Star Wars: Advent of The Hellwalker (Ahsoka x M! Reader)

Chapter II - Corudescent

(Hell barge, Coruscant, your point of view)

I exited the portal to appear in a small room. Gothic architecture dominated every surface, every object. Cages sat on the floor with husks of decomposing humans, behind me was a large furnace with a roaring fire, and every single object was adorned with skulls, rust, drops of blood, deadly spikes, and other gothic features; the aesthetic of the entire place just screamed "death" and "misery". The room ended with a door on the other end which was decorated with a demonic skull adorned with glowing red eyes, and between it and myself, a few lowly possessed citizens wandered in the room. They stumbled as the titan carrying us struggled to walk under all the weight. The demons noticed me and crept toward my direction, I responded with buckshot to the face, splattering their weak torsos onto the wall. The door opened up after its eyes changed to green in color, revealing a few more possessed at a staircase, the shaking of the hell barge had caused them to stumble and fall onto the floor and the walls, making them dazed. I approached the first zombie on the floor, he attempted to swipe at me but I grabbed his arm, tore it off, and bashed his head in with it.

The other ones didn't put up much of a fight, their slower brains suddenly clicked and realized who I was, evident by their attempts to run away down the stairs. I caught up to one of them and slammed my foot onto its leg, breaking it and causing him to fall, but I held its head in my hands and twisted its neck, killing it. The other one made it down the steps to a room with cages full of hundreds of humans cramped up and either becoming possessed or prepared for dark blood rituals. Nilox had been busy.

The zombie that was running away stumbled onto a barrel, and in front of it I saw what I had reminded myself to look for: My chainsaw. The demonic bastards stole it from me along with my super shotgun during my time in hell before I had escaped with my ship a few days ago. Figures Nilox would be keeping it as an idol. The stupid zombie grabbed onto the chainsaw and struggled to hoist it up, pathetic. I approached the demon and clutched his hand that was gripping the handle. The demon shook in terror before I pulled my hand back, holding the chainsaw, along with the demon's severed hand that I hadn't let go of. The demon fell to the ground holding its bleeding arm stump and watched as I dropped his hand onto the floor and yanked the starter, bringing power to the chainsaw as it roared to life.

Let me show you worthless husk how to use it.

I glared at the demon who was trembling uncontrollably. And then I shoved the chainsaw into its side with a swipe. The zombie yelped in pain before it was sliced in half. Its divided corpse fell to the ground and a large puddle of blood poured out, as well as ammo.

Ah, much better.

The receptors on my suit absorbed the energy from the demon thanks to the chainsaw. Although it appeared to be a simple, even rather primitive object, the chainsaw had been modified earlier with the receptor technology from my gifted Praetor suit, allowing it to convert the potential argent energy from decimated foes into physical ammunition for my selected arsenal instead of health. The HUD in my helmet reported that my ammunition reserves were nearly full. I continued onward, jumping over one of the cages and into a short hallway occupied by four more possessed, there was a door on the other end with a crack in it. The zombies staggered towards me, until I stuck the one up front with an explosive shot from my shotgun. The force of the impact caused the demon to fall back onto the others. Before it could get pack up, the explosive went off, destroying all of them and splattering their insides on the walls.

I ran across the blood-stained floor towards the door and barreled through it. On the other side was a large collection of more possessed bystanders, as well as zombified possessed soldiers. Some of the soldiers wore standard UAC armor, others wore the white trooper armor of the local military. The armor fused with their bodies, causing their rifles to become a permanent part of them, replacing their hand. Their flesh and armor melded together, a large slit grew over their helmets, becoming their mouths. Imps were there too. Having no enemies to feast on, they all decided to take their aggression out on each other.

Hope they don't mind if I join in. I released four more explosive shots into the area, catching two soldiers and two imps on the head, exploding them and the other demons they were attacking. The entire room then turned their heads towards me. They all roared, growled, snarled, whatever they could in anticipation.

Miss me?

I jumped into the fray, right onto a dazed zombie soldier whose mind had been tossed out of reality by one of the explosive shots. His body slammed onto the ground under my foot, and before he knew what was happening, I bashed my knee down into his face, shattering his head. A group of imps ran towards me from the front. One jumped at me with its claws ready to slice, but I grabbed him by the neck and twirled him around behind me, keeping him in a choke hold. With my other hand I put away my shotgun and reached behind me, my heavy automatic rifle materialized into my hands from the weapon wall in my fortress, the shotgun filled in its spot there. I pulled the trigger of the heavy assault cannon and ripped four other demons to shreds with an onslaught of bullets. Once I was done with them I tightened my hold on the imp's neck in my hand, crushing it. He fell to the ground limply.

More imps appeared as well as zombie soldiers and began to throw ranged attacks at me. I ran forward, avoiding the attacks and blasting away all the demons in my path with the micro-missiles on my assault cannon. The demons were blown to bits by the small rockets. One possessed trooper emerged from behind the explosion and tried to swing at me with its arm cannon. I grabbed his arm before he could do so, and sharply bent it at the elbow, breaking it before opting to give him a taste of his own medicine by whacking him with my own automatic cannon, his white helmet-head was knocked clean off on impact and flew towards an imp, hitting it square in the face and causing it to fall over, dazed, which was proven by the blue and orange highlight that my visor projected onto its body in my heads up display. A barrel suddenly exploded right next to me, causing burns to form on my right side. My health reserves sank low after a large amount of the wraith energy in them was used to cleanse the burns on me, which healed gradually. A possessed soldier was releasing large spheres of argent plasma in my direction. I retreated towards the dazed imp, and a lowly zombie tried to stand in my way. It had nothing against me. I kicked it away with nearly full force and sent it splattering onto a nearby wall. I ran up to the dazed imp just as it was getting up from the ground. Before it could finish, I grabbed its jaws and held on strong, the demon began trying to claw at me while screeching loudly, I shut it up by tearing its lower jaw off, silencing the damn thing.

The receptors on my suit absorbed the potential argent energy from its dead body and extracted the raw wraith energy into my health reserves, putting them back to 194%

More demons teleported in. Sensing that this would take more firepower, I put away my heavy cannon and pulled out my massive chaingun from my arsenal. And moving steadily, unloaded shot after shot into the massive group of dammed. The crowd of demons shredded like paper from the bullets, except for one ballsy imp who climbed along the ceiling towards me. He jumped down and swiped along my shoulder with his burning claws. My health once again dropped low, and burning claw marks glowed on my shoulder. The beast jumped at me again from behind, but I quickly rammed my chaingun into its side as hard as I could. Several cracks were heard as the demon fell sideways off the platform and landed in a bent up, broken mess. I hopped down and approached the imp. It painfully glared at me and sneered as I walked over to it. I lifted my hand up, and with some considerable force, drove my hand into its back and dug through its ribcage, which caused the demon to scream in agony before I yanked out, pulling its spine with the head still attached and hanging limply. The demon died and I refilled my health with its energy.

Suddenly a large cyclone of demonic energy materialized. I prepared myself and bore witness, this was a very large figure evident by the tall rings of red light and energy. It was almost up to the ceiling. The rings of hellfire gave away, and a very large creature materialized in the room. The creature stood several meters tall, even while it hunched over in almost an exaggerated fashion, with its neck bending forward in almost a complete right angle in relation to its torso. The head of the beast held large lumps of fat which folded around three large tusks on either side of the head. In between the smallest tusk was positioned a large mouth that took up most of its face. Big teeth appeared inside along with two small mandibles on the bottom jaw. Right above its mouth appeared two long slit like nostrils which leaked disgusting mucus, and to the sides of the mouth were two small dark eyes. The creature's hands featured two long, bony fingers, and a thumb at each side of the hands, each finger had a long claw at the end. Its small legs were inverted like an insect and ended in large flat feet with three big toes at the front that made the ground shake as he walked, giving the titan below us a run for its money. The monster roared upon noticing me and its long tail wagged in anticipation, it must be excited for new prey.

So, this is a bull rancor? Or at least, WAS a bull rancor, evident by the demonic horns and spines that ran along its back in rows and above its head, as well as the fiery glow that radiated through its eyes. And if that wasn't enough, maybe the cybernetic enhancements might prove that this thing was long gone and now simply remained a shell occupied by a demonic spirit. The creature had metal plating on its arms and legs, and face around the jaws and scalp. Ranged weaponry also sprouted from its wrists, his spine was lined with machinery that ended in metal spikes, possibly antennas all the way down to the tail, which now contained an argent plasma blade at the end, the UAC was definitely responsible for this abomination. I had been monitoring their activity over the local radio channels. They had been taking in innocent people and wildlife and subjecting them to horrendous activities. Performing inhumane experiments and rituals on them, turning them into these... abominations. Unwilling messes of demonic life to fight against their own kind in the conquest of the galaxy.

Let me do this one a favor and help us both out by ending its pitiful existence. I grabbed my shotgun from my arsenal and unloaded several shots into the demonic rancor's face. The creature resisted the pain and began to fire its arm turrets at me. Shots of argent plasma flew into my direction, exploding on impact. My health dropped, causing me to have to run throughout the area, gathering health from the demon carcasses from the earlier skirmish. I brought out my heavy cannon and aimed at the demon's turrets with the precision scope, then I fired. The shots simply bounced off. that's some tough armor, but the precision shot did cause the turret to spaz out momentarily, jamming it. That's a good weak point to remember. I did the same to the cannon on the rancor's other wrist. And now that he couldn't range attack me, I ran up to the beast, jumped onto his left shoulder, and began punching his head in. The demon roared in anger and attempted to swipe me off his shoulder with his right hand. I jumped and evaded the swipe, landing on top of his head. I unleashed my doom blade and after rearing my arm back, sank it into the metal plating on his skull. The demon roared in pain now and tried to shake me off, I held on tight, trying to see whatever I could mess up while on his head.

Then as quick as lightning I retracted my blade and jumped off from the rancor's head. That was a close one. Right before I landed on the floor, the creature sliced across his head with his tail blade. I almost missed that, and I would have missed it if I didn't have the gift. The rancor roared in furious rage; it did not appreciate me messing with its head like that. Its arm cannons came back online, and it continued to fire at me. All I know is that if whatever you're doing makes the demon angry, keep doing it. I fired back at it with my chaingun while doing my best to dodge the incoming blaster fire. I pulled out my combat shotgun behind cover and activated the automatic rotator, sending buckshot into the monster at a higher rate. The demon reeled back its tail again and attempted to slice me right where I stood, but I jumped high up above its horizontal attack. Then while I was in the air it swung its tail back around, now ready to slice me up in midair. A pseudo grin appeared across his face, this thing was smarter than all the rest, but I was even smarter. I boosted out of the way with my thrust boots and grabbed onto the tail as it zoomed by me. Landing on the ground I clutched the tail with my right hand, and with my left, ejected the doom blade right into the tail. The demon engaged in a tug of war with me, trying to pull back its tail, but I've defeated stronger. I hoisted the tail over my shoulder and held on tight, before turning around away from the demon. Then with a fraction of my strength, I yanked the tail in front of me hard, I heard a loud thud and looked behind me, the rancor was swiped off its feet by my tug. Before it could get up, I pulled harder, pulling it towards me, then I started to run, going fast while dragging the demon along with me. I turned as we came to the wall, the demon slammed into it as we continued on. Now I get to have a good time. There's no point annihilating them outright if you don't get to make them suffer first. Now that he was being dragged behind my fast-paced movement I stopped abruptly and brought my arms towards my front, reeling the rancor along with the momentum in a circular motion with his body horizontal above the ground. The rancor roared as it flew around my position, I held on tight to its tail, I wasn't done yet. I kept spinning around while clutching the tail, Making the rancor soar in circles around me, I kept on going, making his body bash against all the sharp-edged metal pillars and platforms around us, reducing everything to rubble. He was crying out in pain now. Ahhh, I love that sound. So I adjusted the angle of my arms, making him spin higher up by the hooks and cages hanging from the ceiling. His flesh got caught in all the sharp objects while he kept moving in circles, causing blood to rain down from the ceiling. This was so fun, but I had been here long enough, so as I kept spinning him, I carefully took my left hand, and with a dose of strength, swiped up, separating the end of his tail from the rest of him with the doom blade. The demon flew towards the wall and slammed into it hard, destroying a cage of suffering civilians. He panted and groaned in pain. Argent plasma shot out from his body which my suit absorbed, that must've hurt pretty bad.

Trying to swipe at me from behind while I was on his head, that was a smart attack, and no one would have seen it coming except for me. The gift has helped me before, countless times just as it did right then, and though I may never understand it, I take advantage of it whenever need be. For as long as I could remember, I have had a unique perception of reality, a sort of sixth sense. I am able to interpret that which is not seen or recognized so easily by normal beings. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but this natural ability has always granted me remarkable spatial awareness, light mind reading, and even anticipation. I have been able to detect the life of any demons and other beings around me, even spectres can never hide from me. I've been able to predict an opponent's next move in a fight before they can even begin to execute said move, and I can read the emotions of others. It comes in real useful when I know I never want to be tricked into walking under a collapsing hell temple and sealed away again.

I looked down at the tail in my hand, the blade of argent plasma still glowed bright, holding it with both hands, I ran towards the rancor and jumped high, then brought the argent blade down on his head, and plunged it into his skull where the metal plating was. He roared in pain as fire erupted from above his head. The turrets suddenly ceased activity and I jumped off. But the rancor was still alive, screeching with anger. He opened his mouth wide, and I prepared my shotgun to launch another sticky into his mouth, but before I could, A pointed object suddenly appeared, before being propelled in my direction and exploding in front of me, pushing me into the wall of debris I had created.

Rockets?? He had a rocket launcher in his mouth! That is insane!

I love it!

The demon fired more rockets at me, clusters of them. I tried to jump over one but it exploded in midair, creating a large cloud of fire and smoke, they didn't even need to hit surfaces anymore. I was kind of jealous. These rockets had a lot of argent energy powering them, which was no good for my armor. But my advantage was that they formed and fired from his mouth, whoever designed this thing's cybernetic modifications was a complete idiot. The rancor stopped its assault to reload more ammunition into its gullet. Then right as he opened wide to fire at me, I aimed and burst a precision shot right into its mouth. The rancor's head instantly exploded from his own rockets. Fire erupted from its torso, and blood, guts and machinery were thrown everywhere.

I approached the carcass. Pieces of wiring and cybertechnology were sparkling from the damage. I spotted a piece of dark metal under a chunk of his head. Digging through the chunks of flesh and metal, I pulled out a large dark cylindrical firearm with glowing red accents. There was a trigger underneath and a handle for stabilization on the weapon's barrel. On its side was a glowing skull, this weapon was of UAC cultist origin, no doubt. On the rear half of the weapon a chamber was placed. I looked inside the chamber and slightly pressed the trigger, which caused the chamber to shove a missile forward. red sparks leaked out of the missile from behind. It was the rancor's rocket launcher.

I'm going to enjoy this.

I looked back to the dead rancor after hearing a metallic dinging echoing in the room. A blue coin appeared and levitated from the corpse. It glowed bright and flipped rapidly, I caught sight of a symbol on both sides in the center. I recognized the symbol as the seal of the Deag priests.

That's what I needed: the Deagic talisman.

Time to finish this.

I reached my hand out and the talisman gravitated towards me where I caught it in my palm, then I hopped back onto the top platform and approached the door which opened at my presence. I walked down another corridor towards a room at the end and kicked the heavy metal door open. The room behind was a large one with some furnaces on the walls, cages and corpses hanging from chains in the ceiling, and a large burning pit in the center.

"YOU!" A raspy voice said from my left. I turned towards the sound.

There he was. Deag Nilox, the evil snake that contributed to the death of countless innocent and noble warriors, my fellow Night Sentinels. There he was, adorned with regal clothing displaying his royalty. Him. The serpent that sold the rest of us out for power. Royalty? Don't make me throw up. This traitorous scum hell priest, and not the only one, was finally within my grasp. I've been waiting for this moment for millions of years.

I dashed towards him and grabbed him by the throat and squeezed harder than I ever had in a chokehold. He flinched at the pain and struggled to maintain his breath thanks to the sudden pressure around his windpipe. "My... soul... remains guarded!" He insisted through the gasps of breath, "You... can't-!" He said as I raised up the glowing Deagic talisman toward his face.

Does it really?

Nilox's eyes widened as he stared in horror at the talisman which evaporated into glowing particles and realization struck the hell priest like a rock to the head. It was as if he and I could both feel his immortality fading away with the talisman itself. Nilox began to struggle and claw at my gauntlet rapidly. His final moments were lost to me as the emotions of sweet revenge took over my thoughts. The memories, they flashed across my vision wildly, my torture at the hands of the demons, before being brought to Argent D'Nur. And there he stood, judging my abilities in the arena, in the cells, in examinations, everywhere. Nilox, you were always an aggravating little piece of filth.

"He may bite hard, but that doesn't in any way mean he's a good dog."

"Savages like you have no place among our commonfolk."

"I think the day he falls in battle like the psychotic fool he is will be the day I can rest easy knowing this thing is no longer here to disturb our ways."

"Put him in his cage! He needs to know his place."

"We are a noble brotherhood, who guard a great people. We have ingenuity, noble mindsets, civility, ambition, and bravery, which is why you will never be one of us, Outlander."

"I have always vouched for you, so trust in me. I, Nilox of the Deagic Order, do so solemnly swear that I will do everything within my abilities to help ensure a Sentinel victory against the demonic serpents and our false gods."

LIAR!

I was snapped out of my trance by the sound of blood splattering against the floor. I slowly brought my hand up, with the despicable monster's head positioned neatly on it. I brought his head up to my face, glaring at the awful traitor, but still reveling in his death.

If I don't belong with them, then you certainly don't either.

I touched the crown on his head. In Argenta society, royalty is reserved for the valiant and courageous, not this coward.

Know your place.

I then put the head in my pouch.

The barge suddenly began to tilt, barrels in the room rolled in my direction. I jumped over them all the way to the opposite wall where a door was. The structure suddenly stabilized, and I bashed through the door. I looked around from the balcony, the world was on fire. I then realized we were not moving anymore. To the left, the demonic titan had set the barge down. He had been freed from the priest's influence and was now walking away. The titan set us down on top of a district of buildings, since technically, there was no ground. The area was lined with pathways that descended infinitely to the burning mantle of the planet. I only knew these were "roads" because I could see a few aerial vehicles zipping through them like so. In front of us sat a large structure, the largest one in the vicinity. It was built like a cube and a pyramid that had fused together. Atop the building, four large spires stretched out into the sky on the corners of the building's roof, with one large spire stretching up even higher from the center of the building. Smoke and fire erupted from the structure, but that was becoming the norm nowadays. Further off into the distance I could see hell fortresses positioned in the sky, shooting terraforming beams into the planet.

"The first hell priest has been eliminated" VEGA said to me. "The demonic consumption of the galaxy has been reduced, by 36.8%. There are two hell priests remaining. Acquiring their location now... marked." A marker appeared on my HUD, it highlighted the closest hell citadel, located right behind the large spired building in front of me. I jumped over the railing and into the destruction below, and looking forward, I popped my knuckles in anticipation.

Time to reconnect with some old friends.

I set onward, beginning my path towards the large, spired structure.

(Coruscant, No one's point of view)

The support group, accompanied by Anakin, Ahsoka, and Coric's remaining squad of Y-Wings flew in the sky above Coruscant.

Cody spoke over the com channel. "Generals, I'm picking up a faint signal on holograms."

"From where?" Obi-Wan asked.

"...The Senate district... It's Dr Hayden."

Everyone listened in and those who could focused on their holopads, which suddenly displayed Dr Hayden's figure as well as a few clone troopers from the Senate guard. "ARC and Republic forces. Requesting assistance and evacuation. The galactic senate is holed up in the grand convocation chamber. The Senate Rotunda has been under heavy siege over the last 48 hours. The attack has suddenly reached a calming point. To anyone receiving this transmission, I repeat, requesting immediate evac at the Senate dome while we're still under the eye of the storm."

"Dr Hayden, this is General Obi-Wan Kenobi accompanied by the gathered support group from the Resolute. We read you and are on our way."

"Glad to finally hear a friendly voice. Please hurry and take care General."

"Will do." Obi-Wan responded

"Hold on," Anakin chimed in, "Did you just mean to say the attack is starting to let up?"

"Indeed I did General... Skywalker is it? Hayden responded, "We have observers who are reporting that the demons are becoming less ambitious and coordinated, weaker to our weapons. More feral but also predictable. It appears that some significant event has happened to turn the tide in our favor, but not enough."

"That sounds pretty vague. Can't you give us any more info right now?" Anakin questioned.

"I am unable to at the moment general. But I promise, once we are out of here, I will reveal everything about our enemy to you all, no more secrets." Hayden said.

"Fine" Anakin said. "We're heading to you."

"There's one more thing actually." Hayden kept on going. "This event that I speak of, we only hypothesize that it occurred, we don't know for sure, we only know that it would lead to an outcome similar to the one we are witnessing now."

"What outcome is that?" Obi-Wan asked curiously.

"The deregulation, and eventual victory over our enemy." Hayden said.

"What? What are you talking about? What is this event?" Anakin said.

"Dr, we're running out of power!" A clone trooper said offscreen over the hologram channel.

"Time grows short, but I need some of you to perform another task." Hayden said. "There is a temple here on this planet that wasn't here before. You will certainly know it when you see it, its architecture is very unique and different from every other building on Coruscant. I need some of you to investigate it. And keep your eyes peeled for this individual." Hayden projected the image of Deag Nilox next to himself on the holograms.

"Well, he's pretty nightmare inducing." Ahsoka said, looking at the hell priest over her dashboard.

"Yes, no argument there." Obi-Wan said in agreement. "So what do we do if we find him? Is he a friend of yours that we need to bring back?"

"Kill him on sight, if he is still alive that is." Hayden finished before leaving the hologram channel.

"He doesn't look worth our time at all. He's just an old man, we should let him die out here. I don't feel like we can afford to sacrifice men meant to rescue the senate, just so they could scour the area looking for this singular flimsy, possibly senile lowlife." Anakin stated.

"I agree sir, we barely have enough as it is to effectively infiltrate the Senate Rotunda." Rex said from his gunship.

"We don't know, yet. For all we know this temple he speaks of may not be that far away." Ahsoka said.

"I can collect reconnaissance information through the open channels if need be." Rex said. He tuned his com "All republic forces in the area, this is Captain Rex of the Torrent squadron, does anyone have a visual of an unusual structure? Not to be confused with the large spires beaming down on the planet from the sky. Over."

"Captain Rex, this is X2 of General Ferroda's battalion. I think I have a visual on the structure you speak of. It is a large building with many skull ornaments and sharp edges, a few balconies, gives off the vibe of a religious site."

"Roger that X2. Can you provide an estimate of the location?"

"Yes sir... the structure dropped right into the Temple district... onto most of my squad members."

"X2, I... acknowledged." Rex responded grimly

"We have a few injured survivors, if you could send medical and evac support, please do." X2 continued.

"Don't worry trooper, we'll send help as soon as we can. Over and out." Rex said. "Hopefully we'll have enough room on our ships after we're done at the Senate dome."

"I'll go." Ahsoka said over coms.

"All by yourself? Not happening. What're you gonna do? Cram them all in your interceptor and fly away?" Anakin said

"No, but maybe I can help fend off any more challenged that try to attack them. They're injured. We can't just leave them defenseless like that, Master." Ahsoka argued

"Sorry Ahsoka, but we have a priority one mission. The Senate is our objective. The clones will have to wait until more reinforcements come along. That's just how it is these days" Anakin said.

"Won't have to wait much longer Skywalker." Plo Koon's voice suddenly said on the open coms channel. Ahsoka looked up and was met with the view of Plo Koon's Delta-7 starfighter, followed by a few LAAT gunships descending from the sky.

Plo Koon appeared on the hologram channel. "Koh-to-yah, little 'Soka"

"Koh-to-yah, Master Plo." Ahsoka responded with a wide smile after joining the channel.

Commander Wolffe joined as well. "Wolf Pack and the 104th battalion, at your service commander Tano. You want to investigate that temple? You've got our support. And we have medics aboard as well. Don't worry, the troops will be in good hands."

"I assume you heard the conversation we had with our cloak and dagger friend at the Rotunda?" Obi-Wan asked

"Indeed." Plo responded. "The survival of the Senate is of ultimate importance, but I think we can all agree that if eliminating this individual that Dr. Hayden speaks of can bring this conflict to an end, we should spare as much effort and time, currently not dedicated to the senate of course, towards finding him, even if just to make sure he has already been eliminated."

"I agree, don't get me wrong, you came just in the nick of time." Anakin said. "Alright snips, you get your wish. Take off with Plo and investigate the temple. And be careful. We still don't know what we're dealing with."

"Don't worry Master, you just focus on getting the Senate and anyone else you find off this planet alive, and make sure Padme is alright." Ahsoka said. She then left the side of her master's craft and joined in next to the Wolf pack's gunship.

"Make sure to keep an eye on her Master Plo." Anakin said

"Like a hawk." Plo responded. They left the open channel and the two groups then split up, with the Resolute support group continuing towards the Senate Rotunda and Plo Koon's battalion turning in the direction of the Temple District.

"Let's hope this finally leads to something good." Ahsoka said to Plo

"Indeed" the jedi master responded

(Jedi temple outskirts, your point of view)

A cacodemon lunged towards me; mouth wide open for a bite of my flesh. But I grabbed its side jaws when it was just inches away from me. The thing struggled to push me down and close its teeth around my body. I spread my arms out to the sides while maintaining a firm grip on its side jaws, now the caco began to struggle, trying to move back away from me. I yanked harder and pulled its side jaws apart, tearing them off and causing the cacodemon to squeal in pain. While it was distracted, I dove at it and struck my hand into its eye, tearing it from its socket and causing the caco to bleed out. It flailed around rapidly. I took the advantage and jumped onto it, clutching its empty eye socket with my hand. The demon rose up and moved rapidly, twisting and turning, trying to shake me off. I squeezed the left side of its eye socket, causing it to turn left from the pressure to its cerebellum while squealing painfully. We were now over a large, incomprehensibly deep ravine that glowed bright at the bottom, with lights and signs lined throughout the path leading down. I drove my hand in further, causing the demon to fly rapidly at random before descending. This wasn't my goal. I clutched the top of the cacodemon's eye socket and squeezed, it immediately rose back up and continued upward onto the high platform in front of us above the ground level, or one of the ground levels. It was impossible to tell on this planet. I continued to steer the cacodemon towards the edge of the ravine. We were getting closer to the other side now. I kicked hard at the cacodemon's rear and then drove my hand deeper into its eye socket before grabbing the muscles from within and pulling out hard, causing the caco to rush forward full throttle towards the ravine's edge. I jumped as we approached the other side, rolling safely to the ground. The cacodemon landed hard with a splat; blood had started to splatter out uncontrollably from its eye socket after I had let go. It writhed on the ground, waving its little disfigured arms around rapidly while squealing in pain for a few seconds before it stopped moving completely.

Thanks to the ride, I had made it to the front steps of the large, spired structure, finally. It took a very long time to get here. The distances between places on this planet were arduously long, but the unusually large buildings and lack of any road or sense of on foot transportation gave the illusion that it was much smaller than it actually was. I stood in what seemed to be a ginormous courtyard, or docking bay of sorts, there were flat sections around the spired building, some of which had local ships positioned on them. In front of me was a massive staircase, this must be the way in. I would have to go through this building to reach the priests' location on the other side. Fires burned on the walls of the structure. And from out here I could hear incessant screams of terror. I could also hear ferocious roaring and growling alongside it, the demons were here. They were attacking innocents here. One priest's death wasn't enough to make them completely stop their attack. I cocked my shotgun.

Good.

I began my ascent up the stairs towards the main entrance. This building was even more ginormous now that I was right in front of it. The staircase alone was a few stories tall. These people, whoever occupied this building previously, must have had a lot of time on their hands. I suddenly heard the sound of engines. I turned around. Several ships were landing far away, two small ones and about five bigger ones with wings that bent downward from the rear, they were touching down close to the hell barge. Looks like cleanup crew was starting to roll out. I didn't need to worry about them. I'd be done here in no time, hopefully. As I made my way up the steps, I got better view of the area around me from the higher position. I looked to the left. The area that I now occupied was on top of a large "plateau" that rose high above the other buildings in the district. This building that I was making my way into was the only structure on the plateau, it must be really important. And good for me that it was at such an elevation My current thought process is that I need to get to higher ground if I'm going to have any chance at reaching the priests, it's my best plan at the moment. I've got to get to the roof of this building. There were still a few more cacodemons and pain elementals in the area, I could hitch another ride up to the hell citadel behind this building if I can get closer to the airborne demons and grab their attention.

"It is not too late..."

I darted my head forward so fast I swear I felt whiplash for the first time in centuries. I looked around, my shotgun at the ready. I looked up, then darted my eyes around me, looking for the source... Who the hell said that? I looked around. I know what I just heard; my senses don't lie. A female voice, loud and echoing, yet whispering and soft. It seemed to come from inside the building in front of me, no, it came from everywhere, as if someone spoke from inside my head. But I could feel some sort of energy radiating from inside the structure, before it disappeared in a flash. I focused on the building in front of me. Whoever, or whatever just spoke to me, they were there for only a few seconds, and now it seemed they were gone, I could no longer sense them, or it, if it even existed that is. Yet still. I could sense something inside, some sort of lingering presence, and a strange one. Not a demon, not a mortal. A Maykr perhaps? I ran up the stairs as fast as I could.

Making my way to the top, I was met with the view of four large golden statues, standing in a row. Behind them stood twelve giant pylons, covering the rest of the path to the building's entrance. The statues stood several meters high, the pylon's, even higher, they towered over me, and yet they were not even half as tall as the rest of the main building. The two inner statues displayed hooded figures with long robes, holding their hands together in a sacred manner. The figures gave off the impression of priesthood or solitude, they appeared to be praying. The other two statues on the ends of the row gave off another vibe. They wore the same long cloaks, but their hoods were removed. They did not pray. With both of their hands they held a large thin blade towards their chest. The blade extended towards the sky from a techy-looking handle in the figures' hands. It seemed odd to have violence depicted at a place of sacrilege. Maybe this was some sort of training center for a martial art?

Past the statues, I walked under the giant pylons. On the sides of the pylons were more depictions of figures similar to the ones displayed by the statues. Four figures of humanoid form clad in large robes were etched into the Pylons from the side. In their hands they each grasped a different weapon handle, but each one had that similar blade protruding from it. I observed the images clearly as I walked towards the door, no longer in such a hurry. These depictions were catching my interest, and that voice... where did it come from? Curiosity dominated my mind. Who are these people? Gods? Why does this place seem so strange? And those blades. As I walked under the pylons and observed the images with a brief spare of my focus, I noticed they looked so interesting.

I heard a stomp behind me, to which I rotated in the direction of. A large hoof stomped down from the corner under a gray leg. A Baron of hell emerged from behind one of the pylons closer to the stairs. He growled in a gleeful manner and fiery blades formed from his gray wrists. A wide open grin formed on his face and he drew his right arm back before thrusting it in my direction, sending a wave of fire in my direction. I jumped over it with ease and ran towards him, unleashing a flurry of shotgun rounds into his face from my shotgun's rotating barrel. Immediately chunks of his face were torn off from the attack, revealing his fiery insides underneath. It didn't bother him very much, he swiped at me more and more, but I dashed and hopped out of the way of his burning assault, causing the demonic energy to land onto the ground behind me, fires erupted from the spots he struck. I launched a grenade from my shoulder launcher which banged into his forehead before exploding a few feet from his face He stumbled and, in the panic, I unleashed 3 explosive shotgun rounds onto his body which landed on his shoulder, his chest, and his leg. They exploded, which caused him to daze out.

But before I could move in for the kill, another baron jumped up from behind the stairs and ran towards me. I tried to reach the first baron, but I was too far away, the newcomer ran between him and I and swung at me with his blades. I evaded the strike, causing him to hit the supports on the pylon which I currently stood under. By this point the other baron had regained his awareness and tossed more waves of burning hell energy in my direction. I pulled out my chaingun and converted it. The gun's barrel had four sections to it, each containing three barrels. On my command, they split apart and formed next to each other in almost a completely parallel manner, becoming a turret that I held in my hands. I unloaded fast paced shots into the barons, tearing off more of their skin while avoiding their attempts to slash at me, which landed onto the pylon's support structures. The large pylon began to shake from the baron's attacks. No. There's no way this was going to happen again. I'm not getting buried twice. I didn't think I'd have to use this, but these barons were becoming a real problem.

I put away the chaingun and reached down to my sides with both of my hands. I grabbed the two metallic hilts, raised them up in front of me, with one facing up and the other facing down, and activated them from the buttons on the side. Blue beams of plasma immediately sprung forth from the hilts, making a burning sound as they did so. Then I moved them closer to each other, and they clicked, magnetized onto each other forming a staff-like weapon. I gripped the staff closer to my chest, the blades made a radiating sound as the plasma moved through the air molecules. I sprung forth at the barons. The closest one attempted to take a swing at me, but I blocked it with my weapon. His claws were stopped by the blade, sparks sprung forth and his skin slowly began to give out. It took some effort from the blade until it slashed through the middle of the demon's hand, then up his arm. I pulled it out from the left, and then quickly rotated the staff, causing the other blade to go through his arm for a second run, the baron's forearm immediately fell to the ground. He clutched the bleeding stump that was once his right arm and roared in anger. Before he knew what was happening, I jumped towards him from under the pylon. I raised the plasma-bladed staff up above my head while in midair, and landed on the baron, burying it into his head. The baron cried out and attempted to swipe me off, I ducked lower, causing him to slash the pylons around us instead. I pushed hard with all my might, shoving the blade deeper into his skull. The hot blue saber that protruded from the hilt(s) in my hands was considerably stronger than my doom blade, considering it was composed of pure natural plasma, and with my enhanced divine strength, it was a formidable weapon against demons and their tough hide. I pushed hard into the demon's head, it suddenly bent its neck and head forward and ran towards the side of the pylon. It was attempting to ram me into it. I jumped backward, and with a fast-swinging motion, swiped the saber through the demon's neck, decapitating it. It fell to the ground and its head rolled away from its body.

The other baron who approached me first still remained, but he was already weakened. I detached my energized blades from each other, deactivated them both and put them away as the last baron ran towards me, arms ready to strike at me. He already had a lot of flesh ripped off of him, almost his entire torso up. Good thing that last kill left me with enough argent energy to perform a special move.

I clenched my left fist and positioned it next to my head. As the baron made his way towards me the blade on his wrist glowed bright with more energy. I could sense his thought process. He was giving it his all this time, do or die. As he approached, the receptors around my left gauntlet began to glow a bright yellow, filling up with raw argent energy and charging my strength. The baron lunged at me and threw its burning wrist claw at me, so did I. The second he attacked I thrust my fist forward, landing it right on his bright red hot wrist blade. Immediately, the blood punch released. A large amount of the excess argent energy I carried in my suit was transferred through my knuckles and right into the demon. On contact, yellow bolts of argent energy sparked from the punch and radiated throughout the baron's arm. He cried out in pain as the yellow bolts coursed through him. His wrist glowed bright from the blood punch, inflating, and cracking apart. The energy did not stop its course there, it moved further up his arm, onto his shoulder, onto his neck, his chest, bright light coursed throughout him, radiating wildly. He cried out and clawed at his arm in pain, he began to shred off his own skin, trying to tear out whatever I had put in him. until he reached his breaking point. With a final scream, he popped. Blood spewed all over the place. I wiped the mess off my visor and looked back at the baron. In his spot stood a reflexing corpse. It was missing a right arm, a head, and the top right section of his chest, from which a raging fire stood in its place and hot blood spewed out from. The corpse gave out on trying to keep itself together and fell to the ground.

Now that I was done dealing with the barons, I continued onward towards the building's entrance. I walked past the rest of the pylons, making my way into the main entrance. The entry area was a very long corridor with a ceiling that reached incredible heights. More statues of the monk-esque warrior figures lined the walls, they held more of those swords from the statues outside and on the pylons in their hands. The architecture of this building was certainly remarkable, and quite pleasant even. It was modern. White cylindrical pillars with near perfect curvature erupted from the floors towards the high ceiling. The floors were decorated with artistic shapes and tiles. Further down the hallway, there were very tall openings just above the floor that peered into the outside world. I approached one and looked out. There was still carnage being committed everywhere, but from my point of view it looked as if it had died down, at least the sky wasn't as obscured with cacos and pain elementals as it had been before, that means I'm succeeding thus far. I best keep moving, right behind this building is the hell priests. I'm almost there, just gotta navigate my way through here. It's a large building, so I need to move fast.

I approached a door and walked in, I was met with a long hallway that had the walls painted with blood and organs. I began my way down, passing the corpses of the demons' victims. There were many dead bodies clad in long white robes and hoods, I'm beginning to see a pattern here. They also had their faces concealed with ivory masks, decorated with golden marks and narrow eye slits, and now with splashes of blood. Interesting attire, but what's with the long handle that they held in their hands? Why would a local priest need that? At this point I was beginning to assume that this building held some sort of religious importance. In my war against the demons I had stepped into many different worlds to halt their conquests, and many of the cultures of those worlds had somewhat consistent styles of religion. I peered into many of the rooms as I moved on through the hallway. Aside from mutilated corpses, a lot of the rooms held not much. The usual was a small desk, a sleeping cot, and a large mat, which I assumed was for meditation. This place looked like a mission or something else sacred.

I came to a staircase and jumped to the top of it, only to be abruptly shoved back down by a screaming hell night. After landing back at the bottom of the stairs, I looked up and watched the large crimson muscular hell knight roar out in fury before it violently jumped towards me with its right fist raised and burning hot with hellfire, his beady piercing yellow eyes locked right on me. I quickly rolled out of the way of the demon's attack, and raised my shotgun to fire at him, sending three shots his way before he focused back on me and tried to land a burning punch on me. I dashed out of the way, quick swapped to my heavy assault cannon, and landed a precision shot right on his face, taking off a chunk of flesh and exposing his skull. The hell knight stumbled forward which I quickly responded to with a rocket to the face. He was now dazed out of his mind from the blunt trauma. I quickly ran over to him and shoved his face to the ground with my right hand, then as he tried to pick himself back up, I drew out my doom blade and stuck it into the side of his skull right as he looked up at me. I heard more growls up the staircase

I dropped the dead hell knight and made my way up the stairs again. To meet me at the top was only a collection of imps and possessed soldiers, and one large arachnotron hanging upside down from the ceiling. Another one of the cultic UAC's devilish experiments, or maybe augmentation was the right word.

The giant sentient demonic brain, tan colored subspecies of the spider mastermind behind the attack on Kamino, pierced me with its murderous glaring blue eyes and screeched at me from its position through its small but sharply toothed mouth, some mechanical hisses could be heard from its display of intimidation. The demon extended its two taloned organic limbs as if basking in glory and showing off its new mechanical body. It now was suspended on a large pod that stretched from the demon's front, under its belly, and behind its rear up to the back of his head, finally ending in a small spinal attachment over his head that ended near its face. Four large, sharp mechanical appendages extended from under the corners of the pod that it sat in. The appendages clung to the surface it stood on, or under, I guess. The legs bent sharply in an insectoid fashion, and each ended in a large talon that carried the pod and the demon through the ceiling, stabbing through its foundation to maintain a tight grip. On top of its head at the back was another appendage that stuck out from behind before bending forward in an acute angle facing forward. At the end of this fifth limb rested a large cannon.

The arachnotron screeched at me again and opened fire from his cannon, sending a burst of fast orbs of burning argent energy in my direction. I dashed out of the way, into an unsuspecting zombie. He stumbled and I quickly grabbed him by the neck and yanked hard, pulling his head along with his spine clean out which I tossed to the side. The imps and soldiers ran forward for me while the arachnotron hopped down from the ceiling and rotated himself, landing right side up before firing more bursts at me. I swapped to my chaingun and activated the shield on it, then let loose on the imps and soldiers while the arachnotron continued to fire argent blasts at me which were absorbed by my shield. Most of the demons were easily ripped to shreds by the bullets, a few of the imps made it far enough towards me that they landed a few slashes on the shield. I saw that my shield had absorbed enough damage, so I gave them a reversal and blew the shield back at them. The absorbed force that the shield picked up from the demons' attack was blown back at them in a wave of blue energy that had the same shape as the shield itself. The rest of the imps and possessed splattered against the wall in a crimson mess, and the arachnotron stumbled backwards and I moved in for the kill, but it wasn't done yet. When I got close enough for a punch, The arachnotron sliced at me with one of his mechanical talons which stung hard. He shoved me with his legs, sending me to the ground and my health dropped pretty low, I wiped some blood off of my abdomen from his slice attack. The arachnotron jumped up and attempted to pounce on me and pin me to the ground. I reacted quickly by pulling out my shotgun and sticking an explosive round into his underside and quickly rolling out of the way, avoiding his metal talons which pierced the floor on impact. He turned towards me while I was still pushing myself off the ground, but before he could do anything else, the explosive shot detonated, and thanks to his rough landing on the ground a few seconds ago the floor gave away to the explosion, sending the arachnotron plummeting to the floor beneath us. I quickly got up and ran to the hole in the floor and looked below, the arachnotron was on its side in the rubble and was rapidly attempting to stand upright. As he regained his footing, I blasted three more explosive shotgun rounds onto him, which altogether destroyed his turret, tore away at his head, and dazed him. I took the opportunity and jumped onto the brain with my plasma bladed weapon out, he screamed at me in fear before I ignited it against his forehead. The blue blade burned through his thick but torn up hide, ending his life.

I absorbed the dormant argent energy in the arachnotron and the swipe across my abdomen sealed up. I hopped up out of the rubble onto the floor above and continued on my way. I walked further down the hallway looking for more staircases. Instead, I found a corner tucked room with two cylindrical doors. As I approached one of the doors it opened automatically, revealing a tight space and a panel with an outline of the building and levels to select from. An elevator? Lucky me. I stepped in, but then I heard screaming outside.

"Please!!" I turned my head in the direction of the shriek. "Please is someone there?! I heard you! Master help! Help!! He's going to kill me!!" a loud female voice rang out begging against all hope that there was someone who would hear their plea. Suddenly I heard the piercing of metal against flesh "AUGH... pl-please... please...". She was still alive, barely, I could hear her struggling to push the demons away from her while groaning in pain. She was just a few doors down the hallway across me. I looked around but as far as I was concerned, there was no one left in this building to save her, i don't even know why she was yelling besides desperation, it was a lost cause. All she heard was a noise, it could have been anything, a rat, the wind, or even another demon but she was too hopeful. I had been walking through this building and there was no other living person I had passed by. The screams I heard outside let me know that there were still a few people alive, but if they're screaming then they're helpless. There especially was no one in this building that could slay demons as easily as I do. I've got a lot of experience with this sort of thing, nobody ever really needs to ask me to kill the damned. Honestly, it's nothing short of a miracle that someone of my expertise happened to be nearby in her moment of crisis.

I stepped inside the elevator and selected the highest floor accessible. The doors closed and the screams quickly faded away as I headed up.

I needed to focus on my objective, no time for distractions. She's not my problem. My experience on Kamino taught me something about natural selection: Its best left to nature and fate to decide who lives and who dies in these kinds of scenarios. That's how the worlds around me have always worked. I don't need to have a stranger like her as a burden. That bastard Hayden is the one to blame for her painful demise, not me. He really tried exploiting hell for profit, and his scheming assistant Olivia Peirce really tried making deals with the devil, and they all thought they would come out of it Scot free, utter fools. What kind of selfish human being sells out all of her colleagues to the forces of hell for her own personal gain? That runt Olivia knew exactly who she was dealing with, and still went along with it, what a brainless decision. Olivia's naïve stupidity led to her agonizing death and infinite torture at the hands of the demons she conspired with. And Hayden, that stupid, that... trying to mine energy out hell itself, bringing deadly demons of all shapes and sizes to his world, experimenting and researching on them for local purposes, and worse, give all of that to the rest of the galaxy for them to use as they please! What did he think was going to happen?!

I clenched my fists at the thought of it.

There is no happy ending when it comes to the dark realm, I know that better than anyone. Hayden's selfishness led to... this. These people all wanted this, they wanted argent energy, and look where it got them. Suffering and death on an incredible scale, was it this bad before? I want to hear it from Hayden when I finally get my hands on that traitorous idiot. I want to know from him, and from everyone else who made use of argent energy, was it all worth it?

It's not at all a rarity to see civilizations actively walk the path to their own demise by trying to reach the demons themselves, in fact, I think it's even more rare for it to be the other way around, the demons rarely break the universal boundaries themselves, they find it far more easy, maybe even entertaining to wait for misguided stupid mortals to summon them. On very numerous occasions I've stepped into worlds that the demons were directly summoned to by the citizens of said world, thus opening up the opportunity for the demons to start their treads of destruction. Sometimes they are summoned for profit, other times for evil, or destruction, or fame, or friendship, misguided fulfillment, a feeling of importance, temptation, pursuit of knowledge, or even destruction against the summoner's enemies, the list goes on. Yet every time, I never find it any easier to understand why mortals have such a habit of actively working their way to their doom. The warnings of tampering with the dark dimension are always there, yet the foolish beings continue to disregard them. I feel the same frustration to the citizens of this galaxy. They have only themselves to blame for their ordeal. But at the end of the day it's not my problem.

I held my shotgun tight.

I'm just here to slay. What's happening to that girl, as well as to everyone else is simply natural selection doing its thing. They are paying for their mistakes as according to cause and effect. They wanted hell, and so now they get hell. But It's not like I need to worry. I AM a force of nature.

The elevator stopped. I was not on the top floor, the elevator didn't have access to it, but I had gotten closer to my goal. I'll have to find another way onto the top of the building. I walked out into a very large area. A high ceiling, even higher than before, was over us and to the left was a large opening. A few ships were scattered around the area, and corpses were scattered even more so. This appeared to be a hanger bay. And in the middle of it all, possessed humans were stumbling along their way, dragging bodies behind them, towards a disgusting pile of bludgeoned corpses. The pile of bodies rose up and sprouting long teeth in the middle which faced to the sky like a gaping mouth. And above said mouth, a red orb of pure hell energy levitated in the air. It was a gore nest.

Around it, a few more possessed knelt down as they hummed and whispered strange demonic rituals. They reared their ugly heads around at me after hearing the elevator open. Some of them had the appearance of those robed masked figures from in the hallways, their masks had a large slit in them from where large teeth protruded, and in the eye slits of the mask, I could see red glowing beady dots. The possessed humans slowly started to push themselves off the ground while the ones who were walking over to the nest dropped their prey and turned towards me. 12 possessed in total. I blew one's head off with a sticky shot from my shotgun, the demon's head flew into another one, knocking him to the floor in front of the others, after which the sticky detonated, destroying 5 more of the zombies and dazing the other 6. I ran over to the closest one and quickly sliced it horizontally in half and decapitated in the air with my doom blade. I targeted another one and swept it off its feet and grabbed it in the air, before pulling it down and breaking its back against my knee, the zombie's intestines leaked out of his abdomen. Another one close by was regaining awareness and lunged at me for a half-dazed bite. I grabbed his throat and stomped on his knee, inverting it. As the zombie fell down, I kept a firm grip on his throat and pulled, his head and spine slid out like butter. The last two regained consciousness and attempted to swipe their claws at me, I reacted by blocking with my fists, and pushing their hands away in opposite directions, before bringing my fists into their heads hard, colliding them into each other. The zombies' heads immediately exploded into red paste, and they fell to the floor.

With the zombies gone I stepped over the line of corpses and approached the gore nest. I could hear strange monstrous voices whispering demonic chants as I got closer to the mess of corpses. I located the heart chamber of the gore nest, protected by a yellow damp membrane. I prepared, reeling my fist back, and shoved an open hand into the membrane shield protecting the heart. I tugged hard and yanked it out. Blood sprayed from the heart chamber, the ghostly chanting was quickly replaced with intense screams of pain before  the gore nest combusted into chunks that were sent flying in all directions. Immediately after, cyclones of hell energy started to appear. The demons were coming in to kill the perpetrator, imps, possessed, soldiers, they were all porting in around me.

I readied my heavy assault cannon and opened fire on an imp that appeared on top of a ship. I jumped up onto the wing and bashed the imp in the face, destroying his head before kicking it away, sending it falling onto the ground below us. More imps and soldiers were below. I zoomed in on the assault cannon's scope at a soldier's head and fired. The precision shot obliterated the zombie soldier and the following shockwave managed to kill some more demons nearby him while dazing a few others. I jumped down and lunged at a dazed imp, landing on his chest and stomping his face in. I grabbed the arm of another dazed soldier and lifted it up, exposing his face so that I could shove my doom blade into his mouth, I dropped him and moved on. An arachnotron hopped in my path and swiped at me, blood leaked out from the spot and my HUD showed that he took away a good deal of my health.

I dashed backward away from him and collided with an imp, he fell to the floor and wiped at my ankle with his burning claws creating some glowing claw marks. I grabbed his hand and crushed it in my fist, causing the imp to roar out in pain. In his agony, he didn't stop me from pulling out my shotgun, shoving it against his chest, and blasting a sticky right at him point blank, which broke his ribcage apart and rested nicely in his chest. I tossed the imp at the arachnotron and watched it explode right against the cyborg demon's head, which tore flesh off of his sides and exposed his ribcage.

How the hell does a brain have a ribcage? Same way it has a mouth I guess? Moving on.

The arachnotron screeched at me and released some chambers on his sides that launched out pairs of bright yellow orbs which exploded as they hit the ground, grenades. Let's see him try and one-up this. I pulled out the rocket launcher from the raincor and locked onto the arachnotron, its face lit up with horror and it tried to jump away, but I pressed trigger, and three missiles flew from the rocket launcher, and right onto him. He was blasted out of the air and landed on the floor on his side. As he tried to push himself up, I ran over to him and grabbed one of the grenades from his side, which I shoved into his exposed ribcage before backing away. The arachnotron screamed in terror before an explosion erupted from inside him, his brain matter... Flesh matter? Whatever, erupted in flames and my suit absorbed the argent energy from within him, replenishing my health and healing the scratches landed on me. From behind I could hear stomping and felt something fast approaching me. I turned around and ducked just in time to avoid a punch from a hell knight, then I blood punched him back, taking off some flesh from his arm and chest. More hell knights roared from behind him and began running towards me. Why so tedious? They keep making me have to grind through everything. I'm an impatient man, even demon slaying becomes a bore after a while, but they don't seem ok with just letting me pass through. I pulled out my chaingun and activated the mobile turret mode. I wanted to finish this up so I could go back home and read about Mr. Fischbach's mustache in the fortress.

This is going to take a while

(Deag Nilox' Hell barge exterior, Ahsoka's point of view)

"Where should we put him?" I asked Comet, helping him carry an injured clone onto a gunship.

"Set him down right here." Comet responded, pointing to a hovering stretcher. I helped him carry the trooper over to the spot, and slid his arm off of my soldier, after which I helped Comet hoist him onto the stretcher.

"We're almost done, just a few more left." Sinker said, making his way towards the gunship, helping another injured trooper onto the ship. I walked out to see if there any more clones who needed any help carrying in the wounded. Boost, Warthog, and a few others of the 104th legion seemed to have it under control, they were bringing in the last of the wounded. All that was left now was the report about this temple. I looked up, the tall structure loomed right over us. About half an hour ago we sent a detachment from the 104th to investigate the inside while the rest of us stayed out to help the wounded and keep a look out for trouble. I looked to the left and spotted A clone trooper with a maroon stripe on his shoulder pieces. It was X2, the one who notified us of the temple and called for help. He was looking out into the distance with a... is that.. a force pike in his hand? I approached him, the clone trooper noticed me from the side of his view and immediately saluted me. I noticed he had two maroon tally marks over the rim of his visor.

"Commander Tano." He said to me.

"At ease, trooper." I said, causing him to let go of his salute. "The medics say that your squad members are expected to make a full recovery once we get them off this rock." I was kind of questioning why his voice sounded a lot different from the other clone troopers.

"That's, that's good to hear." He spoke. He looked back out at the destruction in front of him. I could sense that something was troubling him. Since the other clones had everything under control with the wounded, I guess I might as well help this one out.

"X2, something bothering you?" I asked as I looked at him.

"This is just awful. A few days ago, no one would have ever called Coruscant a rock." X2 said

I looked around at us. To be honest, at this point I could only tell this was Coruscant because the map said so on the cruiser that brought us here in the first place. The temple that we stood by had been dropped on top of a shopping district, flattening it. That was a well-known area around the jedi temple, now it was gone. I looked out, everything was gone. Buildings that once pierced the sky in architectural triumph and glory now lay flat on top of other structures. Fires raged everywhere the eye could see. And magma rose up closer to the surface levels than ever before. As much as I wanted to keep hope up, it was a huge pain to see the capital in such a state.

"We'll fix this eventually. You've done a good job so far in keeping your squadron safe." I said, trying to lighten his mood. He nodded silently. It wasn't enough to make him forget the grim reality of the situation. I should try to make small talk with him. "If I may ask, how'd you get your name?"

"My name?" he said and looked back at me. "It's um, kind of unusual."

"I wanna know." I said digging further.

"Well, I share it with my brother." He responded.

"Brother?" I asked, now curious.

"X1, that's his name. Yeah, he and I, we've always been a tight pair since our days on Kamino. We put our, "differences" to the best use that we could. Other clones have some semblance of the mindset of the template, the bold and daring, yet loyal Jango Fett personality. Not us though. At least, not completely." He said back to me.

"Sounds interesting." I said, chasing further into the topic. "Tell me more."

"The two of us have simply been known for being off course from the traditional order, if you know what I mean. Something about us made it harder for the drill boys to stuff it in us, like our brains were just incompatible with almost all of the training exercises that cadets regularly go through. X1 was born an hour before me and seeing how much we had in common apart from the rest of the shinies, he chose to have me stick with him." X2 said. He chuckled before continuing, "You could barely say I had a choice in the matter, let me tell ya. Even as shinies, X1 was always one to demand. Whether I liked it or not, he and I were gonna be brothers for life. And we were. He had my back the whole way through the academy. As kids, he wouldn't even let our superiors touch me without putting up a fight. It got him plenty of time in the brig to harden himself out. Although, it wasn't long before we reached the age where I had to harden myself out too. My brother and I were... adventurous at times as youngsters. We would sneak out of the barracks at night and make our way to the testing grounds to watch our elders. X1 took an interest in the ARC troopers and Commandos that we would soon be training under. Their weapons and tales of duty throughout the galaxy was something that inspired us both. Since it was of course too late to become commandos, together we developed dreams of reaching the rank of ARC troopers. But on the side, I would always get peeks at General Ti. There was something about her nature that I was always drawn to. Her meditating and me feeling just the solitude and peace radiating off her, it was one of the things that kept me calm and collected."

"What did X1 think about her?" I asked.

"He thinks she is a great fighter and that if we had an army of her and other Jedi instead of just Jango Fett, the Seppies would've been crushed by now." X2 said with a chuckle. "Yep, he is truly bred for war, no doubt about it. That dream of ours? He guided me along the way, still does to this day. That stubbornness of his turned him into an effective leader." He glanced back over to the gunships and moved his head closer to me, I leaned in, "Albeit, a VERY hot-headed one." He whispered to me, I giggled a bit in response and winked at him for reassurance. "When the time came that we needed to start caring about our training and preparing ourselves for duty, he took the time to learn everything he could alongside me. Turning us both proficient with anything that was even remotely capable of causing harm. Blasters, explosives, piloting, for me mostly and to the appreciation of my squad when General Ferroda isn't around, dualist combat. He was patriotic, with his faith in the Republic growing bigger as he did, and inspiring I must say. Whatever talent I have, I owe it to him. And so we decided to share the nickname he earned."

It does sound strange," I said. "But I'm impressed with how you and your brother make it work. You should be proud." X2 shrugged in response.

"I guess it's just in our blood." He said, "We're all bred for war. X1 has helped me understand that strength starts with endurance, being able to take uncomfortable conditions with my set of skills. And General Ferroda has been good to us. He was quick to recognize our potential as brothers and alongside putting us in effective leading positions in our platoon, has taken good care of us."

"He sounds like he cares for your success." I said.

X2 nodded, "He's always had my back, and I've done my best to do the same for him."

"If I may," I said, changing the subject slightly, "I'm curious about the condition regarding you and your brother. I've never seen any personality shift like that in a clone. Jango Fett wasn't known to be much of a duelist as far as I know."

"The Kaminoan scientists only say that it was a simple genetic mutation, that it's totally normal and happens every once in a while at the labs. But it's no secret to us that their technology rarely lets a genetic mutation affect a clone's appearance like this." He said.

"Hm?" I observed him as he removed his helmet and looked at me; I raised my eyebrows in surprise. His face was so different from any of the clones I had ever seen. Unlike the usual Jango Fett appearance, he had light skin and straight light brown hair in place of the bushy dark norm. His eyes were a light brown that glistened in the light. On the left corner of his forehead were two navy blue tally marks. "Wow, X2 that's... that's... wow." I was stunned. He looked almost nothing like the clone template. "Your brother, is he like this too?"

"See for yourself." He motioned to one of the gunships, where medic troopers were treating three more clones. He pointed at the one up front to us. The trooper being brought up had a maroon kama around his belt, which was now shredded up from the whole situation of the temple dropping down and causing a shockwave. He wore a large maroon pauldron which covered his left shoulder. The medic removed his helmet which had a single maroon tally mark over the visor's rim, revealing his unconscious face which was completely identical to X2's except like his own helmet, X1 also had a single tally mark tattooed on his forehead.

"That's strange, it's not normal for clones to get such a similar mutation like that." I said.

"Ha, if I had a cred every time someone said-." X2 started.

"General Plo!"

X2 and I looked up and saw Wolffe, with a few more men from the recon team looking down at us from the balcony on the temple.

"Commander Wolffe, report." Plo said as he looked upward.

"We found survivors, lots of them sir. They're in bad shape." Wollfe said.

"Understood, how many? We may not have enough room on the ships for all of them." Plo asked.

"We don't know sir; I doubt they will all fit on our ships though." Wolffe shouted from above.

"Can you provide an estimate commander?" Plo asked.

"Um..." Wolffe said and looked back into the room behind him for a second. "No sir, not really."

"Care to explain why not?" plo asked

"Well... its best if you see for yourself general." Wolffe said, before motioning for him to come inside.

Plo started towards the wall and looked back. "Ahsoka, with me."

I nodded and then looked at X2, "Take care of yourself and your brother. I enjoyed our discussion."

"Will do, and Likewise, commander." He said back to me and put his helmet back on. I walked off and met Master Plo at the foot of the temple. There was no door that we could find, the only way in was up. Master Plo and I grabbed onto the cables that the clones set up to scale the walls and we started climbing towards the balcony.

"Between more survivors here, and the attack on Coruscant letting up, I think maybe things are starting to shift in our favor Master Plo." I said

"Let's remain focused nonetheless." He said back. "We still have much to do."

"But at least we can take it a little bit easier for now. We just got word several minutes ago that the Resolute team was able to get inside the Senate Rotunda, that's an improvement on our situation isn't it?"

"They still need to make it to the Senators themselves." Master Plo responded.

"I'm sure they'll be able to manage a successful rescue." I said. We continued climbing up for a few seconds until I once again tried to lighten the mood. "The challenged forces may not be completely gone, but at least in this intensity we can breathe a bit easier. Their attack has let up, now that I've spent a few seconds observing, I'm able to notice it. Preventing Coruscant from being lost shouldn't be so hard. Right?"

"Ahsoka," he said back to me. "More than half the population of Coruscant has already been wiped out, the senators are not just being rescued, they are being evacuated. They can't possibly hope to clear out the challenged from that building, and neither can we. There is no call for us to be here any longer than we have to."

"I know, but..." I started speaking but lost my train of words.

Master Plo looked at me. "The Senate building, and even worse, the Jedi temple are completely infested with savage monsters who cannot be killed by any simple means, the rest of the planet is in the same state. Even now after the challenged were reported to have been attacking less ferociously, it still took the Resolute team hours just to get inside the Senate building. You saw out in space what they are capable of. We have no chance at the moment of making a proper stand, all we can do is regroup safely, far away from here."

"... Master?" I said as we reached the balcony.

"Little 'Soka," he said grimly, "Coruscant has already been lost." I hung my head low.

I knew that. I knew that all along deep down; I've known it for days. I just hated the idea of acknowledging it.

We climbed over the balcony railing and walked inside the temple. Wolffe was standing in a corner observing the cages that hung from the ceiling, a few of the other troopers were scattered around the room.

"Commander Wolffe, any trouble?" Master Plo asked as we walked over.

Wolffe looked back at us, "No sir, there are no live mortally challenged enemies in the temple. The investigation occurred without any opposition at all."

"Good to know, where are the survivors?" Plo responded.

"Follow me General." Wolffe said and walked to a door on his left. Mster Plo and I followed. The door led to a hallway. My eyes opened wide once I was met with the visual of guts and blood splattered on the walls and floor.

Master Plo seemed stunned as well. "Oh my... what did they do in here?"

"I have no idea sir" Wolffe responded, "Must be some sick method of torture."

"Torture?" I asked.

"Yeah." Wolffe responded as we reached the end of the hallway, where a large hole in the door provided us entrance to the room ahead. "That's at least the best guess I've got. The others are putting their bets on experimentation, or domestication of our race, other crazy theories are floating around. But considering all the spikes, fires, skulls, cramped cages and whatnot, it looks to me like they want their victims to feel literal hell."

"What do you mean by cramped cages?" Plo asked

"See for yourself." Wolffe said

We looked forward and I immediately covered my mouth with my hands, half from sudden nausea, half from sheer shock. We entered a room full of rubble. Pieces of pillars and platforms covered most of the ground. What was worse was the bodies. Dead challenged were strewn about the area, what was also strewn was their body parts. I had never seen challenged dead like this unless it was in space, where starfighter cannons were able to take them down with enough effort and precision, and not to mention their own clouds of blood in the zero-gravity environment blocked the brutal carnage from my vision. But this, no, this was worse. Something was off, I think it was the fact that there were no signs of cauterization on their bodies. The challenged were quite evidently torn apart, but the corpses showed that this was done with hands, or feet, or mouth. What kind of creature had the strength to do that?

But that wasn't even the worst part. The inhumanity began in corners of the room where large box cages were placed on the floor and stacked over each other rather than hung from the ceiling. They were very large, tall enough for about two people stacked on top of each other and long enough for about five... only the cages actually held tens of people. All cramped together as if a large hand had just gathered a handful and shoved them inside over each other. And what arguably was even worse, they were still live. They groaned and cried in pain and discomfort over each other. The ones on the outside of the cage tried reaching out for help, while I could catch peeks from those inside struggling to breath under all the weight.

I hit the wall without realizing I had stumbled backward subconsciously; my right hand still covered my mouth. I pulled my hand away from my face and realized I regurgitated a little bit into my palm. This was making me absolutely sick to the stomach, who in the galaxy could do such a thing? I carefully wiped my hand on my skirt, which made me gag a little bit. I looked up at Master Plo, he was frozen on the spot too.

"Wolffe... I-I see what you meant now." He said, stumbling over his words.

"Yeah, it's not a very pleasant sight, is it?" Wolffe responded.

"Why- Wh... Why haven't you let them out?" I asked choking over my words, as well as my breakfast.

"We've tried, Commander, the situation's not looking too well." Wolffe responded.

"mm-hrm, go on." I responded with my fist against my mouth.

"Well, do you want the bad news or the worse news." Wolffe responded.

We'll... we'll take the bad news Commander." Plo Koon said, trying to regain his composure.

"Right then." Wolffe said. "There are cages like this scattered all throughout this temple on multiple floors, and they're all filled with more survivors to the brim. As much as I hate to say this, I'm afraid they all likely won't be able to fit on our gunships, we're not sure what to do right now."
"Oh my gosh." I said and held back some vomit at the thought of hundreds of more cages in this place. "And the worse news?"

"The worse news... There's actually two worse news." Wolffe said, making me dart my head at him, "First is that we can't break the cages. As I mentioned before, we tried. Saws, blaster shots, nothing gets past those bars. Even if we managed to bring every cage back to the cruiser, we don't know if there's anything on board that could let the survivors out. We may just be delaying the inevitable. I say that because they seem to be dying in... unnaturally fast I might add. As you can clearly see, they move, they breathe, they groan, they show the obvious signs of life, but they don't seem to be cognitively functioning properly. As you can see from their skin, and from the confirmations of medical examinations, they're... they're decaying, even as they breathe. Further tests from the medics suggest that their mental states are deteriorating, like their brains are melting or something, some of them reach to us for help, others claw at us like animals."

"Maybe a lightsaber could pierce the cage." Master Plo said. He jumped down from the platform they were on and approached one of the cages. The victims inside reached out, blood covered the bodies inside and leaked onto the floor. Master Plo came in closer and tapped one of the hands.

"We have attempted communication with them General." Wolffe said from above, "But they don't respond to us, I don't think they can even see us for all that matter. They seem to only respond to sound."

Plo nodded and activated his lightsaber. He leaned in close to the bars of the cage. "Let me try to help you." He said softly, and while being careful to avoid the arms reaching for him, pressed his lightsaber against the edge of the cage. Sparks burned out from where the lightsaber touched the bar. A hand suddenly tried to grab onto the source of the burning sound, prompting Master Plo to quickly withdraw his lightsaber. On the spot that it touched onto, a bright hot residue remained.

"It looks like it works." I said, jumping down and covering my nose from the smell of carnage.

"Ever so slightly." Master Plo said. "It's a very tough metal indeed. It'll take some force, and some time to open all the cages in here, and even then, we still need to figure out how to bring the survivors inside back to the ships with us."

"So, I guess we get to work now." I said, igniting one of my lightsabers, and keeping my other hand over my nose.

"Actually, there's one more thing you should see, up this way." Wolffe said.

Master Plo and I put away our lightsabers and followed Wolffe. He walked onto a platform and made his way to a door on the other end of the room. We walked through and entered another hallway.

"Doesn't the stench bother you at all?" I asked Master Plo."

"My mask filters out most of it, thank you Ahsoka." He said

"For what?" I asked.

"You've made me realize that I have been taking the mask for granted all this time." He teased, and his mask moved up his face a bit, I could tell he was smirking under it.

"...Pfft, it's not THAT bad." I said, trying to put on a tough face even though my facial muscles were focused on not letting my mouth erupt.

"Unlucky, being the only one here without a filter over their face." Wolffe said.

"If only you had warned me before." I said.

"Maybe you should take Fletcher's helmet, he's passed out in the corner from the sights." Wolffe joked as we made it to the end of the hallway and walked through a door that led us to a large room with more furnaces and large barrels. A few scout troopers were observing the area and filling their reports on datapads.

"What is you wanted us to see Commander?" Master Plo asked

"Right there." Wolffe pointed to our left

We looked over and I gasped. This is so much, I immediately spaced out and went limp for a second and barely caught myself on the wall, managing to avoid Fletcher's fate. Master Plo looked back at me concerned. No, no, no, I'm stronger than that, I've got a good stomach, although maybe I might take that offer for Fletcher's helmet, if only it would fit over my head.

A clone trooper approached me "You alright Commander Tano-?"

I put my hand up, "No-nononono, I'm fine, mhm, I've eaten worse." I brought my eyes up to him and fought hard to keep them open.

"If you need to join Faron vomiting over the balcony, go ahead." He said and walked away. That doesn't sound like too much of a bad idea.

There was a frail corpse in the corner that Wolffe pointed to. Where the corpse's head should have been, there was a large damp puddle of blood, and a metal scepter nearby.  I looked at the headless body and observed his clothes, "Isn't... doesn't this look like the person Dr Hayden told us to keep an eye out for?" I spoke.

Master Plo looked back at the body and noticed it too. "Awaiting authentication." He spoke.

A clone trooper walked up behind him with a holopad in his hand. A holographic display of the man that Hayden showed us appeared. "Confirmed, it's him sir." The clone said. There was no denying it, they had the same outfit on.

"Who could have done this?" I asked

"No idea, we found him in here like that. But at least that takes care of our side objective." Wolffe said. "Yeah, makes me sick too."

Master Plo approached the body and looked around for a few seconds. He scanned the whole room then said, "Where's his head?"

"All over the floor." Wolffe said

"No, it's not." Master Plo responded. "Normally if a head was crushed like that, you'd see brain matter, eyeballs, teeth maybe. All I see is blood clearly left from his head being detached."

"Oh my gosh. Do you just wish for the worst things, Master?" I asked, the imagery he described was not helping at all.

"What destroyed his head?" He looked at me and then looked at Wolffe. "There's nothing around that looks like it could have been used to smash it like you describe commander."

"What are you saying?" I asked.

"How can we be sure he was killed?" Master Plo asked rhetorically.

"Well I doubt he could have gotten far with just a head sir." Wolffe said

"They are called mortally challenged for a reason commander. But, I suppose there is nothing we can do about it as of now. I'll have a reconnaissance team go out and see if there are any signs of someone escaping from this temple." Master plo responded. He brought his wrist up to his face and activated the commlink. "Comet, send a medical team up, we're going to be here for a while."

"Understood sir." Comet responded through the com. "Is everything alright in there?"

"We have survivors in need of aid, but aside from that, it... looks like every mortally challenged individual has been killed." Master Plo responded.

"Acknowledged, we'll-"

"Wait!" X2's voice cut off Comet. "I need to let you know; I saw something jump out from the balcony after the temple was set down!"

Wolffe, Master Plo, and I all looked at each other. "What did it look like?" Master Plo asked.

"I don't know, I couldn't get a good look at it, it came down from the side of the temple adjacent to me. But I caught only a glimpse of it. It was big, really big, and I saw it run off."

"Where?" Master Plo asked.

"It was heading in the direction of the Jedi Temple." X2 said.

Master Plo and I looked at each other.

"I'll go." I said. "You should stay here and help the survivors out, leave this to me."

"Not by yourself." He said and tuned his comm link. "Warthog, prepare your gunship and a detachment. You're going to follow commander Tano to the Jedi temple to investigate this."

"Roger." Warthog responded back.

"You just can't take the smell, isn't that it?" Wolffe cracked at me.

"Hit it square on the money, Wolffe. But we can trade places if you give me your filter. How does that sound?" I quipped back with a grin.

"Remember to stay focused Ahsoka." Master Plo said. "And take extreme caution! If this man can really survive a decapitation, then you may not be able to finish him off on your own. Stay in your interceptor for now, this is currently only a recon mission. Find the target and avoid him if you must. I'd prefer if you can eliminate him with your starship cannons"

"I understand master, don't worry about me." I said and ran over to the balcony where I  gracefully vaulted over the railing.

(Jedi Temple hangar, your point of view)

The last arachnotron looked around lazily, dazed out of its mind from the shield attack I let out with my chain gun. I approached it and it attempted to stab me with its organic left talon. I grabbed the talon just in front of my chest and bent it sharply, breaking the bone in it. The arachnotron yelled in pain before I raised it up and plunged it into the arachnotron's eye, it screamed loudly in pain, I shoved it in more and dug around its eye socket with it. The arachnotron let out a final shriek before it ceased all movement, and I absorbed the argent energy from it which healed a stab wound on my leg.

Suddenly a large red portal opened up next to the wall facing the outside. It was a large portal that almost reached halfway to the ceiling. A large fleshy foot with four long sharp toes stepped out. On its right side, a mechanical leg with two sharp metal talons on its foot stepped out. Then emerged a large cybernetic body stretching several meters tall. Large cables and cybernetic implants could be seen in its abdomen, stretching from its pelvis up to its exposed gory ribcage, atop which stood a metal circular panel. Its right arm featured the tan skin seen on most of its body, except with pieces of wiring and a large emitter on its forearm. Its left arm however had been completely replaced with machinery, ending in a quad-barreled cannon where its hand should be. Finally, it completely exited the portal and I saw its face, two very large horns sprouted from the sides of its head and curled forward. Two small eyes peered at me under a furrowed bald brow. And from under its small nostrils, a low growl with slight mechanical undertones escaped its large gaping mouth through a row of giant teeth, which constantly seethed at me from the cyberdemon's lack of lips.

A tyrant.

I kicked the arachnotron carcass away from me and pulled out my rocket launcher. The tyrant sneered at me and a slight grin appeared on his face. He bent over, exposing his backside, which had metal components running over his spine, as well as six more circular metal panels which glowed brightly. No, I was wrong, they aren't panels, they're chambers. The six chambers opened up and barrages of rockets blasted out from the tyrant's back and into the sky, where they hovered for a few seconds. I evaded quickly; my HUD let me know where the rockets were aiming to strike at. One rocket managed to land close enough that I was blown onto the side of a ship, making a large dent in it. The tyrant roared at me from his position and aimed his cannon at me, blasting me in my spot before I could react, I was blown completely through the ship and sent sliding across the floor, smoking. I could feel intense burns through my armor and saw that my health went down a good notch.

I quickly got up. The cyberdemon readied his cannon for another shot. Lasers lined up at me and the large beam of argent plasma exploded from the tyrant's position, but I quickly dashed out of the way. The blast went past me and left a large whole in the wall behind me. I lifted my rocket launcher up once again and aimed at the demon, locked on, and fired a three-round burst at him. In response he unleashed an argent blade from his right wrist emitter and sliced one of the rockets up, it exploded far enough away from him and the blast caused the other two rockets to detonate safely away from his face as well. In the smokescreen I swapped out with the combat shotgun and approached the demon, jumping through the smokescreen onto his face with the automatic barrel going full power on him. I flew closer to him as he stood still, taking the shots full force, and landed a blood punch onto his chest. The demon stumbled back ever so slightly. He's a strong bastard, built like a tank.

I still had some excess active argent energy in my reserves, so I dashed around him while shooting more shotgun blasts onto him, ripping off more flesh and preparing for another blood punch. But as I approached his side to jump onto, the demon dashed across the floor, leaving a trail of fire where his feet slid through, and bashed his body right into me. I rolled onto the ground and as I got back onto my feet, the Tyrant drew out his argent blade again and stabbed into the ground. A wave of fire erupted from the spot and sped towards me, exploding as it touched me. I was once again sent rolling across the ground with argent burns all over my body. This guy was good.

Let's get rid of that annoying blade. I took out the rocket launcher again and aimed at his arm before firing a single shot. He raised his blade to slice it again, but I paid attention to the rocket and waited. There, the proximity flare went off. I remotely detonated the rocket immediately, triggering a larger blast that was wide enough to strike at the demon. I quickly locked onto his legs and fired the three-round burst at him. He stumbled back and fell onto his hand and knees. One more time, he was in the heat now. I locked onto him again and fired another three-round burst. The rockets all landed square on his head. I moved to the side as the smoke cleared. He slid ferociously through the smoke in my direction, but I managed to dash out of the way in time. The rocket attack did a number on him. His left leg was bleeding out, with torn flesh exposing the bones beneath, his mechanical leg was spewing out sparks in a few areas, his chest had become even more exposed than before, the first blast destroyed the argent blade he had on his wrist, and some skin had been ripped away from his head, revealing the mechanical skull and glowing red optic beneath the left side of his face. He roared at me ferociously, sparks spraying from his mouth as he did so.

He bent over again, another rocket barrage, he was fighting fire with fire. I pulled out the chaingun and activated the mobile turret mode. My HUD highlighted the areas where the tyrant was preparing to strike, and as missiles erupted from its back, I let loose on the tyrant with my mobile turret while dashing around his position. He slightly stumbled backwards from the pressure I put on him. I switched to my combat shotgun and unloaded shots onto his back as missiles were still coming out. Then I swapped to the heavy assault cannon and landed a precision shot on the demon's head. He let up from the onslaught and the missiles rained down around me. I slid into cover under a ship as the attacks came down, and I waited. Boom, that's what I like to here. I ran out from my spot. The sticky explosive shotgun rounds went off on the demon's back over his rocket launchers. A huge smoking fire now erupted from his back side that almost covered him in smoke and he struggled to focus thanks to the intense burning. I dashed my way over to him; he caught sight of me and aimed his cannon at me. Nah-ah, I blasted a precision shot from my heavy cannon right into the barrel of the tyrant's cannon. A small explosion erupted from the barrel and bursts of electricity radiated around his mechanical arm. The demon lost focus as it tried to endure the intense heat on his back and the electrical shocks on his arm. As I approached, he attempted to stomp his left foot down, but I hopped out of the way and sliced his organic ankle as he brought it down. His foot came clean off and his bloody stump hit the floor hard. The demon fell onto his hands and knees with a deafening mechanical cry of pain that shook the entire hangar. As he remained there hunched over, he looked to me in the instant that I raised my wrist blade and swung it clean down through his neck, decapitating him. The burns on my chest disappeared as my suit absorbed his potential argent energy.

"That portal will take you to the demonic citadel." VEGA suddenly spoke over my radio. I looked at the wall, the red portal that the tyrant came through still remained.

"The Khan Maykr is inside. The portal will close soon, I suggest you use it to confront her." VEGA said

Just what I needed:, a shortcut. Now I don't have to keep running around in circles.

I approached the portal.

"Do not blind yourself with hatred..."

Immediately I lifted my shotgun and turned to my right, I tried focusing that sixth sense, trying to find the source of the sound. That feminine voice again, from the stairs of the building. I heard it again, echoing in the darkness, but slightly more focused this time, I could feel it. It was coming from somewhere close by on my right. Whoever she was, or whatever IT was that was speaking to me... what is this?

"The portal will close soon. I suggest you enter now." VEGA said.

What's going on? Does he not hear the voice?

"The other hell priests are gathered at the citadel as well." He said to me. "You should move ahead while we have a direct access point to them."

I looked around, there was nothing here.

Maybe I was just hearing things? Or maybe it's a trick by the demons, yes, that has to be it. Enough with this, no more distractions. I have an objective.

I lowered my shotgun and strolled toward the portal.

"Search your feelings for the truth..."

I stopped and turned my head. There it was again. Damnit, it doesn't matter. Shut up. Gotta stay focused.

I faced forward and walked to the portal. There's nothing here for me.

(A minute earlier, Jedi Temple, Ahsoka's point of view)

"This where we'll find the target?" Warthog asked over coms

I kept enough distance between my interceptor and his gunship. "X2 said they appeared to be heading here, it should be around here. I'm searching." I focused my senses around the area, I had never reached out to the force on such a scale before, but I hoped that since there sadly must not be a lot of life forms aside from the mortally challenged in the Jedi temple anymore, I would be able to fish out a unique life force.

"There's not much else around here commander Tano. Maybe... maybe..." Warthog said before his voice trailed off

Suddenly, as we passed by the side of the temple, I felt something, not a challenged, but not a citizen either. Something else... with a whole lotta murderous intent.

"Commander Tano-" Warthog started

"Warthog, I sense a single distinct life source in the temple, it doesn't appear to be friendly." I said to him

"We're picking up a life sign." He responded

"Can you pinpoint it?" I asked

"One moment... the hangar!" He said

"Let's go." I said and steered towards the hangar full thrust; the gunship followed slowly behind. I brought my interceptor lower and was now in position to land in the hangar bay. Tens of ships were littered throughout the area, as well as challenged corpses that were obliterated. Gosh, I thought taking this assignment this would get me away from that kind of scenery. Why was this guy killing his own forces anyway? I noticed a large red portal and as I got closer, I realized there was something in front of it... it's a person! That's got to be him! He's going to get away!

"Warthog, touch down, our target is escaping!" The place was too cramped to shoot him without damaging the temple landing bay, I'm gonna have to get down and confront him myself. I moved to a spot that was clear of debris and quickly activated the landing gear on my interceptor. I switched the power off and jumped out.

"Stay here R7." I said to my droid. R7 whistled obediently. The priest didn't seem to hear me. If I remember the event from a year and a half ago correctly, those portals make a lot of noise. I snuck my way over, silently hopping over and slipping through the wreckages of ships, using them to hide myself. I jumped out with my lightsabers in my hands and quietly started making my way to him. He stopped suddenly. I quickly dove back against a delta wreckage on my left and pressed my back to it. He moved his head and looked to his right. Had he heard me? This can't be good. I peeked my head up above the cover and observed. I got a good sight of our target... Wait, that helmet? ... That armor... Oh no.

I almost gasped but quickly covered my mouth. This wasn't... this was NOT the priest!

He looked forward and continued into the portal, after a few more seconds, it closed.

"Commander Tano!" Warthog said over the com. "The life signal has just disappeared, no... it moved." He said as he landed his gunship in the hangar.

"Moved to where Warthog?" I asked as I ran over to him.

"Umm... right behind our... up there." From his cockpit he pointed outside the hangar. I came over and observed the gigantic tower looming down over us. The clones emptied out of the gunship and ran past me to set up a perimeter while I walked over to the mouth of the hangar.

"Let me see something with lenses." I said, snapping my fingers.

A trooper came over and handed me a pair of electrobinoculars. I walked through the gunship and peered into them to observe the large spire in front of us, zooming in far.

"See anything commander?" Warthog asked, making his way over to me.

Suddenly, a red aura came up, on a platform on the outside of the fortress. I zoomed in hard on it and focused. "Hold on!" I said to Warthog. I spotted a large red shape taking form, it glowed brightly and out of it emerged...

"It's him." I said

"Who?" Warthog asked

"... The Marine." I responded.