Shattered Shields Chapter 7 ((FINAL))

Shattered Shields Chapter 7 ((FINAL))
A KotOR II Fan Fiction
A Female!Exile x Atton story

((A/N: We made it guys! It’s taken me an assload of time to upload this but my fanfiction from three years ago is finally on dA in its entirety! The battles are glossed over, because they’re straight from the game and I imagine at least a majority of the people reading this have played.))

Mira, Mical, Visas, and Atton stood just inside the doorway to the central chamber of the Trayus Academy, observing the Sith meditating at its core.

“I say we fire a rocket at her right now, and blow her screaming, burning body into the heart of this planet,” Mira fumed.

“Wouldn’t work,” Atton shot her down. “If there were other distractions, maybe. If she weren’t telepathic, maybe. If you want to kill her like that you need something to occupy her attention, otherwise you might you might just wound her. And then we’d all be in trouble.”

“This battle will not be decided by weapons,” Visas interjected.

“You are wrong,” Mical said. “Manipulation is Kreia’s strength, not battle. We have a chance… we just have to figure out how to make use of it.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Mira walked up towards the center of the room, igniting her lightsaber. “We’ve come a long way, Kreia… don’t bother getting up.”

The old Sith remained on the ground, not so much as opening her eyes. “Ah, the huntress. To come alone… you are braver than I thought.”

“She is not alone,” Mical said as he joined them. “ We stand with her.”

“And with her stand all the Jedi,” added Visas, emerging from the shadows.

Atton entered next. “And now I come in, saying something suitably heroic.”

Kreia rose and faced her confronters. “Children with lightsabers… but not Jedi, I think. Come close, let me look upon you and see what the exile’s teaching has forged.”

She looked at Mira. “An assassin…” She turned to Mical. “Wasted pawn of the Republic...” To Visas, “a blinded slave…” And to Atton, “and a fool… Which of you wishes to try yourselves against me? As you can see, I am unarmed.” She face Mical again. “You perhaps? You are a wasted pawn of the Republic, young one. You could have been so much more, even with your wide-eyed innocence, your naive love for others.”

Mical launched himself at Kreia, lightsaber swinging. All of his attacks were easily dodged, and Kreia used Force choke to suffocate him until he passed out. “Think,” she hissed at his unconscious form. “Think before you throw away your life for her. Think of everything you have to lose by dying. Your lusts unfulfilled. A dance, unfinished. A love, unrequited. Think before you give it up so quickly.”

Then she turned to Visas. “And you, blind one, you have hungered to strike me down ever since you saw the bond the exile and I share. Can you feel the Force running through me, even past the veil, past your bloodied eyes? You know you cannot win.”

“The Force runs strong within you, Traya,” Visas said, “but in the howling of a storm, it is difficult to hear the whisper of a blade. You have forever been the blind one. You were given a gift few are ever given, and yet you let your gift of sight warp you--”

“You think your existence under your Lord was torture, Miraluka? I will make you see.” Kreia choked her out, watching her limp body hit the floor. “An assassin,” she growled as she faced Mira. Mira was forcibly Pushed back into a pillar, down for the count before she had even been ready to strike.

“Damn,” Atton thought as he watched his friends so easily defeated. “She’s too strong. I gotta get out of here and find Al.” And so he did.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Atton spotted Darth Sion as he tore through the halls and brought his lightsaber out. He slowed to a walk, and the two enemies approached each other.

“And I get the fool,” Sion said as Atton neared.

“Funny,” Atton countered. “That’s just what I was thinking.”

The two fought furiously, dodging and weaving in a graceful yet deadly dance. But, Sion proved too much for the pilot.

Atton fell to his knees as his adversary yanked his lightsaber from his side. “Running away?” Atton taunted weakly. “I’m not done with you yet.”

“Nor I you.” Sion grabbed Atton and held him up by the throat. “ I will remake you. So when I look upon upon you it shall be like a mirror. And then I shall let you die.”

“There’s nothing worse you can do to me,” Atton gasped out. “Take your time.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Al was shaky, sweating, and absolutely exhausted as she stumbled down the corridors of the Trayus Academy. Darth Sion had proved to be a more than worthy adversary, and she’d had to strike him down many times before she was able to convince him to let go of his tortured existence.

And then there had been Kreia. Or should she say Traya. Al had tried to save her mentor, even after everything. But the old woman/Sith Lord had proved to be beyond helping. She had died honorably, though, and that gave Alriana some small form of solace as she made for her friends and the ship.

As she rounded the corner, her heart shattered at the sight before her eyes. Atton was sprawled across the floor, unmoving, and blood had pooled around him. A strangled sound escaped her throat as she sprinted across the room, kneeling next to him. He slowly looked up at her.

“You’re… alive. Did… I… save you yet?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, pulling his head into her lap. “It’s over. Kreia and Sion are gone.”

He winced as he saw her face. “Your eyes… that bad, huh? Always was ugly… now the outside matches.”

Al shook her head vehemently at that, and tears filled her eyes. “No, Atton. You were never ugly. Not to me.”

“Was waiting for this, but… S’not fair… let you down… was s’posed to save you.”

She stroked his cheek, wiping away some of the blood. “You could never let me down. Ever. You saved all of us, Atton. Especially me.”

He continued as though she had never spoken. “S’tired of living anyway… too many deaths… never told you… lied to you…”

“Do you honestly think I care about that? Because I don’t. I care about you. I love you!”

“I don’t want you to see me like this. I don’t want to die in front of you. Can’t bear it.”

“Then don’t die, damn it!!” Al tried with all of her remaining strength to heal Atton with the Force, but it was a futile effort. She let out a breath that was half sigh, half sob, and pulled Atton closer. “I’ll stay with you until the end. You have my word.”

Atton sighed, and reached up to touch the distraught woman’s face. “Loved you from the moment I first saw you, thought you were a dream… meant every word… tried to play it off as a joke… wasn’t funny…” He laughed weakly, and then coughed up blood. “Hurts when I laugh. Hurts…”

Al was wracked with sobs as she watched the last light of life fade from her lover’s eyes. She closed his eyelids, then kissed him gently. As the despair overcame her, she rocked his still body in her arms, her tears falling into his hair.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Al,” a gentle, warm voice called to her once she was all cried out. “Al, snap out of it. Please. I can’t bear to see you like this.”

Al sniffed. She knew that voice better than her own. Deep. Comforting. It had always been there.

It was Atton.

Al stared down at the lifeless body in her arms, waiting, hoping against hope that she wasn’t simply losing her mind.

“Over here, Al.”

She looked up slowly to see her love standing in front of her, smiling sadly. Well, his spirit, at least. He was pale and translucent, and there was a blueish glow about him.

“A-Atton?” she sniffled, looking between the corpse and the ethereal man dazedly.

“Yeah, babe. It’s me. I held back from becoming one with the Force.” The spirit looked at his old body and wrinkled his nose disgustedly. “Kriff, I look horrible.”

“You looked worse before,” Al replied numbly. “All that pain and regret was just plastered on your face.” She shuddered. “It was a haunting image.”

“Well the pain is gone now, but the regrets are definitely still there. Especially the fact that I have to leave you… and that I wasn’t strong enough to save you from Sion. But even the regrets are slowly peeling away, so I think I’ll come to terms with them in time.”

Al forced a small smile.  “That’s good. I hated seeing you like that; everything carefully sorted and shoved away, too afraid to let anyone in.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about me later, Al. Right now this is about you.”

“What do you mean this is about me? How can it be? I’m not the one who just died.”

“Because I know you, Al. I know what you would’ve done. You’d either stay here with my body and explode alongside the rest of the planet, or you’d take me somewhere for a burial and kill yourself there.”

Al snorted halfheartedly. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

If spirits could glare, this one did. “We both know I’m right, beautiful. And that is not a course of action you should even remotely be considering.”

“Oh, yeah? I love you. You just died. How do you think I’m going to feel? You’d be the exact same way if our places were switched, Atton. You gave me a reason to keep fighting. You died. That reason died."

Atton conceded the point. “True, I would. But you can’t die yet, Al. You can’t. That’s why I’m here. You need to help the others along, get them ready to reestablish the Jedi Order. And then there’s Revan. You still need to rescue her. ….And you’ve got to be a mother to our child.”

Al started. “Our what?”

“Our child, Al. You’re pregnant.”

“How… how do you know?”

Atton smirked. “I’m a spirit. I can sense things now that my connection to the Force was nowhere near strong enough to back when I was alive.” He paused for a moment, musing over his own words. “Now that sounds weird right there. Back when I was alive….”

“How long before the baby is born?”

“She’s not due for quite a while, actually. It’ll probably happen on your voyage through the Outer Rim to Revan. Unless you wait until after that to leave, and let the gang look after her while you’re gone.

“So, it’s going to be a girl? We have a daughter?”

Atton smiled lovingly, and nodded. “We have a daughter.”

Al felt a small warmth in her stomach that seemed to spread throughout her whole body. She had found a purpose, for the time being. “But, what about you?” she asked, looking up at the ghost of her fiancé.

“Me? I’ll be right with you every step of the way. In here,” he said, tapping his celestial chest.

Al smiled. “I love you, Atton.”

“And I, you.”

Then he dissipated, like dust thrown to the wind.