AN: Double release, go back a chap
After docking the damaged fleet, and sending his Padawans on a black ops mission, Corvus had gone planetside to take in the state of Eriadu, and search for replacement leaders to fill the shoes of the Quintad.
Disembarking from the Falcon's ramp, Corvus was wearing his Cortosis-Weave outfit that resembled something from the Assassins Creed games. Trailing in his wake was Omega, the little blonde clone had wide eyes as she took in the hazy orange skyline of Eriadu's nighttime ambience. Coughing into her hand as a haze of smog passed them by, Omega smiled nonetheless.
Flying cars streaked by, their lights reflecting off of towering skyscrapers. Thousands of people clogged the streets, and gravtrains traveled at extreme speeds, carrying passengers from point A to point B.
"I wish Triss could have been here to see this!" Omega exclaimed, and ran in front of Corvus to the edge of the landing pad.
"She's made a breakthrough in her studies. It's best not to disturb her for now." Corvus met her excitement with calm.
Thinking back to the white haired girl, it had been quite the discovery when she revealed her ability to imbue concepts into objects. At the moment, he had her practicing a simple task: to make it so that when someone drank from a cup-no matter what liquid was inside-they would always taste orange juice. Once Triss got the hang of it, Corvus hoped she could move on to more complex 'enchantments.'
As a bonafide Space Wizard, he was sorely lacking in 'magical' apparel, and was hoping to make the Jedi Order mystical again. Moving fast, and waving a lightsaber around was cool, but as Palpatine & Yoda had demonstrated, there was more to the Force than melee combat.
Whilst Corvus had had these thoughts, Omega had run ahead, and was losing herself to her curiosity. Every droid, alien, or unique hairstyle she came across had her pause in her tracks, and openly stare at them. Quite a few people threw slurs, and slang at her, essentially calling her a yokel, but she didn't care.
"Come along, you're blocking the flow of traffic just standing there. I'll treat you to something nice." Corvus gently pushed the girl forward, and directed her to a stand he had found on his map.
Approaching a green skinned, four-armed alien, Corvus slapped down 5 credits, and pointed at a picture. "Two please."
"Of course, here's your change." The alien gave back a few smaller denominations, as well as two white scoops on a pair of cones.
"What's that?" Omega questioned, her face scrunched up into a look of disgust, and her accent was especially thick.
"Vanilla ice cream, you lick it, like this." Corvus then took a big lick, and smiled.
Closing his eyes, he relished in the flavor, and let the coolness wash over him. It was only the very beginning of night in the city, and summer temperatures were abound, making the night rather hot. Enjoying this cold desert, Corvus ever so slightly let himself relax.
Exhaling a cool, refreshing breath, Corvus walked to a nearby bench, and aimlessly watched the people walk by. A loud group of friends entered a restaurant, a man & woman held hands, and a teen kick flipped his hover skateboard over some pedestrians. A fountain of water had some kids playing in and around it, and some mothers chatted to the side.
Eriadu, for all its faults, still had some good qualities. Its people were just like humans from any other place. They worked hard, and were happy to just live life. Sometimes, all one needed in life, was a brief moment of respite to appreciate everything that you had.
"Oh wow, it's so good!" Omega piped up from the side, and was licking up a storm.
"Carefu-haa~" Corvus was about to warn her, but her scoop slipped out of the cone. He was going to pull it back with the Force, but the girl was supernaturally nimble, and caught it with her cone!
Corvus blinked, impressed by her speed.
Jax had been telling him that her progress was fast, but this was something truly incredible. She might even be able to take on a newly initiated Padawan at this point. Give her a lightsaber, and Omega might even be able to wreck a squad of B-1 battle-droids.
"You'll have to treat Hunter and the rest to this once they're done with their mission. In fact, you might have had ice cream before them." Corvus joked, imagining the faux chagrin CF-99 would have known Omega had done something none of them had achieved.
"Wut? Hunta is so big, and I saw three other stalls that sell ice cream. Of course he's had some!" Omega stated defensively, backing her 'uncles' up.
Corvus sadly smiled, and ruffled her hair. Omega's childish naivete was sweet, but the clones rarely spent time away from their ships. When they did, it was to guard important facilities, people, or to fight on another world. Where would they find time to try a 'luxury' good like ice cream?
"You pity them, don't you?" Omega curled up her knees, and rested her chin on them. The ice cream in her hand no longer seemed so enticing.
Corvus raised an eyebrow in surprise. He wondered if she read him in the Force, or if her perception was truly that good.
'A natural empath perhaps?'
Shaking his head, Corvus responded.
"Yes. Built for war, no one seems to care about the fate of your brothers. They are disposable, and were raised to think that is a good thing. I am saddened in my Order's role in their-"
"Creation?" Omega interrupted with a somewhat harsh, questioning tone.
"...yes. But more so, in their treatment. The genie is out of the bottle, and what is done is done. Yet they are our responsibility." Corvus nodded, almost as if he were justifying his actions to himself, more than answering Omega's question.
The little girl placed a hand on Corvus's forearm. Her tiny hand squeezed him, and she smiled. "Don't be sad. If it weren't for the Jedi, then I wouldn't have my brothers. Our family has many thanks to give."
Corvus looked into her big, innocent eyes, and turned away with a weak sigh. Maybe others could hate on children or disdained brats, but well intentioned, respectful kids were his kryptonite. If only he could send her out to some safe city with the rest of CF-99. Yet memories of the younglings Anakin slaughtered came to mind, and Corvus knew he couldn't risk Omega falling into Palpatine's dry, leathery hands.
'Heh, look at me. The big scary Jedi Knight, conqueror of worlds, hated by the strongest darksider ever, and I'm getting consoled by a little girl of all people.' Corvus thought to himself with a wry smile.
"Hmm, well maybe you're right. Come along, Omega. So far, you've only seen one face of the Jedi. Laser swords & murder are but one component of the Order. You've seen the fist, it is time I showed you the open hand." Corvus smiled, and wiped ice cream cone fragments off his hands as he finished his dessert.
Striding into the crowd, Corvus used his kyber crystal as a focus, and enhanced his Lightside abilities by 25%. He then started to caste [Heal IV] on large swathes of people. Those who received life changing alterations, he would gently tuck a Jedi Order pin into a pocket on their clothes. Before, [Heal III] had a rather limited radius, now, if pushed to the limit [Heal IV] could reach people half a mile away. This power was all encompassing, and worked on someone both inside and out. During his stint on Malastare, Corvus had healed over a hundred thousand people. In that time, he had felt something change in him as he observed the flesh knit itself back together. Pushing himself to the limit, he constantly tried to heal people from further distances, and with even more potency. Finally, he had succeeded. Now, in terms of the Force, he had one ability that could mark him as a 'Master.'
As he worked on more and more people, the miraculous event didn't go unnoticed, and some of the most strongly affected people reacted verbosely.
"My eyes, I can see again!" One man with a badly burned face exclaimed.
Another lady suddenly stood up from her wheelchair in silent shock.
One alien opened his mouth, and revealed a row of freshly regrown teeth.
A nearby news crew that had been filming the summer heatwave caught onto the excitement, but Corvus paid them no mind, as with his methods, he would never be caught.
Like this, many health issues-both big and small-were resolved for all those that they passed by.
"What's wrong with those people, I thought you had healed them?" Omega questioned, and pointed to a large group of people who were coughing up flecks of blood.
In fact, almost everyone he had healed was coughing! Alarm bells were going off in Corvus's mind as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
Frowning to himself, it took Corvus a bit of time before he discovered what was wrong. These people went from having diseased, acclimated lungs, to suddenly having peak condition lungs on a polluted planet! Of course they would suddenly start coughing! It was like taking a normal person, and then suddenly putting them in a high altitude city, it took time for the body to adjust to foreign conditions!
"A sickness clouds the air of this land." Corvus said with a frown.
"Well you're a Jedi, you can fix it, can't you?" Omega questioned, as if it were as simple as changing the channel on a TV remote.
Corvus was about to explain to her that this was a task not so easily accomplished. Yet he found himself frowning, and held his tongue, letting silence reign.
When he advanced his ability, [Heal], he felt himself push the boundaries of the Force. Although it was granted by the system initially, to a degree, he had made it his own. No longer was he set by any rigid parameters. Much like how he controlled his base telekinesis, he now had a grasp on this nebulous concept. What did it mean to heal? Were people the only ones capable of receiving this minty green light? What he was doing was not physical or even scientific, like the regeneration of cells. No! What he was doing was pulling upon the strings of the galaxy, working in tandem with the Force itself to help restore that which was damaged to its most natural, optimal state!
Who knew that what he needed to reach this level of understanding was a child's curiosity?! It was as Master Yoda had said. Do or do not, there is no try.
Closing his eyes, Corvus began to focus on his breaths. In and out, fast and slow. He tasted the breeze, felt it brush up against his skin. With the Force, he even perceived the differing fluctuations of this world's atmosphere compared to say Malastare or Kamino. He found this place to be dirty, different from what it once was.
Cupping an open hand into the empty air in front of him, Corvus felt as if he was holding something even though his eyes saw nothing.
The Force pulsed around him, and the sound of hawkers, pedestrians, and traffic disappeared. People, things, and all other sensations blurred as he focused on this: One. Particular. Spot.
Hand glowing green, the powers of [Heal] flowed from inside him and around him. A feeling of cool minty freshness permeated his bones, and perhaps even acted as a balm to his soul. Drawing upon this experience, he forced a ball of this purity into his index finger, into that ephemeral nothing that he held in his hand.
Inhale, exhale, fast & slow. He felt as if he was almost there, yet nothing was manifesting. He held the power in his hands, [Heal] was mobilizing from within, but there was nothing to contain it.
Then it struck him. He had been trying to achieve balance, but what is balance if there wasn't a second side pulling upon him? [Heal] was a strictly Lightsided ability. When he cast it, he was essentially asking the Force to go along with the flow of nature. Yet nature was capricious. Was not death a part of nature? Did the order of the universe not demand decay? To contain this verdant green, would he not need to bend nature to his will? The darkside itself, at its core, was the forceful manipulation of the Force. To achieve balance, was that not the merger of Light & Dark? The Light had one give themselves to the Force, whilst the Dark had one take from the Force. Was this what balance meant?
Revelations exploded in his mind as he had this thought, and Corvus's hand shook as his body-acting as both the conduit & crucible-struggled to maintain the dark energies that were rapidly circling him. His intuition was telling him that if he hesitated for even a second, this newfound technique of his would devour him in an instant. The powers granted by achieving balance were known to be extraordinary, yet harnessing the Light & Dark had never been known to be easy, otherwise everyone would be doing it.
Exhaling a long, drawn out breath, the blurred edges of Corvus's vision began to magnify, and his hand shook. The weight of the world seemed to press down on his shoulders. Pitch black cracks began to form on his flesh like smoky crags as the raw, unfiltered, Primal Force waged war in his body.
Eriadu, carrying with it all the hopes, dreams, pain, and malevolence of 22 billion souls clashed with his will, and threatened to tear his psyche asunder.
Choked gasps left his lips, and unholy toxins flooding the atmosphere rushed into his pours like a million tiny irons clinging to a magnet. Faltering in his step, he almost collapsed if not for a tiny, blurry little girl holding him up. Her mouth moved yet all Corvus heard was the sound of metal shrieking. Blood dripped down his ears as the whispers of a millennia of human woe pierced his very being. When all seemed lost, the faint image of a tiny green monk smiled down on him in his mindscape. The withered sage was not the current Grandmaster of the Order, but the sickly dying one from Episode 5. His eyes were kind despite his impending demise.
'Do or do not. There is no try.' Yoda's voice echoed from within his psyche.
His kyber crystal flickered, then shone a vast azure light through his body. Deep blue flickered from his heart, and spread through his veins like blood pulsing from head to toe.
'Hope. Love. Justice. Forbearance.' His kyber crystal transmitted.
The black crags forming on his skin were filled by soothing blue, repairing his damaged body, mind & soul. Seconds later, that same blue light flashed into the sky, forming a pillar of light. The city skyline, polluted with disgusting orange clouds, was pierced. Smog began to evaporate at an increased rate, as if it were being eaten by nanomachines. All around the city, rust disappeared, plants grew taller, and purple puddles of toxic waste became clear pools of water.
As the light faded, Corvus found himself sitting in a meditative pose, his legs were crossed, and his head was bowed.
Glancing through his hood, his vision was restored, yet it was as if time had stopped. The birds were silent, the people unmoving, even the honking and loud whoosh of aerial traffic had come to a halt. Only the fountain's continuous flow gave any indication that time had indeed not stopped.
"So this is what it means to be a Jedi." Omega's clear and childish voice seemed to echo in the deafening silence.
Picking up her words, the nearby news crew camera had been rolling the entire time, and zoomed in on the zen-like man who everyone had been staring at.
By the end of the day, everyone would know who had cured Eriadu City of its cancer.
~~~~~~~
AN: Corvus: heals an entire city
System: We do not grant you the rank of Master.
Corvus: It's not fair!
System: take a seat, Young Shadow.
Anyway, MC may be immune to darkside corruption due to his class, but achieving balance isn't so easy. The Force is mystical, not just a convenient ability or super power.
Read upto chapter 210 at: patreon.com/KarpQQ
I update there every monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday
Publicly on Fridays
I also have a fun side story there called Jedi Artisan, this is the summary:
For a thousand years, the Sith plotted their revenge. Murder, betrayal, and the pursuit of power. Darth Bane's "Rule of Two" was designed to create the ultimate warrior. Culminating in Sheeve Palpatine, this millennia long endeavor was set to herald in the rise of the first Galactic Empire.
That is, of course, until Zane, laziest Jedi Knight, and most casual abuser of the dreaded [Mind Trick] arrived on the scene. A transmigrator who wanted to muddle his way through the Clone Wars, the man who would rather sun bathe with Yoda, or [Mind Trick] Jango Fett to go home and pay child support is the one responsible for saving the galaxy.
Force help us all.