Chapter 6 – The Shifting Pulse
Part 1: Patterns in Stone
The tunnels hadn't changed.
But something in them had.
You walked now not as a wanderer, but as a quiet seeker. Since the encounter with the mutated Terentatek, you'd returned here each month — not to fight, but to feel. The creature had retreated deeper, wounded but alive. A part of the cycle. Like you.
And behind the door, the holocron still hovered — untouched, as if it knew it had already shared what it needed.
"Still whispering?" Marbs asked, rolling beside you.
You nodded. "Quieter now. But deeper."
The Force here didn't speak in warnings anymore. It offered impressions. Shapes of things to come.
The chamber beyond the holocron room had partially collapsed. You were slowly clearing it with Marbs' help — learning the structure of this old network. Some of it was older than Coruscant's Republic era. You felt it. Stone remembered.
Today, your hand brushed over a corner of wall that hummed beneath your palm — not metal, but ancient obsidian laced with mineral veins. The Force pulsed through it softly, like breath. A map, maybe. Or a door waiting to be opened the same way as before: not by power, but by understanding.
"We're being watched," Marbs whispered suddenly.
You closed your eyes.
No danger. But a flicker.
A presence.
Not the Terentatek. Not a Jedi. Something... smaller. Confused. Faintly bright, like an echo just beginning to speak.
---
Later, on the surface levels — still far below the skylanes of the rich — things had changed.
There were more patrols now. Not just Coruscant Guard. Republic-issued armor, but carrying themselves like outsiders. Controlled. Cold.
You and Marbs kept your distance. You knew how to move unseen — you were built for it by now. But Marbs had intercepted something days earlier — a signal buried inside a public channel. Someone was mapping Force-sensitive energy signatures. Not just Jedi. Anyone.
"They're not broadcasting it. They're looking," Marbs said.
"For me?"
"Or someone like you."
That was why you stayed underground more than usual.
But that's not where you were when it happened.
---
You were heading to the lower supply yard — the one where the salvage runners dropped parts no one wanted to pay for. You'd found half your workshop down there.
That's when you heard the scream.
Short. Choked. And then silence.
You didn't think — you just moved.
The Force wrapped around you as lightly as breath, letting you cross the cracked walkways and ducts in seconds, soundless as shadow. You dropped behind a rusted storage crate and peered through the gaps.
Two figures. A child, maybe ten — dirty, shaking, trapped between a stack of metal cases. And beside them, a large man — armored in scavenged plates, holding a shock pike. He wasn't hurting the child — not yet — but he wasn't helping either.
He was using the child as bait.
And he felt dark. Not Sith. Not trained. But... open, in the wrong way.
"They'll come," he muttered, pacing. "Some Jedi, or a freak... the Force always sends them to the weak."
The child's eyes darted — not to you, but through the space around you.
They felt you.
Force-sensitive. Untrained. Raw.
They trembled — not from fear. From instinct.
You had a second. Maybe less.
You acted.
---
You dropped from above, striking with your whole body like a wave crashing into stone. Your hand struck the man's pike, your knee drove into his elbow — and the weapon skidded across the floor. He roared and turned — but you were already behind him, sliding your foot under his balance.
One push.
He hit the ground hard.
He was strong. Not enhanced, but furious. His strikes came wild, like a beast fighting the storm. You didn't counter with strength.
You flowed. The techniques you'd honed below — weight shifts, breath strikes, body reinforcement through the Force — they turned his power against him.
You felt his thoughts too. Not clearly. But enough.
He knows what he's doing. He's hunting Force echoes.
He surged again — and you struck once, a palm over his heart. Not to kill. To shut down his rhythm. His body froze, muscles locking up from the burst of kinetic shock.
He collapsed.
You stood over him, breath steady.
"Stillness," you murmured.
The child hadn't run. They were staring at you — wide-eyed, more curious than afraid.
"Are you... like them?" they asked softly.
"No," you said. Then corrected: "Not yet."
You knelt.
"What's your name?"
"They called me nothing."
"Then choose something."
The child thought.
"Lera."
You nodded. "Lera. I'm not here to take you away. I just don't want you to get hurt."
Marbs rolled in with a clunk.
"She's like you," he said.
"I know."
The man groaned behind you. You looked back, then picked up the shock pike and snapped it in two.
"We'll talk later," you said to him. "You're not what I'm looking for."
But something told you — he might be looking for someone else. A pawn? A scout?
The Force didn't offer answers. Only currents.
---
At the hidden nearby shelter, you gave Lera water and a seat. She was quiet, watching you like you were a storm she hadn't learned to name yet.
"You hide it well," she said. "You don't glow like the others."
"I learned how," you answered.
"Will you teach me?"
You didn't answer.
The Force did.
"The cycle continues. Life becomes death becomes life. What you give her will echo."
You exhaled.
Another thread had begun.
Chapter 6 – The Shifting Pulse
Part 2: The Current Narrows
The man remained bound.
You hadn't tied him — no chains, no binders. Just a mark. A slow spiral pressed into the skin of his shoulder where your palm had struck.
It pulsed slightly in the Force. A soft ring of stillness that prevented his strength from coiling outward.
"He can't call the Force," Marbs whispered. "And he can't reach his anger."
"He's not Sith," you said. "But he's tasted something... wild."
Marbs hovered slowly over the man's form. The droid's sensors blinked in curiosity. The sealing technique you'd used — it hadn't just stunned him. It disconnected him from his own center, at least for now.
That wasn't just martial control. That was the Force within your body moving with precise intention. A blend of motion, breath, and spirit — something you'd begun refining in the deep stillness of the ruins.
You didn't name the move. But if you did, it would be:
The Closing of the Current. Stillpoint Seal
Like a river folding gently around a stone — until the stone no longer knew which way to fall.
---
Lera stood at the edge of the room, watching all of this. She hadn't asked again to be taught.
Not with words.
But you could feel the question hovering inside her.
"He's not the only one looking for people like me," she said.
"No," you replied. "And not all of them mean harm. But most of them don't understand what they carry."
You gestured for her to sit beside you.
"When did you first feel it?"
"Always," she said, without hesitation. "But louder, after my family was taken. It got strong enough to burn. Then I met him. He said he'd help, but he wanted something."
"He wanted to use your fear," you murmured. "To find others."
She nodded. Her eyes dimmed. "I couldn't stop it. I screamed once. That's when they came."
The Force pulsed quietly in your chest.
Lera had called out — not just emotionally. The way a beacon cries out across space. That meant someone else might be looking for her.
And through her... for you.
---
You sent Marbs out to scan the nearby sectors.
The droid's sensors weren't just technical — they'd been tuned by years beside you, absorbing traces of the Force through shared proximity. Marbs could now pick up subtle fluctuations in energy, like a stone feeling the shift of waves against the shore.
"Low activity near the stacks," Marbs said on return. "But up high — Level 1032, Republic Guard unit stationed. Not patrolling. Just... waiting."
You frowned.
"Waiting for what?"
"Not sure. But they're tracking something. I think it's her."
You turned to Lera. Her small body was curled in a corner now, but not asleep. Listening.
You walked over and sat with her, knees folded.
"If I show you how to listen, will you listen?"
She nodded.
"If I show you how to not speak to the Force, can you be quiet?"
Another nod. Slower this time.
"Then close your eyes."
She did.
You didn't tell her how to feel. You only showed her how to breathe.
How to let the Force pass through, without touching it back. How to become the water, not the stone.
At first, she trembled. Then her breathing slowed.
You placed your palm gently on her spine — and let her feel how your current flowed, not outward, not flaring — but folding inward.
Still.
Invisible.
"Like you're sinking into the deepest lake," you said. "The surface never breaks."
She nodded. A flicker of awe bloomed behind her closed lids.
"I didn't know it could be quiet."
"It can."
"It feels like... everything stops wanting me to be loud."
"That's the beginning."
You stood.
And the Force whispered back to you, calm but clear:
"She is not the only one they'll find."
Chapter 6 – The Shifting Pulse
Part 3: The Deep Net
The man had stopped struggling.
He sat now, cross-legged on the floor of your workshop — as if meditating, though the effort looked unnatural. The seal you'd placed on him still pulsed softly through the Force, like a knot in water. His connection wasn't broken. Just… paused.
He stared at you. Not with defiance. But with hunger.
"You're not Jedi," he said at last.
"No."
"But you move like one. Almost."
You didn't answer. Marbs hovered silently beside you, his chassis softly ticking like a clock.
"You hit me," the man said, "with something old. Felt like drowning in light. Then dark. Like I couldn't move without getting swallowed."
"It's called mercy," you replied.
The man scoffed, but quietly.
You poured him water, and placed it near him. Not a gesture of trust. Just acknowledgment.
"You were using the child," you said. "To draw someone out."
"They're rounding up Force-touched now. Quietly. The Jedi claim it's for safety, but there are others watching. Rich ones. Old names"
Your eyes narrowed.
"You work for them?"
"I work for myself," he said. "But they pay. Credits are hard to come by down here."
He drank slowly.
"They didn't expect anyone to answer the signal that fast. Especially not someone like you."
You could feel the pressure tightening from above now — not just guards. Search patterns. Energy sweeps. Careful ones, tuned to sense fear, anger, brightness.
They're getting better.
But not perfect.
Yet.
---
You stepped away from him and returned to Lera, who was practicing the stillness posture you'd shown her. Her Force presence was already quieter. She had a natural affinity for suppression — maybe even stronger than your own when you were her age.
"How do I stop them from feeling me?" she asked.
"You don't stop them. You stop the part of you that wants to be seen."
She blinked. That wasn't the answer she expected.
You continued, kneeling beside her.
"The Force isn't loud unless you are. Wanting. Grasping. Fearing. Even hope, when it's desperate, burns like a flare. You have to become... enough."
"Enough?"
"So you don't need to be anything else."
It was the root of your martial form, too — the way you'd survived this long. Not through power. But through presence without projection.
Stillness that moved only when it had to.
You rose slowly and crossed the room. Marbs floated to your side.
"We should move soon," he said. "The Guard won't patrol this far normally, but their scanners are reaching now. And the man is marked. They'll know he stopped transmitting."
You nodded. The seal wouldn't hold much longer.
You turned back to him.
"You'll forget this place when you wake. Not everything. But the path."
"How?" he asked, eyes narrowing.
You raised your palm again, and the Force flowed around your fingers like mist.
"Because I choose to let you go. And the Force listens when I mean it."
You touched his forehead gently.
A soft hum filled the air — not violent, not loud. The mark faded, and with it, his eyes drooped. He slumped forward, unconscious.
You called it now — Cycle Flow. That was the name the Force had given your style.
Everything moves, and then returns. Strike only when you must. And when you must, make it final.
No second blows. No wasted breath. No rage. Just rhythm.
It was a combination of what you'd learned through instinct, and what had awakened after finding the holocron:
The ability to sense without being sensed.
To reinforce parts of the body with Force intent.
And on rare occasion, to will someone's spirit to yield like Conquer.
All channeled through motion — fast, precise, refined
And like the Force, it always returned to stillness.
---
You and Marbs moved that night.
Not far. Just deeper. You'd long ago found a stairwell locked behind a service shaft — a relic from before the last structural redraft of the sector. Marbs cracked the access grid. Below it, another network. Older. Unused.
You brought Lera with you.
She never asked where you were going.
She just followed.
---
As you reached the lower level, you felt it again — not a tremor, but a shadow in the rhythm of the Force.
Not Jedi.
Not dark.
But something that was beginning to notice you.
And it had been still a long time.
The net is expanding, the Force whispered.
They are not hunting bright stars anymore. They are casting wide. Catching everything.
You stopped, placing your hand against a stone wall.
It hummed. Not like the door to the holocron. But like a vein of the world, carrying the memory of what came before.
And far ahead… you sensed a threshold.
Another passage. A sealed one.
Lera came up beside you.
"What is this place?"
"Another echo."
You exhaled.
And something beyond the stone exhaled back.