's voice snarled.
"You have already been defeated, Sion. Surrender, and I will spare you."
"... Why? Why did she choose you? What makes you able to defeat me, defeat me here?
Meetra let out a quiet sigh. Because I was able to turn away from it. And you could not."
"It is not possible to walk away from such things unscarred," Sion whispered. "To keep living when the universe dies around you..."
"To face death and keep standing... it leaves scars, yes," Meetra said quietly. "But it leaves room to heal."
Did it?
Did it.
Did...
...
.....
---
Sion's body hit the floor by his own will. The anger that had kept it together had gone, as had the pain: now it crumbled. It had been a tough battle, but it had been a battle of ideas-- it had left Meetra thoughtful, unsure of the path ahead.
For a moment. Then she realized who she had forgotten about. She managed to cross the room to where Atton had slumped over within three steps. She knelt down by Atton's side and jostled him until he reacted. Thank the Force. "Can you walk?"
He let out a soft chuckle that made everything hurt twice as much. Didn't matter. He could hide it. He looked up at those intense blue eyes and thought briefly of a similar set, veiled by adolescence.
But that faded, too. Now there was only her.
"This isn't funny," she admonished him gently.
"Oh, it's hilarious," he said. "I've been joking about it for months." He covered a cough with another laugh.
"You need to get up."
"Just leave me some kolto, I'll be right as rain," he said. You're beautiful. You're the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. I love you.
"Atton..."
"Stop her," he said. "You need to."
She got up. "I'll be back," she promised him quietly. She paced over towards where she had dropped her lightsaber and picked the hilt up off the floor. "Just keep breathing." She dropped a medkit by his side as she passed him by again... and then pushed onwards, through the door, into Kreia's waiting arms.
"You were right," he whispered. "Tried to make it a joke-- from the beginning. Didn't work. Wasn't... funny."
Of course he'd waited until she was out of earshot. Couldn't give up his one smart streak just to be stupid this one last time. With no audience but himself, he shut his eyes. He crumbled.
[[ nfb, nfi, ooc-okay. taken and adapted from 'knights of the old republic 2'. this is where we start finagling plot threads together because the ending to this game is a complete mess. warning for violence. i think this may be the only fully prose post of this plot ]]
Of course he did. He was a coward. He always had been. Running was what he did best, and... and that wasn't true, was it? He wasn't running because he was a coward; he was running because he knew. Knew, from years of experience fighting beside Jedi, that they weren't Jedi-- just idiots running around with lightsabers and Force tricks. Knew that Kreia was far more powerful than she had pretended to be during their journeys. Knew that Meetra was the only one with the ability to take her down.
And so while Kreia used a combination of Force power and manipulation to take down his compatriots one by one, well, he'd fled. Because he also knew that he'd be no use there, and there were still a ton of Sith between Meetra and the woman known as Darth Traya.
Atton wasn't a Jedi, no, but he was here to protect her. And that's what he planned to do.
Which is why when he heard ashes and flame and grit snarl, "And I get the fool," he stopped running. Didn't try to get out of it. Didn't do anything but this:
He lit his lightsaber.
He turned around.
He said, "Funny. That's just what I was thinking."
Then Sion's red blade struck his own yellow one, and the fight was on. If this was it - if this was the end of it, fighting this Sith Lord for all he was worth to keep her safe, it'd be enough. More than enough.
Funny. He could see the resemblance between him and Sion now - Atton might've carried his scars on the inside, but looked just the same.
The fight was brutal; Atton wasn't stupid enough to say they were evenly matched. Sion was strong, and he was nimble-- he would meet two strikes with his lightsaber and then duck away, throw off Sion's concentration by vanishing briefly from the Force before slashing at him again. He took Sion's knee out the third time. That didn't seem to stop him. No, it did less: the next hit was Sion's, and Atton found himself running-staggering just to get out of the way, the tear in his side twice as big. Couldn't breathe so good now either.
He called on whatever healing energies he could in just that short span of time, dragging some oxygen back into his lungs. But Sion was on him again, and he parried with difficulty, the blow glancing off and skimming past his shoulder, close enough to singe his jacket.
Leaping out of the way of the next blow, Atton slid behind one of the pillars. Struck at Sion again, clipped his shoulder this time. Another short-lived victory, as one-blow two-blow three-ow-- nearly took his arm off.
That's how it went. Give and take. One blow after the next. Keep going until everything's hurting, until all he could feel was the burn of his muscle and the burn of his injuries, until his Force gift was completely tapped and there was nothing left but pain and movement; the building blocks of his life, the building blocks of the wars that echoed through him even now.
---
The final strike had cost him. Atton was bleeding now, a steady drip on the floor. Not as much as if Sion had been wielding a vibroblade. He guessed he should be grateful for that. He couldn't tell where it was coming from, but he knew it came from him. Probably several places. Who knew? The energy to slip into a healing trance escaped him; the best he could do was stagger towards a pillar, to help him keep his balance.
He'd done it. He couldn't save Meetra from Kreia, but he could spare her this fool. Either of us, he thought.
He slid down to the floor.
He should have expected what came next. After all, their reflection of another was more than metaphorical. Still it struck him with a sense of dull surprise, to watch Sion do to him what he had done to so many others: bring them hope with the brink of his death, only to rise again.
Like a monster from a nightmare, it looked from this end of the equation. Sion's messed-up scarred body rose again, and there was nothing but malevolence in his eyes.
"Oh, good," Atton rasped. A stumble sent him straight into the pillar. "I was wondering when you were going to wake up."
"Atton."
His attention was ripped from Sion's pockmarked frame. There she was, gorgeous, smelling like cooked Sith, her robes frayed. Meetra.
"Don't worry," he gasped. "I'm good-- gimme a minute... heh."
Meetra's glance skipped away from him, and it fell back on Sion. Probably had a few extra scars on him now, courtesy of Atton - but it was hard to feel any kind of satisfaction about that, the way he was doing, the fact that it hadn't mattered.
"You should not have come to Malachor," Sion said. Did his voice seem softer? "She will break you. Your mind, your body... you will be lost. Return to the surface, let the planet claim you, as it claimed the other Jedi... there is no reason for you to suffer at her hands."
The voices were starting to get a little fuzzy. Or maybe Atton was; he wasn't sure. He sank against the pillar he was sitting by and let his eyes drag up to the ceiling.
Meetra said something. He wasn't sure what. Then Sion responded. Then Meetra. Then vaguely, he heard, "...I have waited years to see the last of the Jedi fall before me..."
Snap-hiss. Snap-hiss.
Lightsabers, flashing. Atton could catch just about the tail end of their light as they swung through the air. Calm, not desperate like his own fight with Sion had been. In charge. Like an actual Jedi. He brought his hand up and looked at it. Red, but not a lot of it-- the blessing of fighting with lightsabers. At least most of his wounds had been cauterized.
"Space," he mumbled.
The lightsabers stopped humming.
"As long as the dark places of this world flow through the cracks of my flesh, I cannot be killed." That was Sion, he was pretty sure.
"This battle is not about the flesh. It is about belief," Meetra said quietly. Then there was humming again, and loud strikes.
Belief? Yeah. Belief. Years Atton had believed he was... he didn't know. Something. But he'd believed in it enough to keep himself going. So did Sion, he guessed. So did. Something. Sigh.
The rest of the conversation dripped in through his ears, leaving an unimaginable jumble of words.
"...You are strong... as strong as I had believed. But she knows you cannot defeat me. Surrender now, return to the surface of Malachor... do not force me to destroy you..."
"Kreia respects one who can turn away from power, Sion. Not one who is a slave to it."
"There is no life without the Force... the Force is a blade, without it, one is defenseless."
"If you are afraid to let go of power, then that is a weakness."
"Those are the words of Jedi, Jedi who over thousands of years, have never turned from power, from inflicting their will on the galaxy. They know power. The only weakness is not seizing it when it lies before you.
Sion, Atton thought fuzzily, had more of a point than they probably gave him credit for. At least where the Jedi were concerned.
"Do not let her deceive you," Meetra said, "and stop deceiving yourself."
"Oh, shut up," Atton mumbled. It took him a moment to realize she wasn't talking to him.
"You intend to make me doubt her... doubt myself," Sion said, ignoring Atton. "This is not a battle of words, Exile. It is one of blood."
Flashes of lightsabers. The humming was starting to give Atton a headache.
"... if I die here, Exile, then you will have sealed your fate..."
"I am stronger than you expected - and I am stronger than Kreia expects. Let me confront her, and we shall see.
"There is truth in your words... but there is nothing left for me except my master. I fight because it is the power that the Force fills me with. To survive, to inflict the pain on others. I can die a hundred times, Exile, and still I will rise again, as strong as before."
By now, the flash was little more than a flicker. Atton's eyes were starting to drift shut, and it was hard to focus.
Something fell.
I will not fall. I cannot die," Sion's voice snarled.
"You have already been defeated, Sion. Surrender, and I will spare you."
"... Why? Why did she choose you? What makes you able to defeat me, defeat me here?
Meetra let out a quiet sigh. Because I was able to turn away from it. And you could not."
"It is not possible to walk away from such things unscarred," Sion whispered. "To keep living when the universe dies around you..."
"To face death and keep standing... it leaves scars, yes," Meetra said quietly. "But it leaves room to heal."
Did it?
Did it.
Did...
...
.....
---
Sion's body hit the floor by his own will. The anger that had kept it together had gone, as had the pain: now it crumbled. It had been a tough battle, but it had been a battle of ideas-- it had left Meetra thoughtful, unsure of the path ahead.
For a moment. Then she realized who she had forgotten about. She managed to cross the room to where Atton had slumped over within three steps. She knelt down by Atton's side and jostled him until he reacted. Thank the Force. "Can you walk?"
He let out a soft chuckle that made everything hurt twice as much. Didn't matter. He could hide it. He looked up at those intense blue eyes and thought briefly of a similar set, veiled by adolescence.
But that faded, too. Now there was only her.
"This isn't funny," she admonished him gently.
"Oh, it's hilarious," he said. "I've been joking about it for months." He covered a cough with another laugh.
"You need to get up."
"Just leave me some kolto, I'll be right as rain," he said. You're beautiful. You're the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. I love you.
"Atton..."
"Stop her," he said. "You need to."
She got up. "I'll be back," she promised him quietly. She paced over towards where she had dropped her lightsaber and picked the hilt up off the floor. "Just keep breathing." She dropped a medkit by his side as she passed him by again... and then pushed onwards, through the door, into Kreia's waiting arms.
"You were right," he whispered. "Tried to make it a joke-- from the beginning. Didn't work. Wasn't... funny."
Of course he'd waited until she was out of earshot. Couldn't give up his one smart streak just to be stupid this one last time. With no audience but himself, he shut his eyes. He crumbled.
[[ nfb, nfi, ooc-okay. taken and adapted from 'knights of the old republic 2'. this is where we start finagling plot threads together because the ending to this game is a complete mess. warning for violence. i think this may be the only fully prose post of this plot ]]
