Dawnbreaker Episode I: Hard Contact/Part 2

CHAPTER 3

Meanwhile, Darkon's fleet are following the merc's A-wing... Darkon's forces emerge from light speed at transmission source location only to find that they've been lured into a trap. A fleet of Imperial Remnant ships bolstered by a number of Ty294's mercenary friends immediately besets them. While swarms of Tie Fighters destract the capital ships gunners, cloaked transport ships containing cyborg soldiers move in and prepare to launch boarding operations.

Sith fighters piloted by Spectres launch from all of Darkon's ships, outflying and annihilating the puny TIE's, while the capital vessels engage the Imperial ships. Equipped with reactive armour in addition to standard shields, they have a clear advantage. Meanwhile, HK51 droids prepare to repel the cyborg invaders, while the Mercenary's little Corvette is tractored into the main hangar bay, its engines destroyed.

The Gatekeeper slowly sits up, completely unharmed as Darkon has his back turned celebrating what he thinks is a victory, the Gatekeeper rises to his feet, extends his hands forward, mumbles something incoherently, and curves his hands forward. Darkon turns just in time to see what looks like an endless number of black lightning bolts heading toward him. They enter his body, overriding all of his senses with numbness as the electricity flows throughout his body. What feels like an eternity later, it ends, and Darkon lies motionless on the ground.

As the numbness wears off, Lord Darkon sees the Gatekeeper about to finish him. Pure willpower defeats the numbness, and he grabs and twists the Gatekeeper's hand about to rip out his heart, breaking the wrist.


 * Force Shatterpoint - a precise, gentle tap on Gatekeeper's armour shatters it*

The Gatekeeper leaps up, whips off his armor, revealing nothing more than the mask, red and yellow soulless eyes, and a black outfit with glowing red barbed wire going up the legs and sides of the chest, coiling amongst itself like snakes. As Lord Darkon stands there, confused as to how his enemy is not dead, and in awe to be in the presence of such an awe-inspiring creature, the barbed wire shoots out from his chest and legs and coils itself around him, dragging him closer and closer. The Gatekeeper lets out a fiendish and other-dimensional roar that sends chills down his spine, then, he makes several slashing motions with his hands, and massive foot-long gashes appear all over his body, spouting blood. Darkon falls to the ground lifeless. The Gatekeeper walks over, rips out his heart with his clawed hand, then shoots a dark red beam out of his mouth, annihilating the body, then vanishes to Ty294's Corellian Corvette...
 * Close-range delayed Force Destruction* - the Gatekeeper is flung backward against the far wall, as the dark energy implodes in his chest... Multiple massive wounds litter his broken body, blood flowing out. The Gatekeeper's breathing becomes strained, as Lord Darkon approaches at a carefully measured pace, a slight smile on his face...

As the red beam envelops Lord Darkon, he is momentarily connected to the Gatekeeper's outer-dimensional plane, and, with his last remaining strength, uses the Force to transphase his soul to that plane, an instant before the body is annihilated.

"YES!" Screamed Darkon, "Now you have made me more powerful than ever, Gatekeeper! I am no longer bound by the limitations of physical body... and I now have access to all the supreme power of this plane, the same as you. You haven't killed me... you have made me your equal in sheer power!"

The Gatekeeper stands, in shock, as the ghostly form of Lord Darkon, attired in a cloak the colour of dried blood, with piercing eyes of silver-gray, and the foulest acidic poison vapours emanating from him, suddenly appears on the Corvette's bridge. As the bridge crew, including the Mercenary, is suffocated and disintegrated by the acid poison, Darkon phases in an instant right next to the Gatekeeper, grabbing him, and willing the acid to flow through his arms into the Gatekeeper. Then, using the Force, he ignites the acid, and the Gatekeeper's outer-dimensional body is literally burned from the inside out. His last scream dies down, and Lord Darkon tears his charred, shapeless remains to pieces.

"No longer are you the supreme being, Gatekeeper... only I am that!"

The Gatekeeper lands behind Lord Darkon "You fool. I do not die THAT easily! And once more, you will be cast down! Just like before."

The Gatekeeper waves his hand, and Lord Darkon's mind is flooded with memories of his long lost childhood, and how his family house was burned down, his family killed, and himself horribly disfigured by the fire. It left him broken and weak at the age of 5. Returning to reality, Lord Darkon is back to a physical form, only now, he is but a boy. His 5 year old form. He quakes in fear at the sight of such a hideous monster, and cowers in a fetal position on the floor. The Gatekeeper walks over, "Aw... How sweet... Now there's a face..." He pulls out the head of Darkon's deceased mother* "Only a mother could love!" Claws form on the Gatekeeper's hand "Now, Darkon, you will... Die..."

The boy raises his head to the Gatekeeper, as the clawed hand is about to rip off his head. He looks like a boy, but his voice is still of Lord Darkon, and it literally sends the Gatekeeper reeling backward from its unimaginable power.

"How pathetic, feeble one!" Darkon cried, "You think me so easily manipulated... you forget that my power now matches your own! And more..."

Suddenly, the boy form explodes outward, and Lord Darkon is once again as he was before. With a snap of his fingers, they are no longer on the Corvette, but in the former house of one who would eventually call himself the Gatekeeper, many millennia in the past. The Gatekeeper looks around at his familiy and his former self, a boy, sitting around a dinner table, a happy family. Lord Darkon waves his hand, and the Gatekeeper is frozen in time, only able to watch in helpless horror as Lord Darkon's basilisk gaze sweeps across all of his former family in turn, including his former self, turning them into stone. They never existed.

In an instant, the scene dissolves back to the Corvette's bridge, both of them standing in the exact same places, except that the Gatekeeper is now only a lifeless stone statue...

A loud garbled and quite disturbing laugh fills the room just as Darkon is about to Shatterpoint the stone statue of the Gatekeeper. He breaks out, dragging a long black chain with him. He lashes Darkon with the chain, which does nothing except anger Darkon, or so it seems. Darkon grabs the Gatekeeper in sheer fury and tries to pick him up and toss him, but he can't move from the ground, as hordes of people have latched themselves onto his legs!

"These are the Souls of the Forgotten, Lord Darkon. Hell will be your final resting place!"

The Gatekeeper chokeslams Darkon to the ground, which starts to crack. The floor of the Corvette shatters, only to reveal a massive burning fire. As Darkon looks at it, his eyes, body, mind and soul catch on fire, and a massive Trident stabs him through the back. The Gatekeeper kneels down, hand extended forward, as a red burnt hand gives him a small vial. Inside: Darkon's soul. The Gatekeeper reaches into a massive bag that materializes out of nowhere, and pulls out a large ball made of unknown material. He deposits Darkon's soul inside, as the Trident rips out of the body, and the Forgotten as well as the body start falling. And falling... And falling away into Darkness, as the floor of the Corvette closes back up, and the Gatekeeper rises to his feet, and waits for the imminent arrival of his attack fleet.

The Gatekeeper leaves a curse upon the grave, damning all who dare to disturb it to an eternity of darkness and tormented agony.

"Vaskoras De Loch" 3/26/11- The Gatekeeper of The Force

CHAPTER 4

An unknown voice speaks to Lord Darkon, "I am the beginning, and the end. I am Lucifer, the First of the Nephilim, the Original Gods. Your adversary has consigned you to my realm, which he mistakenly calls "Hell". You have put up a valiant struggle against that creature, but he is empowered by the false right-path "God", as one of his "Archangels", and as such, you were no match for him... until now. I hereby empower you, and choose you to destroy this false 'Gatekeeper', so you can become the true one, and bring the long-lost balance back to the universe."

The bridge of the Corvette suddenly fills with a blinding purple light, as the floor opens up, and Lord Darkon, the Archdemon, phases back into the prime reality. A white chain of pure primal energy lashes out at the Gatekeeper, catching and spinning him. The chain's torque creates a massive purple vortex of primal doom, which begins to suck in the Gatekeeper. At the same time, Astaroth herself phases in, carrying a gray-silver chalice, which draws into itself the Gatekeeper's soul. She places the chalice in Lord Darkon's hand. A strangely chilling vail begins to emanate from the vortex, along with apparitions of enraged, distorted faces and clawed arms. Lord Darkon lifts the chalice, and speaks:

"Do you hear that vail, false one? Do you see them? The vail of the misled, the betrayed, and the falsely cursed... all the souls you and your kind have led to their doom! They are calling for you, "Gatekeeper". They cry for vengeance... and so shall they have it! Hereby do I restore the balance... and inaugurate the New Golden Age!"

Lord Darkon destroys the chalice with a surge of primal energy from his burning eyes, and as he does so, the Gatekeeper is sucked into the vortex, the ghostly clawed hands already beginning to rend him to pieces, into an eternity of torment. The vortex closes, and that entire sector of space begins to collapse in on itself. Lord Darkon returns to his new flagship. Lord Darkon's armada vanishes into hyperspace just as The Gatekeeper's assault fleet arrives, and is promptly consigned into oblivion along with the Corvette and the surviving Imperial ships, as the sector becomes an unfathomable void, a transphasic singularity.

"I told you at the very beginning. Do not place yourself in my way... the True way."

A voice rings in Darkon's head: "You think I'm an Angel?! I side with the Light?! You sicken me to no end, Darkon! Now, you, your kind, and ALL of humanity, will suffer the consequences, at the hands of the Gatekeeper of The Force!"

The Gatekeeper's body rises out in front of all of Darkon's fleet in space, bigger than the galaxy itself! He catches the fleet in the palm of his massive hand. The fleet opens fire with everything they've got, but it's no use. The Gatekeeper crushes Darkon's entire fleet with one wave of his hand, and with another, everything around Darkon's flagship goes dark, until there is a massive explosion, and Darkon is standing alone on the bridge, surrounded by black robed Druids armed with various ancient weapons of pure evil. Darkon tries to destroy the Druids, but they completely overpower him, and lead him back outside the flagship, back to the Gatekeeper, who promptly resizes him to his own galactic scale, standing on the very foundation of Time itself, the alternate Galaxy around them, at the Gatekeeper's wave, suddenly explodes! All of the souls from it fly into the Gatekeeper's outstretched hands, empowering him further. Then, he turns to Darkon.

"Not even the one you call Astaroth can save you. Look at the remnants. Look at what you have forced me to do. After this is over, you will be given a proper burial. It's the least I can do, for perhaps the greatest foe I've ever had."

The Gatekeeper steps back and prepares for one final battle, without any outside interference. Everything else is destroyed.

"Oh, and for you information, Darkon, my allegiance is with the Dark Side!"

As the galactic souls begin to empower the Gatekeeper, Lord Darkon's basilisk gaze petrifies each of them in turn, and his supreme power accelerates them, now nothing more than hardened chunks of stone, to unimaginable velocities. They perforate the Gatekeeper like massive EC bullets fired from a Gauss rifle, all the trillions of them, of all the people from the annihilated galaxy. And as each of them enters the Gatekeeper, Lord Darkon's power un-petrifies them, and each of them begins to sap and destroy the Gatekeeper's power, in addition to causing unimaginable pain. Through the perforation holes, the residue of the Gatekeeper's power begins to hemmorrhage like blood, and Lord Darkon absorbs it all into himself, drawing power directly from his enemy. Just as Lord Darkon is about to annihilate the Gatekeeper once and for all, the Gatekeeper counters the spell, causing it to backfire on Lord Darkon, draining him of all of his powers, his abilities, and his strengths, leaving him helpless before the will of the Gatekeeper, and try as he might, he can not seem to use any of his abilities. It's almost as if the Gatekeeper has some sort of control over those who dwell in the realm of existance...

"Darkon, you can't win. Not like this. It is useless to resist. Now, I have a proposition for you. You may have your Sith'ari and your True Sith Empire IF, and only IF, you take them to a diffrent galaxy and leave this one alone. I reside here. This galaxy has, under my leadership, prospered. There can not be a single empire ruling all. I designed it that way. If you accept my offer, you may have the galaxy next to mine, which is essentially an exact replica of this one, only slightly more advanced, technology wise, AND you may create new ones as you see fit. Do whatever you wish with them. My Shadow Empire will rule the rest. Or at least try to. It is obvious, Lord Darkon, that this continued fighting is not going to give a clear cut winner. I admit, I underestimated you. But you have also underestimated me. I am far more advanced than you realize. Just think about everything I have said. If you still wish to fight me, well, I can't say where that will lead. I'll be right here..."

Darkon uses the Force to restore his power, as the perfect Sith'ari is never helpless, not before anyone.

"You are extremely powerful, Gatekeeper. It is only prudent that I admit that. I have never yet encountered an adversary such as you, one who counters my power point for point at every turn. I may not be able to destroy you, but you also cannot destroy me. I choose to postpone our war until more convenient circumstances arise. I accept your offer. Yet, I am a Sith. More to the point, I am a True Sith, the Sith'ari. And the Sith deal only in absolutes. I shall brook no other supreme ruler save myself in this reality. You may have your flawed Shadow Empire in this galaxy, Gatekeeper... for now. But I promise you, the time will come when you shall kneel at my feet, and proclaim your loyalty to the True Sith Empire, which shall stretch across all the known universe." However long it takes... however high the cost, I will accomplish my goal! Remember... I have foreseen it. For now, though, farewell. You have proven a worthy adversary, Gatekeeper, and you will be so again..."

EPILOGUE

Ty294 staggers to his feet, his broken body mortally wounded by blast damage from the battle. The Gatekeeper and Darkon have both vanished. Ty makes his way to the nearest viewport where he observes the carnage outside. At that moment he relizes the corvette has been torn in two. Although damaged, the Zero-G ability of his armor suit is still able to function. Sending a message over the comlink to a surviving Merc ally, he plunges himself into space. He is picked up by the Merc while what remains of the Imperial/Mercenary armada flees into hyperspace. The ship Ty is on hypers toward a small planet on the another edge of the Galaxy, where a small, forgotten medical and cloning facility awaits a new patient.

"Damn it." says an unknown voice. "It would seem I missed the action... wait a minute..." He puts on mandalorian helmet, "It looks like the party's just gettin' started."

TO BE CONTINUED...