Crimson Eyes ~ Sequel to: The Valkyrie, An Obi-Wan Story (completed)

Chapter 61: Dawn of an Empire

So.. I found another AI.
I. Am. In. Love.

"- we shall rise." After he'd heard her whisper echoing through the hall, Obi Wan saw the queen of Valeria erupt with a blinding light, something that could only be described as pure energy following.

Before he knew it, the very ground he was standing on tore apart.

A force unlike anything he'd ever heard or seen before broke through the foundation of the planet and cracked the surface, a wave of what seemed like silver electricity expanding over the terrain. The walls that had once held up the most prestigious throne room he had ever witnessed were blasted apart like they were made of mere paper, crumbling outward and leaving nothing but dust behind. Even the buildings surrounding them evaporated in a single flash.

Through his fingers, which he held before his face in defence, he could see what had been left behind. The entire area around them had been flattened, with only the throne of Valeria left standing amidst the ruins.

The sky roared with fury as the cracks expanded through the city, through the hills beyond and then through the mountains on the far end. There, they erupted with the same wrath and exploded with gigantic clouds of smoke and dust. The rumble that followed had the earth shaking with such force that it threw the few structures that had remained standing over.

All that had taken but a split second. The entire city of Eagle's Fall had been reduced to ruins within a single moment and the chaos was only continuing to wreak havoc. The Republic ships in the sky rocketed and plummeted to the ground, unable to withstand the force of the queen's fury.

Obi Wan could only lean into the pure energy emitting from her, screaming against the power and hoping his skin wouldn't succumb under the pressure. With his arm lifted before him and his body bowed, he prayed that the planet wouldn't explode and take her with it.

For she, even though she'd been far away, had been the only reason he kept fighting when everything else was taken from him. She'd been the light at the end of the tunnel when his closest friends had turned on him, when his entire life had been destroyed by a single wrong choice. He couldn't lose her now without losing himself.

By some miracle, he wasn't harmed. He saw the marble beneath his feet cracking apart, saw the gasms forming in the surface, saw the stone melting underneath the heat but he remained protected amidst the chaos. Their bond, which was made from a force so primal that even all Vanir powers combined couldn't destroy it, kept him safe.

It all blew past him as if he wasn't there.

But if the planet was to be torn apart, there wouldn't be any way to protect them both from the consequences.

The mountains in the distance exploded, blowing great gusts of smoke mixed with spewing fire into the sky. Thunder roared and struck all around him, wind knocking down the already ruined buildings. The chasms that appeared in the ground showed the molten lava underneath, turning the entire city into a furnace.

All of it, the cracks in the surface, the circle of chaos and the eye of the hurricane, pointed to her. A network of destruction originating from the one person who'd tried everything to keep it all intact. To the person that held the power of the 4 founding families in the palm of her hand, standing amidst a gigantic web of her own agony.

The fury, the pure wrath that was tearing Valeria apart, it was all her. That was trapping the clone troopers in the streets and bringing down the ships in the sky, that was killing everyone and everything that had dared to step onto her planet.

It was the wrath of a queen who'd lost it all.

He felt her grief drowning her with sorrow as she relentlessly continued her rampage. The power only continued to build, to expand, until all he could do was hope that he wouldn't be torn with it, that he wouldn't be dragged into the same pit of despair. Everything in the vicinity had been destroyed already, the outbursts of the volcanoes soon to be causing a planet-wide cataclysm.