"Tysy?" the Mandalore asked as he approached her. He could almost sense her surprise reverberating in the air. "What is it?"

"Darth Traya!" The Exile couldn't believe it. "She's on the list! As is--oh, no.
No. It can't be. He's dead. She's dead. They're all dead. Revan wouldn't--"

She whirled around quickly to face Canderous. "Have you ever heard of a
woman named Bastila Shan? According to this list, her 'termination' hasn't
happened, and Revan was supposed to be the one to--carry it out himself!"

"Bastila Shan??" he asked in surprise, "But they're--"
The image of them talking in hushed tones, quite close together years ago on the Ebon Hawk, Revan, unabashed, taking her hand.
"They're involved..." Canderous muttered, "Why would she be on the 'to-do' list?"

Jack just stood behind the group. Not making any comment. His mind was being plauged by good memories of his training and in less than a day,how it was all taken away from him. Jack took a deep breath and asked "Can I see that list of Jedi killed? Perhabs there's someone I know on it."

Suddenly, a crimson droid carrying a blaster rifle appeared behind him.

"Threat: Put your hands up and turn around before your bodies turn into ashes, meatbags!" He shouted.

It was HK-47, the assassin droid conceived by the Dark Lord Revan himself, his body a little rusted, his photoreceptors with a golden murderous light. He stood in an action pose, aiming his rifle at them.

Jack put his hands on his heads and turned to face the droid. While he was doing this he sent a message to Tysy I reckon we could take this droid. I'll use a distraction while you make the kill move?

"Acnowledgement: You all seem familiar to me. Query: Anyone of you ever met a Revan?" HK asked, still aiming his blaster. He noticed Jack eyeing Tysy, he knew they were talking through the Force, Jedi are like that.

"Familar to you? Me?" Aerl said to the droid while slowly raising his hands. "Hey, I just got here. I'm not 'familiar' with anything, living or...." He eyed HK up and down. "...o-or droid on this dusty old planet. Especially you." There was a slight hint of fear in his voice, but it wasn't the droid he was afraid of. "And I've never even heard of this Revan person until...erm, now," he added emphatically.

Well here goes nothing Jack thought it himself
"We're not hostile threats. We here to speak with this Revan about something. We have intell that will be of great use to him on his quest. We request that you bring us to him."

"Statement: I also don't recognize you meatbag. I was talking about the armoured Mandalorian and the girl." HK said to Aerl before turning to Jack.

"Query: My master is alive?" HK asked, amazed. "Threat: Tell me where he is now if you don't want to be a corpse, meatbag."

"You've seem to miscalcuate droid. There are more of us than they're are of you. Two of us are Jedi's, leader of the mandalorians and a...." Jack paused for a second "Wait, you just said you don't know where you master is? Then how did you get here?" Jack question, lowering his hand.

"Exclaration: I don't know, i simply woke up in here, pehraps my Master left me here to kill or something," HK said, "I seem to recognize the female Jedi and the Mandalorian. "

"Statement: He is the Mandalore, Canderous Ordo if i'm not mistaken. And she is...no, it can't be, Mistress!" HK shouted.

Aerl raised a single eyebrow at the droid, then looked at Tysy askance. "Mistress?"

"Statement: Yes, Mistress," HK said, looking at Tysy, "She is the Exiled One, she rebuilt me some years ago and we traveled on the Ebon Hawk with that wretched witch, Darth Traya."

"Query: Also, i once had a smaller, utility droid counterpart, has anyone seen it? He goes by the name of T3-M4." HK asked.

Tysy nodded her head at HK-47. "T3 is aboard the Hawk, HK. As your
Mistress, both former and present until Revan's found, I command you to lower
your weapon. These are my companions, and they are no mere 'meatbags',"
she said. Then she smiled. "Welcome back into active service, HK-47."

She quickly turned and pressed Option 1 on the ancient console to re-
display the list of all the Jedi that had been "terminated" since Revan
had last accessed it. "Here you go, Jack. I honestly hope you don't
see anyone you know. Knew." She caught herself and spoke to Canderous.

"As for why Bastila is on the 'to-do' list--at that time, she was a Jedi.
I assume she still is, after turning back to the Light Side aboard the
Star Forge. The Sith would have wanted her dead anew, her Battle
Meditation notwithstanding. I guess this console, and the Sith,
assumed that Revan would try to reclaim his title as Dark Lord.
Unfortunately for them, they all miscalculated." Tysy sighed.

"There's something odd, though. Not about Revan, but Bastila.
Canderous?" she asked. "HK? What do you know or remember,
if anything, about this legendary Jedi who had the power to
turn the tide of any battle she was in? I only know her through
hearsay. Jedi teachings, and the example of her rise and fall."

HK lowered his rifle and then answered his Mistress, Tysy.

"Thought: I think i have heard of her, i might have worked with her..." HK said. "Statement: Now i remember! She did always wanted to press her slimy mucus-covered lips with my Master's ones in the Cargo Hold, but, strangely, that is all i remember, my circuits are failing unfortunately."

"She was a brat." Mandalore answered before elaborating, "Always Dark Side this and fear that. Watch your actions or, Force forbid, you might take a turn to the dark side. And if she wasn't preaching, she was whinning, or barking orders like there was no tomorrow. We didn't get along well."

"Really?" Aerl said with incredulous sarcasm. He just couldn't seem to help himself, even though he knew he was going to gain a reprisal from Mandalore. "Sounds to me like you and this Bastila were...close. Maybe not close enough to swap spit like the droid said she and Revan did, but... they do say 'opposites attract.'"

The Mandalorian growled and his fist shot out, his armored fingers finding their way around his neck.
"Listen to me you little--"
"Canderous..."
He glared hard at Aerl for several moments before loosening his grip and backing away. Why did Tysy have to...

Aerl shrugged and straightened his shirt. "Hit a nerve, did I?" he asked the Mandalorian, although he didn't expect an answer. Well, not a verbal answer anyway. A grunt perhaps. Or maybe a... Ooh, he thought, better apologize.

"Look, I'm, erm... sorry," he said, albeit sounding a bit insincere. "But if this Bastila person isn't on that computer Jedi M.I.A. list, then I suppose we'd better go and find her. If she and Revan had a 'thing' goin', as much as I find that a bit hard to imagine between two 'Jedi', then she might be with him. Or him her. Or... you know what I mean." He looked around. "This place is big. Really big. We could start to explore those corridors. Even if we don't find Revan, we may find a clue as to where he, she, or they might be."

Alright...maybe he's not a total meathead...
Canderous turned to Tysy.
"Well? Your call, Tysy."

Tysy nodded. "We must be careful, though. I know we already have been,
but this is a dark planet. There's no telling what manner of creatures we
might encounter that could be--worse--than whatever you two found."
She motioned to both Aerl and Canderous, and then to HK-47. "Please
come with us, HK. We're going to need your help if we're all going to
survive Ziost." Deferring to Mandalore to lead, Tysy and the troupe
continued through the darknened labyrinth. What was wrong here?

Besides the fact that this was a homeworld of the Sith, of course.

Just then, as if the Force willed it, a barely audible-voice pierced the silence.

"Hypersuffusion," it said. "Via the Force. An end to the whole mess..."

The voice was female. Young. Crisp and clear, with a trace of an accent.
Very refined, as if the speaker had been an aristocrat once. Or a politician.

Or, perhaps, a Jedi.

"Statement: Those are the vocal patterns of one Bastila Shan," intoned HK.

This revelation made Tysy Dvukh's blood run ice-cold, though Ziost burned.

"I know that voice...it has to be her." Mandalore confirmed, pausing a moment. Glancing at his blaster rifle, he fixed a few things before proceeding forward again.
"C'mon, we'll do nothing sitting around here. Watch your step, I dunno if I like the sound of her voice right now..."

Something was pulling her. Pulling them toward it. The Exile
remembered how Master Kavar and the others had warned her
against becoming twisted by the Dark Side, but could it possibly
be that someone could become just as twisted by doing what
they believed was the right thing to do? It seemed to
Jack, Aerl, Canderous, and Tysy that they were all about to
find out. What truths were of the Light, and which were Dark?

A door, a room, a holocron. One Sith Holocron, black as pitch.
So simple, and yet so complex. So fatal. Tysy approached it.

An image of Bastila Shan softly whirred into projected life. Strange
that this powerful icon of Jedi history did not appear to be physically
tainted by the Dark Side. However, her words left no doubt in Tysy's
mind as to where her allegiances truly lay. Despite self-deception.

"An end," said Bastila, her voice at once sorrowful and hollow. "An
end to the wars, to the bloodshed, to the eternal battle between
the Jedi and the Sith. Thousands upon hundreds of thousands are
caught in the crossfire, and it never stops. It never ceases, and it
never will cease until the Force sees fit to reform this galaxy anew.
How humbling it is, then, that it has chosen me as its instrument...

"My Battle Meditation, I now realize, was only a crude stepping stone
to a greater and purer power. Through the power of the Force, and
my own meditations, I can channel it so that those I encounter may
be filled with it. Sometimes, even overfilled, especially if they are evil.

Am I evil? Sometimes I believe so, but would an evil being seek eternal
peace and the rebirth of the galaxy? Or endless war, endless conflict,
and unmended wounds in the Force, wicked echoes that plague us
due to the machinations of the Sith Lords? Who is evil? They or I?

"I thought that hundreds might be spared--dozens--nay, even one!
Then I realized the full truth of what the Jedi Masters had taught
me so many years ago. The Dark Side is within all of us, and we are
all tainted. There is not one of us immune to its lure, or the depraved
actions we may commit if we follow our base passions, our base lusts.
We are all infected with this virus, and that is why I am willing to
sacrifice myself to hypersuffusion as well. I, too, must die with all.

"It is the final objective of an evil being to preserve himself at the cost
of the entire galaxy, and the final objective of a good one to sacrifice
himself for the galaxy's good. That is why some may see the ultimate
act of destruction and Sithhood in what I wish to do, but if I truly were
a Sith, I would be the only one left to reshape the galaxy. And Revan.

"Instead, we will both become one with the Force, and all of life along
with it. Only then can the Force have a clean slate in the void of space
we call home to create and sustain life. Pure life, with no trace of darkness..."

The Exile let out a choked "uh-ih-ee!" sound and slumped against the holocron.

"Tysy!" Mandalore exclaimed as he dropped to his knees beside her, his blaster forgotten as he placed his hands on her shoulders. "Tysy...are you alright?"

Tysy shook her head to clear it. "Canderous," she rasped. "Have you
ever heard of anything so incomprehensibly heinous? To cleanse the
entire galaxy of life so that the Force can supposedly rebuild it? I
know you've killed thousands, but have you ever considered that
it could be done through the Force? In the name of good?!"

He could almost feel her skin grow cold at the thought. He leaned forward, his arms wrapping around her shoulders.
"No...I can't. Especially not from her...I knew she was cracked, but...It seems impossible..."

"It could be that the Dark Side energies are toying with us, trying
to make us believe illusions, but...no illusion could have created that
Holocron. Jack? Aerl? What say you? Could it really be done?!"

"Exclamation: Bravo, bravo! Great speech! I never knew how that whiny spoiled brat could be like that! Bravo!" HK shouted before looking at his companions.

"Irritated Statement: Oh yea, your from the Light Side," HK irritatedly said before lowering the tone of his voice, "Whisper: Meatbags."

"I surpose with another power it could be. However if one thing went wrong there could be a major diaster on a galactic scale. But how does genocide of the jedi order help with this repairing the galaxy?" Jack said, and wispered to annoy HK "Bucket of bolts."

"Irritated Statemnt: I heard that, meat..., Jack." Said HK, noticing Tysy looking at him.

In the name of good…

With Tysy’s words echoing in his head, Aerl snorted with disdain. “Good. Evil. Light Side. Dark Side. What’s the difference? Death is death, no matter what ‘side’ someone believes they’re on. The only ‘side’ that really matters, is the ‘living’ side. Your holographic ‘friend’ there,” he nodded to the holocron, “may claim to be on the ‘Light Side’, but she’s seems a lot more evil to me than…”

He paused for a moment, as if he had been about to say something, but had suddenly thought better of it.

“...than any true Sith Lord,” he continued. “Even if she isn’t wearing the traditional ‘black’ clothing and doesn’t chortle with maniacal laughter at the end of every other sentence,” he added quickly. He cleared his throat. “But it looks like there’s still time to stop her.”

He looked at the holocron. “She said ‘we’. ‘Instead, we will both become one with the Force,’” Aerl quoted Bastila. “’We’ implies two. And, seeing as she and Revan had some sort of a ‘thing’ going on between them, it sounds to me that she was planning for them to die together. So, as long as your buddy Revan isn’t dead, then ‘we’ could assume she isn’t either.” He looked at Tysy. “But I don’t think she planned to invite any of us, especially you, to her End-of-the-Universe Party.” He grinned. “That’s where our ‘we’ has an advantage over her ‘we.’”

"Of course, this implies that we can find her 'we' to begin with." Mandalore murmured.

Aerl frowned a bit. "Yeah... well... there is that. But he's got to be around here someplace, right? I vote we pick another corridor and start looking." He paused. "That is, if we're voting," he added. He looked curiously at Mandalore. "Are we? 'Cause... it's kind of hard to tell under that helmet of yours if you're scowling at me or not."

"Almost every time I'm talking to you, you can probably count on me scowling." Mandalore said seriously, "And as for votes...we can leave that to the Exile. My vote is that we try another corridor but leave tweedle-dee here before he starts activating any more ancient defences."

The Exile nodded. "Try another corridor, we will. Aerl, I agree with your
theory about Bastila. I keep wondering if Revan knows that she most
likely wants them both to die together. If he does know, I wonder if
he'll agree to it. If I know Master Revan...he won't." With the go-
ahead from Tysy, the group pressed on, Aerl far to the rear
of Mandalore. After all, "Tweedle-Dee" resented being left behind.

Another pitch-dark, cobweb-dusted hallway, another door, a room.
This one featured a tall metallic chair, complete with silver shackles
for the legs and wrists. Again, Bastila Shan's calm voice echoed within.

See this chair, little Syscha? It was my first experiment in Force-
hypersuffusion devices, and it cannot be matched. It cannot be broken.
It worked, and it still works, but now I have a more efficient method for
cleansing all of us of the taint that is the power of the Dark Side...

Another voice, this time that of her inner being, prompted her.

Try it. You know who you are, and what you can do. You still have
a 'wound' in you, a Force wound that has only been partially healed.
Perhaps you can withstand this chair's power, and Force hypersuffusion,
if you sit in it and let it do its work. For two minutes, now. Submit.

As if drawn by the will of the Force itself, Tysy sat down in the chair.
The shackles automatically fastened themselves around her ankles and
wrists, and then it began to glow with a deep redness that was not heat.

As the Exile felt the Force begin to fill her via the hypersuffusion chair,
she began to count on her fingers. "At-tysyacha, dve tysyachi, tri
tysyachi, 'tyre tysyachi..." The others realized, some with horror, that
she was counting seconds. Oddly, she seemed to be withstanding it.

After two minutes, the sinister chair was blazing a bright orange-red.
How much more intense could it get? Tysy, though she was fine by
all standards and appearances, was nevertheless working very hard
to subdue the ever-increasing Force currents within her body.

Suddenly, the chair hissed. The glow vanished, and the shackles
released themselves from around the Exile's extremities. Non-Force-
Sensitive victim, perhaps, or one who had the Force partially stripped
away from him or her. This meant Tysy had to protect at least Jack.
If he ever faced such an ordeal as this chair presented, he would die.

"This chair," she told the others, "is something that Bastila probably
discovered or helped to build before she learned to modify her Battle
Meditation power into a Force Hypersuffusion-type power. I don't think
it will work on those who cannot feel the Force. So, that means, Aerl
and Canderous, that you two are safe. Jack--I'll think of something."

Silence. Bastila's voice. You are wrong. Those who are not sensitive
to the Force have just as much to fear as the Jedi or Sith, if not more.
The Force lies within all of us, even if we cannot tangibly feel it. Thus,
the Mandalorian and other living wastes like him will die almost instantly.
Do not resist, my Exile. You have a part in this galactic purification.

"She didn't say what part," Tysy said then, trying very hard not to shiver.

There was a long silence. Then Aerl’s brow raised with realisation. “Oh,” he said slowly. “I get it. This place is like those cheesy fun-houses at those travelling carnivals that frequent the frontier planets on the Rim. Well, ‘fun’ probably isn’t the best word to use in this situation,” he reconsidered. “This is more like a ‘Sith House of Horrors for Jedi.’ But you know what I mean, right, Tysy? You search your way though the maze of dusty corridors, from room to room, discovering all of the warped, evil little tests and exhibits that Bastila has set up, and at the end she kills you.” He paused, then frowned. “Aside from the lack of manical laughter, I’d say that’s pretty evil. Do you think she meant all of these tests for Revan? Or…” Aerl looked directly at Tysy, and his eyes changed from friendly hazel to steely gray. “...did she know you were coming here?”

"Me? I doubt it. After all, I've never met this Bastila," said Tysy, "and from
what I intuit...she meant these tests for many others. Unwary Jedi who
came to Ziost thinking they were powerful enough to withstand anything
that the Sith could throw at them. I think that every time I heard her
voice, that she used the same techniques with other Jedi, other victims.

"What do you say we leave this tunnel and try to find the Hawk?"

"Finding the Hawk sounds good to me..." the Mandalore said distractedly, "But what bothers me the most..."
He scanned the ceiling, as if looking for some kind of camera or other electronic bug, "Is that she called you by name, Tysy."

Revan walked quickly down the tunnel, looking ahead for some sign of danger or strange occurences. Unfortunately, there was nothing. There had been nothing, ever since he had come out into the opening and found the Hawk missing.

Like a door, partly closed. It was like a door that he could almost reach before it closed, and yet when he left, and came back, it had closed completely on him. Now, it was just emptiness in the fortress. It felt uncanny, much more than actually finding something dangerous or mysterious.

He stopped suddely. Voices were above him. They were low enough that he could not discern what they said, but he heard a male voice say something, sounding as if it were behind a mask. Without the force, though, he wasn't sure what to do.

Well, when all else fails... "HELLO!" I guess I might as well. If some evil Sith apparition comes floating out of walls at me, it would break the monotony.

And perhaps it would lessen that feeling of things closing ahead of him, stopping him from looking inside.

"HELLO!!"
Canderous spun on his heel, his gun leveling, a laser sight coming to life on the large door, peircing through the darkness.
"Looks like we're not as alone as we thought." he growled.
Though what kind of idiot shouts when he has no idea what he's shouting at?

"I'll go and check it out..." Said Jack as he took several steps foward, then remenber he was unarmed. He then checked any pockets he had any form of weaponary on him. "Crap... erm anyone got a spare firearm or vibroblade on them?"

"Here," Aerl handed Jack the hold-out blaster Canderous had given him earlier. "Just be careful with it. 'Ol Grumpy there gave it to me." Aerl gave the Mandalore a sour look. "There's probably something wrong with it."

"Oh yeah, I stuffed the barrel full of cork just so it would backfire on you when you pull the trigger."

"Thanks," Replied Jack before leaving the group to where the voice was coming from. Keeping the gun aimed and ready to shoot anything that would want him dead. After a little less than a minute, Jack saw a figure down the hallway. Well here goes nothing "Hey!" Jack stepped into view, aimied his gun and figure and shouted "Who are you?"

"I'm an evil Sith menace, coming to destroy you, Jedi." Revan had to smile as he saw the force adept stepping down the hallway. A Jedi, here, eh? I wonder who's with him. Revan stepped toward him, deciding to stop the sarcasm and see what was going on.

"Actually... my name is Revan. Perhaps you might know who I am."

"That depends, are you the Revan whom was once a powerfull sith lord who was screwed over by his apperentice and lost his memory only to kill his former apperentice and abandoned the galaxy in seach for some great threat... or your just some average Joe with the same name... I'm guessing option 1 is correct.."

Hey Tysy, you wouldn't believe who I've found wondering the walls... Jack said, sending a message through the force.

HK was impatient and decided to follow Jack. Eventually he found him talking to a very familiar face.

"Happy Statement : Gasph, Master, oh Master, is that you?!" HK asked the figure that appeared to be Revan in utter joy.

Tysy, receiving Jack's message through the Force loud and clear, rushed
forward. Forgetting all her training, forgetting her exile, forgetting even
the basic sense of self-guarding that all Jedi were supposed to have,
she yearned to lay eyes on Revan's face one last time, even if his
objective was to kill her. She had to know if it was him.

When she saw his face, all of her greatest dreams and her worst
fears collided in one fell swoop in her mind, almost knocking her
as senseless as a Force Wave would have. "Revan? Is that you?"

"It is, or its either some average Joe with the same name and same memories." Revan walked forward to see the newcomers in more light.

"Tysy...." She was here; he was very glad of that. With her help, even if she had been once stripped of the force, he stood a much greater chance of understanding the mysteries of this place. "And I see you brought a few of my other friends back, too." He smiled as he saw HK.