//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Revan // by Perception Filter //------------------------------// Revan Chapter 2 High above the green planet, Lord Thass sat aboard his flagship, the Labyrinth, a ship modeled after the Leviathan, supposedly the only cruiser of its class to officially become space worthy. Thass was alone in his personal chambers, deep within the fortified hull of the ship, protection from any who might dare strike at him. Lord Thass' physique was nothing short of exemplary, years of physical training and conditioning had ensured that. In addition, his mastery over the dark side was nearly complete. He had come to this planet, with it's barely civilized inhabitants, not even normally worthy of note, to finish his ascendency. They were the final key to unlocking his true power. A knock at the door interrupted his musings, and his brow deepened in anger. "Enter..." he said, in a voice deep and charismatic, showing nothing of the anger his face betrayed within him. He heard the door click, and whoosh with a familiar sound before tentative footsteps approached him from behind. "My lord, we have identified the vessel that we shot down a few hours ago... It..." The voice paused, as if saying anything further would prompt the Sith Lord's wrath. Lord Thass stood up and turned around to face the man. He was dressed in a standard Sith officer uniform, and his skin was pale white. Lord Thass's own skin was dark black, and it gleamed like oil. "Speak, lieutenant," he spoke in his calm voice. As soon as he did, the other man seemed to calm for a moment. "It was the Ebon Hawk, sir... the one last piloted by... Revan." The man finished his sentence reluctantly, and looked away from his Lord. "You need not fear, Lieutenant. His arrival may indeed help my plans come to fruition." The officer looked up, and saw Lord Thass smiling, his teeth, gleaming white. ~~~ Twilight sparkle awoke to the feeling of pain... in her head, and her front foreleg and... everywhere, really. She groaned loudly and opened her eyes, and immediately closed them again as a blinding light seared her vision. Turning her head, she opened her eyes once more, and was successful. What she saw, her home, her library, destroyed. Half of the tree she called home was obliterated. Splinters of wood were everywhere, along with stray books, and pages flying through the air on currents of wind. Tentatively turning around, she saw the bright light again, but she saw past that as well. Beyond the hole in what used to be her house, she saw a giant heap of twisted metal, burning bright over a giant chunk of wood that used to be her tree. Shocked, Twilight stared at the burning wreckage of the... thing, and at her house in dismay. After a certain amount of time, Twilight could never remember how long, she felt someone touch her back, and she whipped her head back, and saw Spike, her assistant standing there beside her, holding his left arm limply. "T-Twilight, we have to get out of here..." he said, before breaking off, waving some drifting smoke away from his face. Twilight simply nodded a jerky nod, and stood up, and immediately screamed in pain as she put weight on her back right hoof and it collapsed underneath her. Spike immediately grabbed her and held her while she regained her composure. "C'mon Twilight, I can try and support your leg, but we need to go." "But Spike... your claw..." Twilight said, finally breaking her silence. Spike gave her a half-smile and waved off her concerns. "I'll be fine until we get outside, now come on." He grabbed Twilight's side to help support her, and hissed in through his teeth as his broken arm fell limp to his side. Twilight looked at him in concern, but did not press the matter, and they slowly worked their way from the top floor of their room to the main room. From there, they made their way outside, and they both fell onto the ground and began to hold their respective broken limbs. It was only a few moments more before ponies began to gather around them, asking what had happened, and trying to help tend to them. Within moments, Twilight began to cry. She felt ponies began to hug her, and try to console her. She thought she heard the voices of her friends clear a path and began to help her, but she did not care what they said; she simply allowed herself to cry, and cry until she fell asleep. ~~~ Heat... Heat and... smoke? Revan shook his head as he awoke and was greeted with the sight of a bulkhead a mere inch from his face. Scooting back, he found he was trapped in a small durasteel 'room', if one could call it that. Casting out his mind with the force, he felt a great fire eating away at the remains of his ship, and numerous life forms milling about in a panic. Bring him back to himself, he took a deep breath, and calmed his racing heartbeat. Slowly gathering his power, he put his hands on the bulkhead in front of him and pushed it with the Force. The giant sheet of thick metal screeched a terrible sound and moved a few inches before stopping. Persisting, Revan did not stop, and soon his efforts were rewarded as the durasteel collapsed over, revealing the cockpit to his ship. Slowly climbing out, he sucked in a breath when he felt pain tug at his side. Gently touching his torso, he flinched when he felt a sharp spike of agony lance through him. Broken ribs were never fun, but he would live. Taking his time, he climbed over the chunk of durasteel and saw a few feet down the hallway a gaping hole to the outside. Walking forward slowly, and looking further down the hall, he saw his ship twisted and crumpled like paper. Stepping outside, he was besieged by a great heat, and he quickly retreated from his ship before turning around. What he saw quickly confirmed his fears. There was no way the Ebon Hawk was going to be repaired, ever. What once remained of his great ship was now a jagged ball of metal, burning furiously. Calling upon the power of the Force once again, he sucked the air out of the area around his ship, and the flames guttered out and died almost instantaneously. Releasing his power, he looked around. He had crashed into a giant tree. Although, half of it was missing, probably taken by his crashing ship. Looking closer, he saw that the inside of the tree was hollow, and filled with books. Cringing, he realized he probably just demolished some primitive's library. Looking past the library-tree thing, he saw a group of... quadrupeds, some with wings and some with horns, all milling about in a panic. And although none looked at him, for he was concealed in the dark shade of a nearby building, and his ruined ship made a much more interesting spectacle. Revan took a moment to think. Obviously any noble person would approach forward and apologize for their actions, and attempt to seek medical care, but a thought nagged at him briefly that these creatures might display hostile intent towards him for destroying one of their buildings. He quickly dismissed it, and briefly checked for his lightsabers, and frowned beneath his mask when he saw one of them was gone. However, he did not draw his remaining one, as he hoped he would be able to solve this situation without violence. ~~~ Lyra was shocked at first when the brightly glowing, growing star turned out to be a giant meteor that flew past her head and cashed a few blocks away. Although it was unlike any meteor she had ever seen before. It seemed to be have some sort of metal casing, but she only saw it for the briefest of seconds, so she could not be sure. As soon as she saw the meteor, she jumped up from 'her' bench and began to race over to where it was headed, before there a tremor shook the ground forcing her to stop. Looking around, she saw some doors and windows opening and numerous ponies poking their heads out to look around. "There was a meteor that crashed over that ways!" she yelled to everypony around and started running again. In only a minute she arrived at Twilight's library, and saw half of the tree was gone, and she gasped. Rushing forward even faster, she saw Twilight on the ground a few feet, with Spike beside her. Spike was on the ground, clutching his arm, and Twilight was staring blankly past her house. Lyra took a few steps towards them, then saw ponies begin to gather around them, she decided that they didn't need her help, and she trotted a bit closer to the firey ball of metal. She made sure to keep her distance, but as she approached, her hoof hit something metal. Looking down, she saw a small cylindrical object. There were a few kinds of switches, and overall it was of a masterwork quality. Picking it up with her magic, she examined it for a few moments. 'This thing must be worth a few bits, maybe I can sell it...' Lyra thought as she looked it over. She was interrupted from her musings, as a terrible grinding and squealing noise assailed her ears. Covering her ears, she soon found out the noise was coming from the craft. She quickly began to run away from the scene, already thinking of a way to sell this precious new item. ~~~ As Revan approached the colorful creatures, he made sure to keep his hands at his sides, and not make any sudden movement. He had no idea how they would react, and he planned to keep things peaceful. None of them noticed him at first, but within seconds, the whole crowd was frozen and was looking at him with wide-eyed fear. Slowly, Revan raised his hands and spoke a few careful words. "Hello there." Something must have went wrong, however, as the entire crowd of creatures burst into screaming and they all ran away from him as fast as they could, and somehow, unfailingly, manage to not run over each other in the process. After a few brief moments, the crowd had dispersed, and the night was quiet again, and Revan saw before him five creatures who had not run away. The one that stuck out most to him was a light blue one with rainbow hair and wings. The reason why it stuck out to him was that it had flown up to him and was... yelling something at him, forcing him to take a step back. Revan could do nothing more than make a shrugging gesture and back away and hope the thing didn't become more hostile. Unfortunately, that only seemed to anger it even more, and it looked like it was winding up to punch him, and he was preparing to dodge away, when suddenly she was yanked to the ground by one of the other things, this one orange and wearing a hat. This one seemed to scold the blue one for a few moments before turning back to him and sticking out its hoof and saying something he still couldn't understand. The orange creature simply stood there looking at him with a nervous smile on its face, so Revan took a moment to examine the rest of the animals. There was the blue one with rainbow hair, sitting on the ground, with its arms crossed, looking away from him; a white one with stylized purple hair and a horn who seemed to regard him with a small amount of contempt; a yellow one who was attempting to hide from him behind it's pink hair, and lastly there was a pink one... who was all pink. It waved at him and gave him a smile as soon as he looked at it. He then redirected his gaze to the orange one, whose smile had waned, but not entirely disappeared, and it's arm was still up in the air. Revan slowly reached out with a gloved hand and grabbed the it, and shook it gently before dropping his arm. The small smile the orange one was bearing grew a little bit and it turned to the blue one and gave it what Revan could only describe as an 'I told you so' look. The rest of the group exchanged a few words in their own language and the orange one bent over and picked up a new purple creature which Revan had not seen behind the white, yellow and pink ones. It seemed to struggle briefly lifting the new creature off the ground, so Revan approached and held out his arms to offer to carry it. It was the least he could do, in his mind. As he approached, the group tensed up a little, and the blue one took flight again, and began to start yelling at him. Before he could so much as pull back his arms or step away, the white creature grabbed the blue one's tail and yanked it to the ground again before giving it some sort of lecture in a stern voice. He turned his attention once again to the orange one, who was looking at him warily. Revan moved his arms a little towards him, but still held them out. Just when he thought that it would reject his offer of help, it motioned for Revan to kneel down using it's head, and he did, before passing over the purple one to him. This set off a whole new string of words from the blue one, and the orange one made a snappy one or two word remark, and the group went quiet. The orange one then motioned the direction they would be walking, and the whole group began following, except for the blue one. Revan obviously had to follow them, seeing as he was carrying their... friend? When he looked over his shoulder, he saw the blue one begrudgingly flying after them at a slow pace, and she kept her eyes on Revan the entire time.