The Force Betrayed: Cal Kestis x OC

17.

As Cal and Sakana exited the tomb, the mysterious stranger from before was standing just outside the exit, almost as if to intercept them.

"I tried to warn you," he said, causing Sakana to put her hand on her lightsaber as she all but jumped in front of him.

"So you were watching us," she said, staring daggers at him while he kept the eye contact, entirely unbothered.

"I am an observer," he said, crossing his arms, "and I have seen what that tomb does to people who enter it."

"I'm sure you have," she replied, looking over her shoulder at Cal. "Let's get out of here."

"You won't make it without your weapon," the stranger warned Cal, making Sakana scowl. She'd had just about enough of this weirdo, and she wasn't about to let him have a go at Cal. He had been through enough today.

"Excuse me?" she asked, taking a step closer to the stranger. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Ah," he snickered, glancing between Cal and Sakana. "That's where you're wrong."

Cal's chest felt uneasy as the recent events weighed heavily on his mind, making him feel out of it. She could feel the disturbance within him as it clawed away at his peace, demanding his attention like a gaping wound. She wouldn't let the stranger pour salt in it.

"Who are you anyway?" Sakana asked, her voice burning with venom as she pointed her deactivated lightsaber in his direction, waiting for any excuse to threaten him with it.

The man's lips curled into a deceitful smile, bearing his teeth like a wolf as he removed his outer robes and revealed his bare chest. His body was covered in symbols that littered the rocky walls of Dathomir and wore a chain of Nightbrother horns attached at his belt.

"My name is Taron Malicos," he sneered, showing his chest off in the red sunlight. "Like you, I was once a Jedi."

Sakana didn't know what any of the symbols meant, but the stranger had somehow become even more menacing; they were scarred into his skin like a brand.

"He's the one the Nightbrothers spoke of," Cal interrupted, stepping slightly forward. Sakana instinctively put her arm out to block him from coming any further, earning a confused expression from the boy.

"Yes," Malicos said, his horrible grin becoming wider. "I have taught them to harness the power of Dathomir, the power of the tomb. You are both capable of wielding such power—"

"—We're alright, thanks," Sakana said annoyedly as she turned away from the wanderer.

"Become one with my clan and feast on the power of this grand planet," he said, his speech becoming animated by his hands as he became more passionate. "You are about to walk away from unfathomable strength—"

A cold feeling went down Sakana's neck as the green light from before flashed above a nearby rock, signaling the arrival of an old foe: The Nightsister.

"Become one with your clan?" the Nightsister asked, a cold scowl on her face that could be seen even from the ground. "You know what the Jedi did to me and my sisters, yet you ask two of them to join you?"

"You are not a part of this, Nightsister!" Malicos shouted at her. The anger boiling inside him had begun to spill out, the hatred latching onto Sakana's heart as it threatened to corrupt her.

"You have forgotten your place, Malicos," Merrin warned, the green aura around her becoming hot and bright with green flames. "This is my home, not yours, and I will not let you make a mockery of our pain!"

"You will learn your place—" Malicos started to shout, breaking something within the Nightsister as her rage unleashed upon him.

"—No, Malicos," she sneered, holding a broken sphere-shaped rock in her hands. "You will learn yours." The object lit up with green light as her power leaked into it, her body becoming one with the object.