Chapter 16:
– Silas –
I almost lost control of the Ghost Bike as we dipped low over the city, and Vista yelped behind me, her arms tightening around my waist like a vice.
"Silas!" she shouted over the wind, her voice edged with panic. "Watch it!"
"Sorry!" I winced, trying to stabilize the bike. My vision was starting to blur around the edges, and my head throbbed like it was about to split open. Not exactly ideal when you're flying a damn motorcycle.
"I—ugh—I feel kinda woozy…" Vista mumbled, her voice lower now, more confused than scared.
Shit.
I spotted an empty alley near the edge of the palace district and immediately veered toward it, killing the engine mid-glide and dropping us down for an emergency landing. The bike skidded slightly but held steady, the tires squealing as we came to a stop.
Vista jumped off first, stumbling as soon as her boots hit the ground. I quickly swung my leg over and dismounted, ready to catch her if she fell, but she managed to steady herself against a nearby wall. Her head was darting around, her eyes wide and unfocused.
"I can feel it!" she said suddenly, her voice trembling with something between wonder and overload. "It's all around me! It's flowing through me! Space is everywhere—it's so big! It's infinite!" She steadied herself and stood up straighter, her lips parting in a wide grin. "I can feel the Force recharging me—making me stronger. This is… this is awesome."
I smiled at her, genuinely happy to see her coming into her new powers so quickly, but I couldn't hide the grimace twisting across my own face.
Because I was not having a good time.
If I remembered Toaru Majutsu no Index correctly—and I did, painfully—using esper powers, especially ones like Electromaster, required a lot of brainpower. A lot. And right now, I felt like someone had jammed a live wire into my skull and then smashed it with a sledgehammer. Repeatedly.
I leaned against the alley wall, bracing myself with one hand as the world tilted around me. With my free hand, I pulled my hood back and yanked my cowl down, gasping in fresh air and trying to breathe through the pain. My head felt like it was going to burst open any second.
Vista looked over sharply and flinched. "Silas… I can feel your pain." Her voice had dropped into something quiet and worried.
That was definitely new.
I forced a grin, trying to play it off. "I'm good," I lied. It sounded weak even to me.
She didn't buy it for a second. Her brow furrowed as she took a step closer. "You suck at lying. Especially when I can literally feel how full of shit you are."
I chuckled weakly. "Yeah, okay. Fair point." The pain was slowly settling into a dull throb instead of the spike-through-the-eyeball sensation it started with, but I still wasn't exactly feeling top-tier.
Still, we didn't have time to waste.
I closed my eyes and took a slow breath, and that's when I really felt it—the shift happening inside me. I didn't just have Electromaster now. I was one. I could feel the change deep in my bones, like my entire nervous system had been rewritten.
And weirdly enough… so had my magic.
From what I remembered, esper powers and magic weren't supposed to mix. They practically shorted each other out. So it caught me completely off guard when I felt the small pool of magicka inside me suddenly expand—vastly. It surged with raw voltage, snapping and sizzling through my veins. The arcane energy in me had been completely transformed into something new. Something electric.
I instinctively understood it—knew it with a clarity that sent chills down my spine. I could only cast electricity-based spells now.
And I was fine with that.
Electric type was the best type anyway!
I opened my eyes slowly and reached out with my senses—and holy shit. I could feel it. The current running through the alley walls. The hum beneath the pavement from buried cables. The buzz in the palace streetlamps, flickering nervously in the distance. I could feel the cold, hard electricity pulsing inside the tanks and droids surrounding the palace. They were walking batteries.
I took a few more deep breaths, letting the pain fade into the background as I rolled my shoulders and pulled my hood back up. Then I slid my cowl over my face again and turned toward Vista.
She met my gaze and gave me a sharp nod. Her eyes were clear now, focused, glowing faintly with power. She looked more confident than I'd ever seen her.
"You good?" I asked.
"Better than good," she said while grinning. "Let's save a queen."
"Hell yeah!"
Vista and I burst out of the alley at a full sprint, boots slamming against the stone streets as we charged straight toward the palace. The roar of artillery grew louder with every step, and as we emerged onto the battlefield, the full scale of the invasion hit us.
Thousands of battle droids were lined up in formation between us and the palace. Ten massive hover tanks loomed among them, their cannons firing in thundering rhythm as they shelled the palace walls nonstop. Dust, debris, and shattered stone filled the air. The ground shook beneath our feet with every blast.
We were behind them all.
I glanced sideways at Vista. She was already looking at me, and even though I was wearing my mask, I was pretty sure she could still sense the massive smirk on my face.
This adventure had just started, and it was already fucking amazing.
Power surged through me like I'd never felt before. I could practically taste the electricity in the air—sharp, metallic, hot. Every nerve in my body was lit up like a live wire.
"I don't have to hold back anymore," Vista said, her voice alive with energy and pure joy. "The force is with me!" She raised both her hands and focused. Instantly, the space around the droid army began to distort. The roads beneath their feet twisted violently, cracking and bending as if the stone itself had become liquid. Then—just like that—Vista flipped entire chunks of street upside down, slamming groups of droids into the ground with terrifying force. Dozens, then hundreds, were crushed into scrap in seconds.
I didn't hesitate to follow her lead.
The electricity inside me was begging to be unleashed. I lifted both my gloved hands toward the densest cluster of droids and didn't even bother with the basic Sparks spell.
That was kid stuff now. Instead, I opened the floodgates.
A torrent of white-hot lightning exploded from my fingertips with a deafening crack, arcing through the air and ripping into the droid lines. The bolts tore through metal like paper, melting circuits and sending entire squads flying backward in smoking pieces!
At least fifty droids went down instantly—and the bolt kept going, slamming into one of the massive tanks. The explosion was instant, violent, and blinding. The tank's hull buckled and then detonated in a massive fireball that sent nearby droids flying like shrapnel. The shockwave hit me square in the chest, but I stood my ground, adrenaline and power holding me steady.
"Holy shit…" Vista breathed.
"Holy shit," I echoed, still staring at the inferno we'd just caused.
The surviving droids finally noticed us. Hundreds of metal heads turned in eerie unison. Blasters raised. Commands echoed across the lines in that annoyingly monotone voice.
"It's more Jedi!" one of them shouted.
"Roger roger—open fire!"
– Padme –
Despite being the youngest queen in Naboo's history, Padmé Amidala was a fighter. She hadn't taken the throne for ceremony or luxury—she'd been elected to fix the mess the last administration had nearly drowned the planet in! The Trade Federation's manipulations had brought Naboo to the edge of financial ruin, signing away their future piece by piece through dishonest and one-sided trade agreements.
That was why her people had cheered when she'd stood before those greedy aliens and cut those deals off.
That was why the people believed in her! Supported her!
She didn't think it would end up like this.
Her stomach twisted as she stared at the glowing tactical display on the palace wall. Red dots—enemy forces—covered every major city. The invasion wasn't just happening here in Theed. Roving squads of droids were being reported in settlements across Naboo, rounding up civilians, forcing control collars onto them.
Slavery. They were turning her people into slaves! She could only feel despair at that reality.
And they were trying to kill her, too. Padmé knew that. The Trade Federation wanted her gone. Silenced. They didn't want a rallying symbol. They wanted to crush her and her people's hopes.
The palace walls trembled violently, dust and loose stone falling from the ceiling as another shell from outside impacted nearby. The shield generators were gone—overloaded and collapsed almost an hour ago—and the stone walls, no matter how thick they had been designed to be, wouldn't hold out forever.
Padmé stood in one of the throne room's smaller side chambers, surrounded by her remaining handmaidens, Captain Panaka, and the few surviving palace guards. The hallway outside was littered with wreckage—crumpled metal, shattered marble, blaster burns. The dead, both droid and human, lay in twisted heaps. The smell of carbon scoring and blood filled the space around them.
Every known exit had been cut off.
Still, Padmé stood tall. Her armor-plated royal dress had been torn in places, soot streaking across the once-pristine fabric, but she didn't care. She looked at her people—her real protectors—and she knew what she had to say.
"It's been an honor serving with you all," she said solemnly. "But let's not go down quietly. The people of Naboo will never surrender. Not to this. Not again. We won't submit to injustice. Not now. Not ever!"
There was a pause, then a surge of energy as everyone in the room straightened. Panaka gave a sharp nod, gripping his blaster tighter. Sabe smiled and reached over to squeeze Padmé's hand.
The rest of the guards checked their weapons with a renewed sense of purpose. A small, defiant cheer broke through the tension.
And then—suddenly—the shelling stopped.
Everyone froze.
Then came the explosions.
Something massive had just gone up in flames! Outside of the palace!
"What the hell is that?" Panaka muttered, stepping to the window and trying to see through the smoke.
Padmé walked up beside him, heart hammering in her chest. From the haze, she spotted the unmistakable wreckage of a Trade Federation tank—completely destroyed. The hulking remains were on fire, surrounded by piles of smoking droid parts.
More explosions rang out, more tanks were getting destroyed rapidly. Some of them were hit by massive blasts of thunder and other tanks looked like they were being picked right up out of the air by some invisible force–along with the droids nearby. And then they were all crushed together in seconds!
What was this power?! Were jedi nearby? Padme never knew the legendary defenders of the republic were so powerful!
"Whatever it is," Sabe whispered beside her, her voice trembling, "I think we have some reinforcements!"
Padmé pressed a hand to her mouth. She didn't want to cry, not now—not yet. But the burn behind her eyes was impossible to ignore. The galaxy hadn't abandoned them. Not yet.
– Silas –
I was sweating buckets inside my Nightingale armor, my hands braced on my knees as I tried to catch my breath. My chest heaved, and every part of me felt like it was made of concrete and static. I could still smell the ozone in the air from all the lightning I'd unleashed—not to mention the charred metal and scorched stone surrounding us.
Okay… maybe I overdid it a little.
Unlimited power, my ass…
The army of droids that had surrounded the palace? Gone. Reduced to slag and scrap metal in a display of destruction that would've made the Triumvirate jealous. By both me and Vista. Tanks obliterated. Streets cracked wide open. Droids thrown sky-high and rained down in pieces.
It was glorious.
It was also stupid, because now I felt like someone had driven an electric drill through my skull. My brain throbbed with every pulse of light and sound, my muscles twitching from overload. Turns out, unleashing that much juice wasn't exactly free. There was always a goddamn catch.
Beside me, Vista wasn't faring much better.
She swayed slightly on her feet, blonde hair sticking to her forehead, her eyes glassy and unfocused.
"The Force is unlimited…" she muttered with a dramatic sigh, "but my body is not." She took a half step and stumbled, nearly eating it face-first.
I caught her instinctively. "Alright, alright. You're done. Time to take five, Jedi Lightweight. You're drunk…"
"I'm not drunk," she said immediately, clinging to my arm.
"You're absolutely drunk. On the Force. Which is apparently a thing now," I replied, scooping her up in my arms. "You did good though..."
She didn't even argue, just let her head rest against my shoulder with a tired little groan. I started walking toward the palace entrance, now that we'd turned the courtyard into a smoking graveyard and cleared the way. The stone steps leading up to the main hall were cracked from stray blasts, and the massive doors had scorch marks from tank shells, but they were still standing–barely.
I kicked one open with my boot and we stepped inside.
We needed to find the Queen—fast. There were probably more droids inbound, and we'd just made ourselves the brightest goddamn target in the galaxy with our displays of power.
I had no doubt the Sith already knew about us. And it wasn't just Palpetine or Maul. I was pretty sure even Darth Plagueis was still alive at this point in Star Wars.
Vista was still murmuring nonsense in my arms as I moved through the echoing marble halls, her voice soft and dazed. "Space is so big…" she mumbled. "I touched it. I touched space, Silas."
"Yeah, yeah," I said, adjusting my grip on her as I climbed a set of steps. "You can tell me all about it later when you're more sober. Right now, let's just save the queen and try not to die."
– Qui-Gon Jin –
Qui-Gon Jinn stood on the overlook above the royal plaza, the wind pulling gently at his robe as explosions echoed through the city of Theed. Below him, the battlefield was a shattered mess of stone, fire, and smoking metal. The invasion force surrounding the palace had been utterly annihilated.
It was remarkable.
And at the center of it all were two figures—unfamiliar, powerful, and unlike anything he had seen in all his years as a Jedi.
One was a man clad in sleek black armor. He had wielded lightning—pure, white-hot arcs of energy that had torn through metal like paper. And yet he wielded no lightsaber. Just raw, devastating power.
The other was a girl, young—barely a teenager by appearance—dressed in a green costume with a mask pushed up onto her head. She attacked with the very fabric of space itself behind her. She had bent reality like it was clay, folding roads and warping gravity, hurling droids into each other in massive waves of kinetic devastation. Her movements were graceful but wild, like she was still discovering what she was capable of as she fought and wielded the force.
Beside him, Obi-Wan Kenobi finally broke the silence. "Master… what did we just witness?"
Qui-Gon didn't respond immediately. He was still watching the man in black carry the girl into the palace, his own mind racing.
"That lightning," Obi-Wan continued, his tone cautious, "and that armor... Was that a Sith?"
Qui-Gon exhaled slowly, folding his arms behind his back. "I'm not sure."
"But he matched the ancient descriptions," Obi-Wan pressed. "The black armor, the power. He was incredibly strong."
"He did," Qui-Gon admitted. "The old scrolls speak of Sith Lords clad in armor like that, yes. But the presence…" He shook his head. "It was not the same."
"It's strange. I sensed no anger. No hatred," Obi-Wan said while frowning.
"Exactly," Qui-Gon said quietly. "I felt no rage from him. No darkness. In fact…" He hesitated, glancing in the direction of the palace. "I felt almost nothing."
"That's not possible, is it?"
"Not for a Force wielder," Qui-Gon agreed. "Which means… perhaps he's not one?"
"But then how—?"
"I don't know," Qui-Gon said simply. "He used abilities I've never seen before. But the girl… she was using the Force. She bent space without effort. The power around her was… radiant."
Obi-Wan nodded his head. "The Force sang around her…" he sounded almost jealous.
"Yes," Qui-Gon said softly, the words settling into his chest. "Her power was amazing, and yet for some reason it almost felt brand new. Like a star being born before our very eyes." He looked toward the palace again, eyes narrowing. There was something about that girl that felt right. Important. More than that—fated.
"Do you think she could be…" Obi-Wan trailed off.
"The Chosen One?" Qui-Gon finished, turning to his Padawan. "I don't know. But if there's even a chance, we need to find out!"
He stepped back from the ledge and turned toward the steps leading down to the palace gates. "We're still here to stop this invasion. That hasn't changed," he said firmly. "The Queen is still in danger. We can't afford to be distracted."
"And if that man in black is a Sith?" Obi-Wan asked, already falling into step beside him.
Qui-Gon frowned, thoughtful. "Then it would be the first Sith sighting in over a thousand years. But no… I don't believe he is."
"But the power—"
"I know. I saw it," Qui-Gon said. "I stood close when he unleashed that lightning. I felt it pass through the Force… but I didn't feel him."
That, more than anything, disturbed him. The man had moved like a warrior, fought like a legend, but his connection to the Force had been faint… disconnected…
"But the girl?" Obi-Wan asked.
Qui-Gon nodded. "She's the one we need to speak to…"
– Darth Maul –
Hatred. Anger. Jealousy. Rage.
All of it twisted and burned inside of Darth Maul like a storm without end.
He stood cloaked in shadow near the edge of the palace grounds, high atop a domed rooftop that overlooked the smoldering battlefield. Below, the chaos had ended—droids lay in pieces, tanks reduced to burning slag, and two figures had entered the palace through what was once an impenetrable line of mechanical death.
Those two… things.
His master—Darth Sidious—had ordered him to capture them.
Maul's fists clenched beneath the folds of his cloak, the black fabric fluttering slightly in the heated updrafts rising from the wreckage below.
Capture them?
How? How!?
He wasn't blind. He'd seen the girl, the small one in green, twist the very fabric of reality around her like it was nothing but silk. She had bent space, folded it with terrifying ease, and annihilated entire platoons of battle droids without lifting a weapon. That wasn't Jedi training. That was raw power. The kind of power Maul had bled for his entire life to scrape toward.
The Force clung to her, sang around her, brighter than anything he'd ever felt.
It disgusted him!
And the man with her? The one clad in black—he wielded lightning. Powerful Force lightning. It had to be! It rolled off him in white-hot arcs that left only ruin in its wake. The kind of destruction only Sith were supposed to touch.
And yet... Maul felt nothing from him. No hatred. No rage. No darkness. Just that cold, detached hum—like a machine imitating power. It was even more disgusting than the girl! At least she could be corrupted!
These were not Jedi. But they were something. And Sidious wanted them.
Maul gritted his teeth, grinding them together behind his tattooed face.
Of course he did.
Of course.
Sidious wasn't just interested in their abilities. He was assessing them. Considering them. Measuring them against Maul himself.
Maul could see the truth clearer than his master thought he could.
Sidious was thinking about replacing him.
That thought alone made Maul's blood burn. He was no mindless weapon, no expendable blade to be discarded when something shinier came along. He was the apprentice. The chosen one. The instrument of vengeance. He had suffered, trained, killed for his place in the Sith hierarchy. He had bled for it. He had earned it.
He was the one destined to take his master's place. To become a true Lord of the Sith. He would not—would not—be replaced by some untrained brat and her cloaked guardian.
Maul's yellow eyes narrowed, his mind sharpening into perfect, focused clarity.
He would obey—for now. He would watch. He would report what he had seen, just as his master instructed. He would pretend.
Pretend to follow. Pretend to submit. But inside, the storm of hatred continued to grow.
He would bide his time. He would wait. And when the moment was right, when the girl and the cloaked man dropped their guard—he would strike.
He would kill them both.
And then… Sidious would see!
Darth Maul would not be forgotten. He would not be replaced. He would rise—over all of them.
And they would burn!
XXX