//------------------------------// // Ch. 29; Forest Of Voices And Madness // Story: Star Wars: A Second Chance // by Dorath //------------------------------// ‘Three days,’ Revan rubbed her forehead tiredly, ‘Three days of paperwork, reports and meetings with the gendarme and Mayor Fluffernutter and we're finally able to put GreenWood at our backs. It was so much easier back when I just had to say “Sith” or “Jedi business” and everyone obeyed without a fuss ... at least we got the lumber mill torn-down before we left.’ As she squinted her eye against the early-morning sunlight, Revan idly turned her attention back to her apprentices' conversation as they trudged across the grasslands. “... being married to a guardspony or a Magus on deployment can be rough on a couple,” River was explaining to the two younger ponies, “And I doubt that marriage to a member of the Academy will be much easier, still, Brass Tacks and I have managed to make it work.” Blaze shook her head, “I still have trouble picturing you as a mother, River, what about you, Boss?” she added, glancing over her shoulder, “What are your plans for when this mission is over?” “Me?” Revan grinned down at the pegasus, “Once I get done with all the reports and administrative paper pushing, I'm catching the first train back to Ponyville, hunting down Twilight, and hugging her royal snugglyness until she squeaks.” “Ugh,” the teenage pegasus groaned, causing her fellows to chuckle, “Too much mushiness,” she added with a roll of her eyes. The quartet's good cheer wilted away as they cleared the crest of a hill and looked out at the dark mass of the Shadowed Heart Forest; despite the mid-summer sunlight, the forest was shadowed and swathed in mist, and as Revan watched, figures appeared in the fog, lasting for but a breath before they dissolved back into the haze, ‘Darhec? And was that Ignatz beside him? What the chaos is going on?’ “Uh, is it just me,” Blaze asked nervously, “Or is anyone else getting weirdly freaked-out by a bunch of mist with lights floating in it?” “I feel it too,” confirmed Silver, “Something … Sweet Celestia, one of the lights just waved at me!” River cocked an eyebrow at her fellow apprentices, “What are you two talking about? There aren't any lights in the fog, although ... I do see shapes moving in it, they could almost be … ponies ….” “Why are we seeing different things?” mused Silver, “What do you see, Legate?” “... Boss?” Blaze asked as she reached out a wing to nudge her instructor, as the twi'lek's continued silence stretched out enough to make the ponies uncomfortable. “Ghosts …” Revan finally replied in a faint voice, before she shook her head and continued in her usual tone, “Alright everyone, stay alert, watch each other's backs and don't listen too close to any strange voices.” She glanced over at the uneasy pegasus, “For most folks, fear is the proper, and sane, response to someplace like this, but we're not going to let some eeriness keep us from doing our jobs, are we?” Blaze's features hardened with determination, “No, Boss,” the pegasus' head rose a bit higher at the Jedi's approving smile. “So, do we have any particular destination in mind, or are we just going to wander around?” asked Silver, as they started for the tree line. “The old maps said that there was a major lake and some hills near the forest's center,” suggested River, “We could make for them.” Revan nodded in agreement, “It's as good a starting destination as any, I suppose.” A chill descended upon them as soon as they passed under the forest's eaves, and the already heavy fog quickly thickened until the little band could barely see ten meters through the trees. And with the fog came the voices – screams, vicious laughter and even ecstatic moans echoed out of the haze, while other voices murmured to them with words to faint to be heard clearly, but whose tones ranged from seductive to demanding to pleading to manic. The next several hours passed like something from a bad dream, with the lack of visibility, complete absence of any animal noises (except for an occasional scuttling sound from just beyond sight), and the constant voices combining to wear away at the group's nerves. “Murderer!” “Did any of you hear that?” asked Revan as she looked around for the source of the accusing voice, frowning out into the apparition-haunted mist when the ponies only shook their heads. Continuing on their way, the Force-wielders pressed deeper into the forest, but now all of them were occasionally beset by taunts and accusations that none of the others could hear. “Coward!” “Traitor!” A silent snarl was plastered across Revan's face as she stalked through the trees, looking for something to vent her growing anger and frustrations on. Glancing over to the her side, her scowl fell away to be replaced with shock at the sight of the familiar armored, reptilian, biped walking beside her, only to revert back to River Breeze when the Jedi blinked her eye, ‘Sergeant Drist? Why am I seeing her here?’ “Friend-slayer!” The twi'lek’s lips twisted as she began to growl again, only to stop as she noticed her companions' ears twitching and swiveling as they hunted for a sound. Quietly following behind her ponies, Revan slunk through the woods until a slight thinning in the haze revealed a dead bear … and the scurry of misshapen squirrels that was enthusiastically devouring it. The quartet simply stood and stared for a moment at the feasting squirrels, ‘They didn’t … kill that bear … did they?’ when some faint noise or scent caught the rodents’ attention. Whipping their heads around, the squirrels fixed the twi’lek and ponies with beady, glowing, eyes, before they charged at them with eager, chittering barks and bared incisors. The squirrels’ rush proved to be futile, as between the Force-wielders’ armor and ability to support each other they quickly overwhelmed the rodents’ numbers and suicidal zeal, although the squirrels did manage to penetrate the Equestrians’ harnesses to inflict a few vicious bites and scratches. Having bound their wounds, and dosed them with the stinging blue antiseptic that the ponies used, the group gathered around their attackers, “Where they rabid?” wondered Silver apprehensively, “Is that why they attacked us?” “Rabid animals don’t work together,” River pointed out, “But there was definitely something wrong with them,” she added, waving a hoof at the visibly tumorous and overly muscled rodents. “This bear looks like it has the same sort of deformities,” Blaze called over quietly from where she was poking at the dead ursine with a stick, “Nasty looking thing.” “Let’s get a move on,” Revan ordered, “I want to get as far as we can before we start to lose the light.” ________________________________________ The afternoon was fading when the companions came upon a village, half-consumed by a long-ago fire, the settlement had been a graveyard for years, if not decades or even more, before the Equestrians stumbled across it. Left untouched by scavengers, some quirk of the woods had mummified the deer who once lived there, despite the ever-humid air, leaving the marks of their rape, torture and murder all too clear to see. Revan’s insides twisted with a mixture of horror and impotent fury as she walked among the violated corpses, ‘Bucks, does, even the fawns, no one was spared ….’ “No deformities.” “What?” “These deer have no obvious deformities,” Silver repeated in a clinical tone, “Either they were not here long enough for the mutations to become noticeable … or they were living here before the corruption started.” “What the hay, Silver Chaser?” Blaze retorted angrily as she turned to glare at the young unicorn, “How can you be so cold about these poor deer?” “Because screaming and freaking-out will not help them any,” Silver replied as his mask of academic detachment started to crack, “But if we can figure out what happened to them and why, then maybe we can make it right.” The teen blinked, then walked over to wrap a wing around the stallion’s shoulders in a quick, apologetic hug, “Sorry, this bucking place is getting to me, and I took it out on you.” “Sergeant, get the lads moving,” Revan ordered as she stood up from where she had crouched down to examine the wounds on a little fawn, “We’ll find somewhere else to camp.” River cocked a confused eyebrow at her instructor, “What was that, Legate?” “I said get everyone moving, River,” the Jedi frowned at the unicorn mare, “Whoever hit this village doesn’t look to have ever come back, but I don’t want to take any chances, and I don’t want us sleeping among all these ghosts.” ________________________________________ A half hour’s walk from the defiled settlement brought them to a cave large enough to shelter them all. “First watch will be River and Blaze,” Revan said as she finished her supper of cold rations, none of them were particularly eager to risk drawing attention with a fire, “Silver and I’ll take second watch.” The two ponies assigned to guard duty nodded, while the twi’lek and stallion settled down in the hopes of getting a few hours of uneasy sleep. ________________________________________ The next day found Silver and Blaze snapping at each other as they pushed deeper into the woods, while River and Revan struggled to maintain a grip on their own tempers. For her part, Revan’s state of mind was not helped by the figures in the haze, now a near constant reminder of the legion of ghosts that followed her shadow. Nor by the half-heard blandishments that urged her to embrace her power, and to release her anger and frustration … and to unleash the dark craving that was once again stirring in her guts, “Will you shut the frell up?!” she finally shouted at the mist and its endless voices. “Listen to the mouth on you, schutta,” Revan spun around, her lightsaber crackling to life, as an all too familiar humanoid figure loomed out of the fog to tower above her, “Still, what can you expect from a worthless little shag barely fit to be a chik youngee?” “Morg Fass …” the Jedi breathed, “You’re dead!” she shouted, her voice ugly with hatred. “Whatever I may be, you are mine, shag, just like that zealtron schutta you were always mooning after, and I keep my property!” “Maeve’eswo is free of you, you bastard,” Revan snarled, “And I’ll never be your chattel again!” Raising her hand, she blasted the spectral figure of her old master with lightning, pouring all her rage, hate and long-buried fear into the thunderbolt as it tore through the phantom and into the forest beyond, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. “Legate? Legate! Revan!” “There’s nothing there, Revan,” River said firmly as the Jedi turned to face her, “Put your weapons away, you’re upsetting your ade.” Revan blinked at the mare, and then frowned down at the lightsaber in her hand and the red aura that coiled hungrily around her, closing her eye in concentration, she reeled her power back in as she returned her saber to her belt. “Who was it?” River quietly asked as she put a hoof on the Jedi’s shoulder, while the two younger apprentices nervously watched their teacher. “My owner, come back from his grave,” Revan replied, “It just means I get to kill him again,” she added as a vicious smile flashed briefly across her lips, “Let’s keep moving.” The Equestrians encountered more animals as the day went by, and each time they were forced to put down mutated woodland creatures turned savage that pressed their attacks seemingly without a care for their own survival. As the hostile wildlife became more frequent, the aspect of the forest darkened as well, with unwholesome looking fungi growing from the trees and sprouting out of the forest floor, while creepers caught at their legs. “I hate this place … I hate this place … I hate this place …” Revan raised her hand, incidentally stopping Blaze’s muttering, as she dropped to a crouch and stared out into the mist. After a few moments, she waved the ponies forward as she slowly advanced upon what had caught her attention … the savaged remains of a dismembered manticore. “Horseapples …” Silver breathed as he took in the gore-spattered trees, several of which had broken limbs and shattered bark from heavy impacts, while others had great rents torn into their trunks. “What could have done this?” wondered Blaze as she reflexively moved closer to the unicorn stallion. “A chimera maybe? Or a hydra?” suggested River as she shook her head in disgust, “It looks like whatever did this didn’t even bother to feed on the manticore.” “This happened only an hour or two ago,” observed Revan as she studied the carnage, looking around, she frowned and rose to her feet, her saber in her hand, “It’s watching us.” As the ponies readied their weapons, a massive biped lumbered out of the mist to glare at them with sulfur-yellow eyes, its fanged maw twisted in a silent growl. Standing five meters high, the beast’s over-long arms ended in great, three-taloned hands, while a spiked carapace covered its back and head. Oozing tears, courtesy of the manticore’s claws, marred its hide, but the monster paid these injuries no mind as it threw back its head and gave voice to a howling roar that sent shards of icy dread stabbing through the twi’lek’s heart. “Terentatek …” Revan whispered, before her eye hardened as she let her rage and bloodlust drown her fear as she started forward with a shout, “Terentatek!” As quickly as she reacted, the ponies were even faster, with River Breeze and Silver Chaser unleashing paired Force-strikes at the beast, while Blaze took to the air and dove at its face, aiming her wing blades for the terentatek’s eyes. Unfortunately, the monster simply ignored the telekinetic attacks, and twisted aside, with more agility that a creature of its size should have, to smash the pegasus into the ground with one massive hand. Snarling, Revan threw a bolt of lightning into the terentatek’s face, the attack did little harm, but it dazzled the brute for a moment, giving her time to issue orders to her companions, “Sergeant, grab the lads and withdraw while I keep its attention on me!” “What? No!” objected River, “Fighting that thing alone is suicide!” “Damn it, Tussh!” snapped Revan as she grabbed her subordinate by the shoulder, “This is an order! This mission is scrubbed! Evac our people and tell Command to send in the bombers and flatten this entire district! Now go!” Moving away from her troopers, Revan let her death field aura reach out from her, withering the nearby plants as she sent a second lightning bolt into the terentatek, “Over here, Sithspawn! Plenty of Force-active meat right here! Come and get me!” Rounding on Revan with that uncanny speed, the terentatek lashed out, ripping through the Jedi’s armor and sending her slamming back into a tree, before the terentatek could close, however, Revan bounced back to her feet. “It will take more than that to kill me, Sithspawn!” she taunted while her murderous aura quickly reduced the tree she had collided with to a hollow husk. With a curse, River turned and galloped over to Blaze, her turquoise magic lashing out to drag Silver along with her, hoisting the unconscious pegasus onto the older mare’s back, the ponies turned and fled back into the forest.