=== Sebastian ===
The great hall of the Jedi Temple felt like a mausoleum dressed in marble and light, its vast arches and polished stone now smeared with blood, scorched by bolt impacts, and littered with the bodies of those who had tried, and failed, to stand against the Imperium.
Sebastian strode at Maximus' side as they emerged from the shadowed corridors beyond the Archives, his armored boots crunching softly on fragments of fallen statuary and shattered lightsaber hilts. The air still carried the faint tang of the witch-bolt toxin, a cold, metallic taste that clung to the back of the throat, and everywhere he looked there were signs of desperate resistance cut short: robes torn apart by mass-reactive shells, bodies crushed under rubble, scorch marks burned into the walls like the ghosts of final moments.
Sebastian halted near the center of the hall and drove the edge of his storm shield into the stone floor with a heavy, deliberate motion, the impact ringing out like a bell struck for the dead. Maximus raised a gauntleted fist, signaling the Bladeguard Veterans to fan out and lock down the approaches.
"We wait here," the Ultramarine said, his voice calm and implacable, carrying easily through the ruined chamber. "If the Grandmaster still draws breath, he will come."
Sebastian said nothing, only rolled his shoulders beneath his armor and let his senses stretch outward, feeling the echo of violence still hanging in the air, the fading afterimage of psychic resistance and dying faith. Somewhere deeper in the Temple, survivors were fleeing. Somewhere else, hunters were still at work. Here, though, there was only the quiet before a storm.
That quiet shattered as figures emerged from the far entrance, moving cautiously through drifting dust and fallen debris. The surviving leaders of the Order stepped into the light one by one, their robes torn, faces drawn with exhaustion and grief.
Cin Drallig walked at the forefront, flanked by Pong Krell, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and others. Drallig's gaze swept across the hall, over the bodies of his students and peers, and for a moment Sebastian saw the Grandmaster's shoulders sag as if the full enormity of the loss finally settled upon him. Drallig closed his eyes, drawing in a slow, measured breath, and when he opened them again the pain was still there, but something else burned beneath it, sharp and molten, a flicker of something old and dangerous.
"What do you want?" Drallig asked at last, his voice steady despite the tremor beneath it. "What madness drove you to butcher so many innocents?" His eyes lingered on the fallen, then lifted to meet Maximus' without fear. The Ultramarine stepped forward, thunderhammer resting at his side, and answered without ceremony. "You will come with us to the Archives," he said. "You will unlock what you have hidden. If you refuse, we will take what we need from your corpse." There was no threat in his tone, only a statement of fact, and Sebastian felt a flicker of grim admiration for the way Drallig did not flinch, did not avert his gaze, but instead straightened, resolve hardening like tempered steel.
Drallig's eyes slid past Maximus and settled on Sebastian, on the black-armored warrior who now knelt amid the ruin. Sebastian planted one knee to the stone, bowed his helm, and clasped his hands together upon the pommel of the Darksaber, the ancient weapon resting dark and silent across his knee. Around him, the sounds of the hall seemed to fade as he whispered his prayer, a low, fervent invocation spoken not for mercy, but for purpose. He asked the God-Emperor for a worthy battle, for foes who would test his faith and his steel, so that through their defeat the truth of the Emperor's light would be made manifest. As the final words left his lips, the Iron Halo mounted upon his back flared to life, erupting in a corona of brilliant gold that bathed the hall in radiant fire, casting long, dancing shadows across the corpses and the living alike.
Sebastian rose smoothly to his full height, the golden light fading to a steady, defiant glow as he turned to face the assembled Jedi. With a single motion, he ignited the Darksaber, its black blade snapping into existence with a low, hungry hum that seemed to drink in the surrounding light. He lifted it in salute. not of respect, but of challenge, and his voice rang out across the ruined hall, rich with zeal and anticipation. "Come," he said, eyes locked on Drallig and the Council. "Let us finish what we started all those years ago."
Cin Drallig moved first, his robes snapping as he surged forward, lightsaber humming with lethal intent as it carved a brilliant arc toward Sebastian's helm. The Black Templar did not retreat an inch. He met the strike head-on, storm shield angled just enough for the plasma blade to scream across its surface and shear away in a cascade of sparks and blue-white light.
The impact echoed through the ruined hall like a thunderclap. Around them the temple burned with violence, bladeguard veterans locked in brutal duels, Jedi leaping and twisting through the air, bolters roaring in deafening counterpoint, but for a heartbeat the world narrowed to the space between Sebastian and the Grandmaster.
Drallig flowed off the shield, feet barely touching the ground as he spun low, his saber darting for Sebastian's leg in a move meant to hamstring even a giant. Sebastian answered with brutal simplicity. He stepped into the strike and drove his knee forward like a battering ram, ceramite crashing into Drallig's chest with a sound like breaking stone. The Jedi was hurled backward, skidding across the marble, yet he twisted mid-fall, Force snapping around him to arrest his momentum. He came up in one smooth motion, blade already swinging back toward Sebastian's exposed flank, only for the Darksaber to snap into place and catch it, black edge grinding against green as reality itself seemed to recoil from the clash. Sebastian leaned into the bind, his transhuman strength bearing down with merciless pressure, forcing Drallig lower and lower until the Grandmaster was driven to one knee, his lightsaber screaming as it was forced down into the stone floor, molten grooves spider-webbing outward beneath the strain.
Drallig snarled through clenched teeth and answered with his own will. The Force slammed outward from him in a concussive wave, a telekinetic hammer meant to pulp organs and hurl the Black Templar across the hall. For a split second the air itself seemed to bend, then Sebastian's iron halo detonated in a flare of radiant gold. The psychic barrier caught the blast and shattered it, the Force breaking like surf against an immovable cliff. Sebastian surged forward through the fading pressure, stepped inside Drallig's guard, and brought his helmet down in a savage headbutt. Ceramite met flesh and bone with a sickening crack, blood spraying as Drallig reeled, vision blurring as he stumbled back.
Elsewhere the battle raged just as fiercely. Maximus met Pong Krell and Ki-Adi-Mundi like an oncoming god of war, thunder hammer howling as it smashed down in sweeping arcs that turned sections of the floor into pulverized ruin. Krell's multiple blades whirled in a storm of light, barely deflecting strikes that would have caved in a tank hull, while Ki-Adi-Mundi danced at the edge of annihilation, Force-augmented leaps carrying him clear of impacts that obliterated pillars and sent shockwaves rippling through the hall. Bladeguard veterans locked shields and advanced methodically, weathering saber strikes and Force pushes alike, answering each with disciplined brutality, power swords biting deep, storm shields shattering bones and bodies with every impact.
Back at the heart of it, Sebastian pressed his advantage without mercy. He wrenched the Darksaber free of the floor and came down in a brutal diagonal cut, forcing Drallig to scramble back, boots slipping on blood and debris. The Grandmaster raised his blade just in time, sparks exploding as the weapons met again, and for a moment they were locked eye to eye, Drallig's burning with fury and grief, Sebastian's hidden behind his helm, yet blazing with fanatical purpose. The Black Templar leaned close, voice a low growl carried through vox and echoing through the ruined temple. This was not merely a battle to him; it was a sermon written in steel and blood.
The hall shook as another exchange detonated around them, Force and faith colliding in a storm that threatened to tear the ancient structure apart. Jedi and Astartes fell on both sides, bodies crumpling amid fire and rubble, yet neither champion relented. Cin Drallig drew upon every shred of strength and memory he had left, while Sebastian fought with the terrible certainty of one who believed his God watched every blow.
Cin Drallig felt the battle splinter around him even as he struggled to keep his footing against Sebastian's relentless advance, the Black Templar moving like a walking cathedral of war, shield locked, blade howling with hungry darkness. For a heartbeat, Drallig's eyes flicked past his own duel, drawn by a sudden, horrifying absence in the Force. Where Pong Krell and Ki-Adi-Mundi should have been blazing like twin stars beside Maximus, there was instead a deadened void, a hollow space that swallowed power, intent, and prescience alike. The Ultramarine stood at its center, his very presence stripping the Jedi Masters of everything that had ever made them more than flesh and bone.
Pong Krell met him head-on regardless, four arms swinging with brutal ferocity as his twin double-bladed sabers crashed against the thunderhammer. The impact rang out like a cathedral bell struck by a god, and the result was immediate and devastating. Krell was flung aside as if he weighed nothing at all, his boots skidding across the marble before his massive frame crashed hard onto the floor. Ki-Adi-Mundi moved at once, instinct driving him forward, his form precise and elegant as he darted in to exploit the opening, but the moment he crossed the invisible threshold of Maximus's null field, everything betrayed him. The Force vanished like a severed limb, his balance faltered, his speed died, and the future he had glimpsed a thousand times before went dark all at once.
Maximus did not hesitate. He stepped into the opening, his gauntleted fist coming down in a short, brutal arc that ended in a sound more felt than heard. Bone, brain, and helm shattered beneath the blow, and Ki-Adi-Mundi crumpled where he stood, lifeless before his body even struck the floor. The shockwave of that death rippled outward, raw and jagged, and Pong Krell felt it tear through him like a blade. His roar of grief and fury echoed through the hall, something primal and unhinged breaking loose as his eyes burned molten yellow and the last of his restraint evaporated into hate.
Power surged from him in a wild, uncontrolled torrent, lightning spilling from his hands in blinding arcs that should have incinerated anything in their path. Instead, they struck Maximus and simply… died. The crackling bolts unraveled into pale wisps the instant they entered the Ultramarine's null aura, dispersing like smoke against an unyielding wall. Maximus turned toward him slowly, his thunderhammer lowering as he began to advance. Krell scrambled to his feet, fear now bleeding into his rage as he realized, too late, how utterly naked he was.
The hammer fell where Krell had been a fraction of a second before, the impact pulverizing the stone floor and hurling the Besalisk through the air like a broken doll despite his desperate evasive roll. He barely had time to draw breath before Maximus was upon him, the Ultramarine closing the distance with terrifying speed. A single armored punch drove straight into Krell's abdomen, folding him in half and launching his massive body across the hall, where he crashed through fallen debris in a spray of shattered marble and blood.
One by one, presences Cin Drallig had known for decades winked out until the great hall felt cavernous and wrong, filled with absence instead of life.
He parried another brutal swing from Sebastian's Darksaber, sparks screaming as black met blue, and for a heartbeat his focus shattered. The Temple, the Order, the whispered doubts he had buried for years, all of it crashed down on him at once. Something inside him broke.
The restraint, the discipline, the quiet faith that had defined his life burned away in an instant, replaced by raw, boiling fury. When he opened his eyes again, the world looked sharper, harsher, and his reflection in Sebastian's visor burned back at him with molten yellow fire.
He roared, hurling himself forward with a ferocity that had nothing left to lose, smashing Sebastian's blade aside and twisting low, channeling every ounce of his rage into a strike meant to sever the Black Templar's arm at the shoulder. For a fraction of a second, it felt possible, inevitable even, until the Force vanished from him like a breath ripped from his lungs.
The pressure collapsed, the power fled, and the universe went cold and heavy. Maximus had stepped into range. Sebastian caught the blow as if it weighed nothing, iron fingers closing around Drallig's wrist while the Black Templar's voice rumbled with something like approval. "A good try," he said, almost kindly. Then there was pain as Sebastian tore his arm free in a spray of blood and shattered bone. Drallig hit the floor hard, shock stealing his breath, the Darksaber rising above him to deliver the end.
It never came. A thunderous impact slammed into Sebastian's flank, a chunk of stone the size of a speeder hurled with desperate strength. The Black Templar was thrown into Maximus, the two giants crashing together in a clash of ceramite and fury. Through his haze, Drallig saw Pong Krell drag himself from the rubble, four arms shaking with exhaustion and hate, eyes burning with the same corrupted fire.
A Bladeguard Veteran tackled Krell, as Maximus and Sebastian reentered the fight with terrifying coordination. Sebastian smashed into the Besalisk like a living battering ram, staggering him long enough for both warriors to seize their prize. Each of Krell's massive arms were caught, locked, and with a synchronized wrench of godlike strength, torn free. The scream that followed echoed through the hall, cut short as Sebastian ended it with a single, brutal stomp that crushed the Besalisk's skull.
Cin Drallig did not look back again. He fled down the corridor, blood slick beneath his boots, heart hammering as he slipped into a hidden passage known to only a handful of Masters. Behind him lay the ruin of everything he had sworn to protect, the echoes of slaughter and the dying hum of lightsabers fading into distance.
"Get back here!" Maximus roared, his voice echoing like thunder through the shattered corridor as he charged after the fleeing Grandmaster. His armored boots hammered against the fractured stone, each step shaking the walls, until the passage narrowed abruptly into a maintenance conduit barely wide enough for a single man.
Cin Drallig vanished into the darkness beyond, his presence flickering out in the wake of the collapsing Force. Maximus stood there for a long moment, chest heaving, fists clenched so tightly the servos in his gauntlets whined, before finally turning away with a low, simmering growl.
Any remaining Jedi resistance was crushed swiftly and without ceremony.
Maximus stooped beside the remains of Cin Drallig's fallen arm, picking it up before signaling the withdrawal. The strike force moved back through the devastated corridors, boots crunching over debris and shattered glass, until they reached the Archives once more.
There, beneath the fractured hololiths and ruined databanks, Dooku accepted the arm without comment. He pressed it against the biometric seal, and after a brief, tense pause, the ancient locks disengaged with a low, resonant hum that seemed to sigh with resignation.
A Mandalorian technician immediately went to work, fingers flying over consoles as streams of encrypted data spilled into the air. He muttered to himself at first, clearly impressed by the sheer volume of secrets buried within the Grandmaster's vaults, then suddenly froze. He straightened, eyes snapping up to meet Maximus's. "We've got it," he said, voice tight with disbelief. "Confirmed coordinates. Planet designation: Tython."
For a heartbeat, no one spoke. Then Maximus nodded once. "Signal the fleet. We're done here." With that, he turned from the Archives, already issuing orders for extraction, leaving behind a shattered temple and a galaxy that would soon learn just how costly its secrets had become.
===
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