Morgan stood alone, lightsaber and holocron in hand, eyes steady on the place where an ancient Sith had finally let go. Then she turned away.
—
Kamino.
Rain hammered against endless white platforms. Waves roared far below, indifferent to war, gods, or ghosts.
Barghest paced in midair, translucent, arms crossed, tail lashing with irritation. "How long is this going to take?" she snapped. "Come on. I need to fight again."
Nala Se didn't look up from the holo-tank. "You were bisected," she said calmly. "That is not a minor inconvenience." Her long neck tilted slightly. "And we are not your queen, who somehow transmutes failed products into transfiguration armies."
Barghest scoffed. "Details. I walked it off."
A third voice cut in, dry and unimpressed.
"You didn't walk anything off."
Dr. Catherine Halsey stood near the cloning vats, hands behind her back, eyes sharp as scalpels as she studied Barghest's spectral form. Spartan blue holograms hovered faintly around her wrist. Very human. Very present.
"I've been here a while," Halsey continued. "Courtesy of Jin-Woo. And I'll be blunt—none of you manage to create a Jedi without him. Not without cheating. Not without miracles."
Nala Se finally turned, expression unoffended. "Give me a break, Doctor Halsey. We are scientists. Same as you." Her eyes flicked to the Spartan schematics. "You used the Spartan Program to advance humanity beyond its limits."
Halsey's lips curved thinly. "I enhanced what already existed. Muscle. Bone. Neural tolerance. You're trying to manufacture destiny."
Barghest leaned closer, grinning. "Worked for me."
Halsey glanced at her. "You're a fairy knight with a spare soul and an anger problem."
Barghest opened her mouth to argue . Space folded.
A transfiguration portal peeled open in the center of the chamber, light bending like silk pulled through water. Morgan le Fay stepped out first, Baobhan Sith at her shoulder, XoXaan a half-step behind. The room's hum dipped instinctively, machines recalibrating around her presence.
There was a hole through Morgan's center chest. Clean. Absolute. As if something had passed through and decided nothing should ever fill the space again.
Barghest froze mid-gesture. Then she dropped to one knee instantly, head lowered. "My queen. Morgan."
Morgan looked at her, unimpressed. "You got carried away," she said evenly.
Barghest winced. "Yes, my queen."
Halsey watched them, curiosity sharpening. "So," she said lightly, "you must be Morgan. The only other person I've seen with dark-side power structured anything like Jin-Woo's."
Morgan turned her attention to Halsey at last. Her posture was relaxed. Controlled. Smug, just enough to be intentional. "Don't play dumb with me, Doctor. I'm sure Jin-Woo laid the groundwork before you arrived." She glanced around the vats and rain-lashed windows. "What do you think of this wonderful galaxy?"
Halsey's gaze dropped—brief, clinical—to the hole in Morgan's chest. "I think you didn't panic," she said. "Despite having a wound that should be terminal."
She stepped closer, scientist instincts overriding caution. "Which suggests layered immortality. Redundancy. Possibly an external anchor . Care to share the secret? Jin-Woo is… unhelpfully secretive."
Morgan smiled without warmth. "Piss off, Doctor."
"My immortality as Monarch came from him," Morgan continued calmly. "And you haven't contributed much yet."
Baobhan Sith snorted, barely containing it. XoXaan crossed her arms, expression unreadable.
Barghest stayed kneeling, shoulders squared, pretending very hard not to enjoy this.
Halsey exhaled through her nose, lips tightening. "Noted."
The room might have continued down that path—but XoXaan cut in, sharp and unapologetic.
"Alright," she said flatly, hands spreading. "Intermission. Queen of transfiguration versus mad scientist can resume later. Because right now, every dark-side current in this galaxy is moving." Her eyes lifted. "And I'm certain it's being coordinated. Naga Sadow is gathering everything he needs to banish you . Not Jin-woo . That's impossible. So he'll remove you instead."
Halsey's gaze snapped to XoXaan's markings.. "You're Sith,"
XoXaan didn't deny it.
Halsey tilted her head. "Then I'm surprised. If I understand even a fraction of this, shouldn't you be siding with the other… side?" A pause. " one more thing. Why is Jin-Woo staying at the Jedi Temple instead of fighting alongside you?"
Before XoXaan could answer,
Morgan spoke. "That answer is personal, She found the Sith'ari. I'll explain that later."
She turned slightly, authority settling back into the room like gravity. "As for my husband—right now, the Jedi are politically crippled. Their reputation is shattered. An ancient Sith escaped under their watch." Her eyes narrowed. "He's holding the line where collapse would be irreversible."
Morgan's gaze hardened. "The deadman faction assembling in the dark? That's mine."
Barghest straightened immediately. "Then let me reenter the battle, my queen."
At the center of the chamber, Morgan's transfiguration sigil brightened—no violence, just certainty. "No," she said. "You've done enough."
She stepped forward, presence sharpening. "I'll handle this with my full strength."
Elsewhere—far from Kamino, far from Avalon's ruins—the jungle of Yavin 4 breathed around an older, fouler wound.
"I understand why Freedon Nadd's master came here seeking my aid," Exar Kun said, voice echoing against walls that remembered his name. "And I will admit this much—I once idolized Freedon Nadd. His will. and defiance."
His gaze shifted, narrowing.
"But you already stand beside an ancient Sith," he continued, contempt creeping in. "One no less real than you. Literally at your side. "Beside Naga Sadow… stands Darth Malgus."
Malgus stood whole. Armored. Breathing. Flesh and iron anchored to the present in a way that made the temple recoil. The Dark Side bent around him like it remembered his name.
"And apparently," Exar Kun snapped, disbelief cutting through his contempt, "you never died."
Exar Kun leaned forward as far as his bindings allowed, fury bleeding through disbelief. "How in the name of the Void do you still walk in your own body? It has been millennia."
Malgus turned his head slightly, mechanical breath steady, contempt effortless. "Do I need to answer a lesser being like you?" he said coldly. "You're a spirit rotting in your own shrine. You have no worth to me."
Exar Kun's presence flared, rage surging against the constraints that held him. The temple groaned as ancient wards strained under his fury.
Then Pressure. Naga Sadow stepped forward, the air bending as his will asserted itself. . dominance. His body—no longer borrowed, no longer patched—moved with the confidence of something restored. Dooku's shell had been refined, overwritten, fused with what Sadow had reclaimed of his original form. Alchemy, essence, memory—aligned. Prime condition. Acting head.
The room went quiet.
"I did not summon you to posture," Naga Sadow said evenly. "Nor to squabble like relics clinging to pride." His eyes moved from Kun to Malgus without hesitation. "I brought you here to discuss the future of the Sith."
"The galaxy has changed," Sadow continued. "Enemies now walk it who cannot be slain. Killing them is futile."
Malgus' respirator hissed louder. His fist tightened, armor plates grinding. "Preposterous," he snapped. "A lie you repeat to excuse weakness. No being achieves that. Not even Valkorion survived eternity."
Exar Kun's spirit flared, chains rattling against the temple walls. "We Sith have our own agendas," he said sharply. "Yours included, Naga Sadow. But what enrages me is this—" his voice rose, cutting, "—you speak as if you own the future."
The temple darkened. Then the light changed. Not a solar flare.. The sun outside the temple did not burn hotter—but it listened. A pressure pressed inward, ancient and absolute, as if the star itself had been reminded who once commanded it. Heat didn't rise. Gravity didn't scream. But every Sith in the chamber felt their place in the hierarchy made unmistakably clear.
Malgus stiffened. Exar Kun's fury froze mid-surge.
Naga Sadow stood unmoving at the center, eyes burning with restrained authority.
"As you can see," he said evenly, "I am also pressed by the current situation." His gaze cut to Exar Kun. "We are not desperate. But adaptation is no longer optional."
The pressure eased—just enough.
"You," Sadow continued, voice precise, "will be vital to this conflict. As a weapon the Sith cannot afford to leave buried."
Malgus said nothing, anger coiled and contained. Exar Kun's presence throbbed with restrained fury, pride bruised but intact. They were leaders. Tyrants. Not errand boys.
Naga Sadow stayed on topic.
He turned to Malgus, voice level but sharp. "Malgus. When I pulled you out of that cryo pod—rotting in some nameless hole because you chose stasis over advancement—you must have secured a reserve force. Tell me you did."
Malgus' armor creaked as his posture locked. His respirator hissed once. He did not answer.
Sadow's patience thinned. "Don't play dumb with me," he snapped. "We need every asset we can muster if this plan is going to—"
"I DON'T HAVE ONE," Malgus shouted, the words slamming into the temple like a concussion.
The chamber went still.
Sadow stared at him. "What."
Malgus' voice dropped, bitter and raw. "After Shae pulled me out… I stopped thinking about armies. I realized something. If I couldn't defeat my enemies as I was, then why waste time rebuilding forces?" His jaw set. "I advanced myself instead. I cheated death. Again."
Sadow blinked once.
Then he pinched the bridge of his nose.
For the first time since reclaiming his body—since commanding stars and monsters and ghosts—Naga Sadow swore.
"FUCK," he said flatly. "We're going to die."
Malgus stood rigid, anger compressed into stillness. Exar Kun's presence churned, furious and insulted,. Sadow didn't look at them. His focus had already moved elsewhere.
He reached outward. Not toward the Force as the Sith of this era understood it—but beyond it. Past the lanes of stars, past gravity wells and legends. His will threaded through old paths that predated Republic maps and Jedi doctrine.
My lady, he sent, the thought sharp with urgency. We have a real problem now.
The transmission crossed the Maw.
Beyond it—far beyond—hung a world that should not exist.
In the depths of a shattered cave, Abeloth stirred.
Her condition was ruinous. The Shadow Monarch's work had not been gentle. Her body was fractured, containment fields torn, essence destabilized. Half her face was no longer hers—Flood infestation crawling across ruined flesh, biomass pulsing and twitching where divine form had once been whole. Tendrils withdrew and reformed with each breath, obeying a truce born of necessity.
The Gravemind lingered. Watching. Waiting. Their peace was thin. Temporary. Conditional.
Abeloth endured it because she had to.
She felt Sadow's call brush her awareness—and pain flared again, hot and immediate. Her fingers dug into stone as a growl tore from her throat. "Urrghhh…"
Abeloth eyes opened, wild and burning.
"I will find you," she hissed into the dark. "Shadow Monarch."
The cave answered her with movement.
Something vast uncoiled from the walls themselves. Biomass peeled away from stone, knitting into a serpentine mass of muscle, bone, and memory. Countless mouths formed and dissolved along its length as the Gravemind manifested, its presence heavy with rot and ancient knowing.
"Beloved Queen of the Stars," The Gravemind intoned, voices layered like choirs speaking through corpses, "your hatred rings hollow. You tremble beneath our bargain. You fear the shape of loss." Its many eyes fixed on her. "You have already misplaced your heart… and given it to the Shadow Monarch."
Abeloth snarled and clutched her chest.There was no heart there.
Only absence, hastily concealed beneath living layers of flora and untainted organic growth—green and gold matter resisting the Flood's touch. The wound pulsed, incomplete. Without it, her power could not fully manifest. And worse still, the infection along half her face crawled endlessly, never finished, never satisfied.
Pain twisted her expression. "If you relinquish your infestation of my face," she said sharply, "I can operate at full capacity. I will bring you both their heads—the Monarch of Transfiguration and the Shadow Monarch."
The Gravemind stilled.
Then it laughed. resonance—an idea of laughter echoing through dead synapses and borrowed throats.
"False promises rot before they bloom," it replied, tone suddenly cold. "We do not trade what sustains us for words soaked in desperation."
Its coils tightened around the cavern, shadows crawling.
"Do not chase the Shadow Monarch," the Gravemind continued, voices harmonizing in decay. "Do what you claimed you could do. Banish his lesser echoes. Strip his influence. Erase his soldiers from this galaxy."
A pause. Heavy. Deliberate.
"When that work is finished," it said, "we will honor our end."
Abeloth opened her mouth to argue— And stopped.
The Gravemind had already read her.
Thoughts peeled open like wet parchment. Fear. Rage. Calculation. The ache where her heart should have been. The hunger she despised because it reminded her of something else. Something newer. Something worse.
The Gravemind did not turn hostile. It turned interested.
Its bulk shifted, serpentine coils settling as countless mouths aligned, voices harmonizing into something almost gentle.
"Beloved Queen of the Stars," it murmured, rot-laced and reverent, "you need not bare yourself further. We have already tasted your intent. Negotiation is a luxury of equals. This is… collaboration."
The infestation along Abeloth's ruined face pulsed.
Information flooded in. Not words. Not images. A plan woven through infection, seeded directly into her cognition. Vectors. Timing. Pressure points. Names spoken in the language of extinction.
Abeloth screamed. Not in pain—though there was plenty—but in fury.
"You don't understand," she snapped, clawing at the stone. "The Shadow Monarch wields something beyond you and me. True magic. Not the imitation we were born into." Her voice shook. "What he was bestowed is not something you can infect. and something I can devour."
The Gravemind listened. Then it answered.
"You mistake scale for supremacy, . He carries a power older than this galaxy. It is not ours . But even gods require alignment."
Its mass leaned closer, shadows folding inward.
"Your puppet," the Gravemind continued, "the one who once commanded stars beneath the banners of the old Sith Empire—he now stands upon a convergence. A fulcrum and choice."
Abeloth's breath hitched.
"Naga Sadow," the Gravemind intoned, savoring the name. "He is balanced between eras. Between pride and necessity. extinction and adaptation."
Its many eyes fixed on her.
"If this is done correctly," it said, "we will be free. Free to act. Free to strike." The voices deepened, folding over one another. "Not at the echoes. Not at the lackeys. At the ruler of shadows himself."
Abeloth's laugh came out sharp and broken. "You forget something," she said, eyes burning. "There are two Monarchs running loose in this galaxy. The Shadow Monarch. And the Monarch of Transfiguration. Both unkillable. I doubt whatever rot-filled prophecy you're weaving can seal even one of them."
The Gravemind did not recoil. . It smiled.
"What you speak is true," it replied, confidence dripping from every syllable. "But only for the King of the Dead. The Shadow Monarch is continuity itself—death that cannot be denied, a throne that answers to nothing." Its tone shifted, almost indulgent. "He is not our opening."
Its mass shifted, tendrils dragging across stone and old ruin. "But the Queen of Transfiguration,"
Abeloth's expression tightened.
"She comes from a world where dead heroes are summoned to slaughter one another for meaning," the Gravemind intoned. " system built on lies dressed as miracles. And from that world came knowledge—stolen, observed, dissected."
The voices layered, citing a name like a curse. "The Enfant Terrible of the Clock Tower. Daybit."
"What I see through him," the Gravemind went on, "is that she is alive. Not a summoned echo. And a recorded spirit. . but she is not supposed to exist."
The infection along Abeloth's face pulsed, feeding her the implication.
"That contradiction," the Gravemind said , "is an opening."
Its presence leaned closer, inevitable. "As long as the Queen of Transfiguration commits herself to Yavin 4… as long as she fights there, anchors herself there… the rules she breaks will begin to matter."
The cavern seemed to breathe.
"And when rules begin to matter," the Gravemind concluded, "even Monarchs can be touched."