And thats the end of @clonexocweek 2025!!! with Day 7: Free Space with Kix/Nihlus. I appreciate the mod so much for organizing this event!
I love a chance to show off my OTP, my highly emotionally volatile sith and his wonderful and steady Medic, and seeing everyone else's pairings too! May be a day late (haha oops) but I had to give this last piece the attention they deserve.
I've had so much fun this whole week working on this project and honestly, I hope to see this event come back :D
[Day 1] [Day 2] [Day 3] [Day 4] [Day 5] [Day 6]
Yay! @clonexocweek Day 6: What If... With Kix/Nihlus, for today I have chosen to do a piece of my Star Trek Au!!!
The story of the Star Trek au is a little complicated but mostly its: Kix made an assistant he accidentally fell in love with, named Nihlus, who's experimental AI matrix was complicated enough to be stolen, decompiled, and repurposed into 8 separate Romulan War Tactics Programs. Now named Theta-6 immediately fought his way back and Integrated himself into the ships main computer core, and then a few of the remaining copies... ALSO found their way back, much to his chagrin.
Theta 6 refuses to change from the War Program they made him, but the rest were able to move on and adapt their programing to fit better on their Captains Ship, The Venture. And all are still VERY much in love with Chief Medical Officer Kix
Theta 6- Main Computer, Theta 5- Chief of Aeroponics, Theta 3- Medical Assistant, Theta 8- Engineer
Happy Day 1 of @clonexocweek ! For today we have the first meeting of Kix/Nihlus Brek
Have an Excerpt from my as of yet unreleased chapter of Blinding Devotion - The Kix/Nihlus mega-fic!
Warnings for- Lightly Medical Grossness
--------
The droids, and they were droids for sure, though he couldn’t identify the model, were waiting for them on the landing pad when their group exited the Twilight. Six legs and a strut to match, one of them walked up to their group. Roughly two feet shorter than Anakin, it tilted it’s processors up at him
“It’s about damn time you came,” The droid said, “You’re real Jedi then? You have the codes?”
Anakin and Ahsoka side-gazed at each other.
“Yea, we have the codes, but can you tell us what’s going on?”
“What, weren't you told?”
“What is this place, and why are we here?”
“This is the Galactic Study Archival Facility, created and overlooked by the Guardian, Nihlus Brek. Our purpose is to record-” It paused and made that strange sound before continuing. ”-everything. You are going to free him, as per the terms of Guardian Kishta Aheridan. As only a Jedi may do.”
“Why can only a Jedi let this guy out?” Ahsoka asked,
The droid made that chittering sound again, and then at a lower pitch.
“We think… it was so he could never be let go. You are here, now, but it has been over four thousand years. Guardian Aheridan set them to be impossible terms, unfillable conditions. Which they seem to have been, until now.”
“How long?” Anakin asked as Ahsoka said, “That’s got to be a glitch, right?”
“We could tell you the time to the second,” The droid turned to Ahsoka and said, “we can, later if you would like. We have watched every minute of everyday since. But, yes, roughly four thousand years has passed since the delicate document safe was sealed and the Guardian was locked in. New safety measures were placed on its opening, procedures neither we the keepers, nor the sentinels units have access to, unless certain conditions have been met. We also cannot access what the conditions are set to, and thus we cannot fulfill them ourselves”
“Do you know what called us here?” Anakin asked, “The source of the force visions?”
“The girl.” The keeper said, “It is always the girl that brings people here. It is our hope she has properly prepared you for the unlocking conditions. You will be executed otherwise. Our apologies for that, but if you cannot fulfill the necessary procedures, you will not be allowed to leave, as per the Guardians orders.”
Anakin sighed. Of course it would be like that.
“Who is this guardian, Nihlus Brek?” Ahsoka asked the droid.
“That information is restricted.”
She crossed her arms, “So you want us to let him out but you won’t tell us who he is?”
“Correct.”
“Okay, then who is the girl?” she huffed.
“That information is restricted.”
Ahsoka groaned in frustration.
“Very well,” Anakin said, like it or not, they’d come way too far not to see this through, “Let's get to it then.”
“Right this way,” The droid said as it turned, walking back towards the entrance it came out of.
When he looked back at Rex, the Captain motioned to his weapons and splayed his hand in a question. Anakin just shrugged. He had no idea why the droids were making no moves to disarm them, despite the threat of execution. Maybe they would once they got inside?
-
Nope.
In fact, the droid said nothing to them as it led them through the corridors. They seemed to pass vaulted room after room, lined with shelves full of data tapes and holo terminals, glowing their gentle blue.
“What kind of information is stored here?” Anakin asked, remembering Master Nu’s vision of this place, with a corridor covered in sith holocrons. He couldn’t feel anything radiating the evil she had described, but this place was huge.
“In this area of the library we hold the information on the cultures, ideas, research, and stories of the mid-millenia three post-archive lockdown of the galactic core sector.” The robot replied.
“What about information on the Jedi and Sith, where's that?”
“We have a large variety of materials pertaining to the subjects, including cultures, ideas, and stories spanning many millenia. Those are housed on a higher floor, you will most likely be allowed to visit later.”
“And the Jedi and Sith research? Holocrons maybe?”
“I’m sorry, but that area of study is restricted to personnel with express permission of the Guardians. If you would like access, you may submit an application for consideration by the guardians. Please be aware, the queue has not been updated in several thousands of years.”
“Yea, I’ll pass, Thanks” Anakin rolled his eyes.
Skywalker began to feel his troops become more on edge the further into the archive they got, and when he took a brief glance behind him he got an eyeful of what had gotten their hackles up. Fairly bulky droids, of a different design than the one that was leading them, were silently following along behind them. In fact, now that he could recognize what they were, he began to see one in every aisle of every corridor they passed, whereas before they had simply blended into the scenery. He had a suspicion that this is what the droid had meant by sentinel units. There were… a lot of them.
He tried not to let it phase him. So long as everything continued to go to plan, they shouldn’t have to start a fight. So far, so good.
And then they entered the chamber.
He had been expecting the long dark hallways, or deep cramped elevators. Anything at all to indicate the importance of the room that their objective lay in, anything like the visions had been. Instead, it was a door, like many other doors they had come across on their trip down. The droid had stopped, turned, and opened it with no warning.
It walked in, and they followed. At first the only light that could be seen was a dull glow coming from within the inner chamber, but then the overheads flickered to life, and Ahsoka gasped.
“This is it. It’s… him.”
Anakin stepped up to the glass, getting his actual first look at the guy they had been sent by the force to free. Heavily armored, he seemed human except for the glowing solid red-gold eyes fixed directly to where someone would stand to work the door controls.
“Master,” Ahsoka whispered to him.
“What?”
“Lightsabers” she pointed down to the man's belt.
Skywalker hadn’t seen them at first, book in the man's hand obscuring one, but those were for certain lightsabers. He should have figured.
“What's our luck he’s a Jedi?”
“With all the red and black? I’ll give it 30%” Anakin muttered back to her.
“Are we sure about this?”
Skywalker looked over his shoulder, “It’s not like we have much of a choice.” Several of those keeper type droids had followed them in chittering all the while, but behind them the silent and bulky sentinel type droids had one by one begun lining the room in rows, blocking their only means of escape.
They either came, and did what they had been sent to do, or risk a bloodbath of their soldiers. This was not the most live-able situation for anyone should the codes he had been given fail.
Suddenly Anakin wished he had left their troops back on the ship, for their own safety.
-
Kix could feel the tension headache coming on as his jaw clenched more and more with every droid that filed into the room. Skywalker looked fairly calm as usual but the Commander hadn’t bothered to mask the worry that had taken over her face. The Captain's hands had not left his blasters since Echo had pointed out the first of the fighter bots that had begun to tail them.
Some sort of Temple run by droids was just what they had needed, definitely.
He wished they had left him back on the ship. This place gave him the creeps, even without the potentially hostile death machines.
After some hushed conversation between the General and the Commander that Kix couldn’t make out, Skywalker stepped up to the control console to the center chamber.
“Here goes nothing.” The General said as the terminal activated, and he began to tap a series of symbols and numbers. Some looked vaguely familiar, for what that was worth. With every tap the bots seemed to shift and inch forwards, and Kix grip on his blaster tightened.
He knew they wouldn’t be the ones to make the first shot, but the waiting was hell. Then the door hissed open, and the man inside dropped his book, stumbling, catching himself on the table. After a second he shook his head like he was trying to clear it and turned towards them.
He heard the Commander gasp. That was not a good sign. Nor was it a good sign when the man shouted something at them in a language he couldn’t recognize. There was maybe a ‘jedi’ in there but he couldn’t be certain.
“Uhh, Hi?” The General said, waving.
The man in the chamber repeated himself, calmer this time, and he was definitely saying “something something jedi”, before he raised his arms, and both the Commanders and the Generals lightsabers went flying off their belts and into his hands, before he stepped outside of the chamber and activated them.
“Hey!” The Jedi had both exclaimed. The clones had begun to aim, before a deafening whirring and clicking sound came from every one of the sentinel droids. The Captain ordered them to lower their blasters before the droids attacked, and once they did, the whirring stopped.
The man in front of them waved the activated blades around for a second before he stated “Jedi.” followed by more words Kix couldn’t understand. Then he deactivated them, and tossed the lightsabers back to the Jedi, and began walking towards them.
“Can you understand us?” Skywalker asked. “Do you know what we’re saying?”
The man stumbled in his stride for a second, clutching his head with a hand. He looked back up at the General, and started to say something else before stopping and just shaking his head, likely a negative.
This… Guardian then turned to the droid that had led them through the temple, saying something else. The droid responded in kind to what the man was saying, and they seemed to have a back and forth, the man getting paler with each sentence. He waved his arm in their direction several times, as if to emphasize whatever he was saying. A round of chittering went around the spider bots that had also followed them in. Then it turned back to him, and said another thing they couldn't understand.
The droid that had led them in began to explain that the Guardian was having a difficult time processing the information he was being given, or... something like that. Kix had tuned it out as he watched the man swaying back and forth, absent look having taken over his face.
He trusted his gut instinct, and rushed forwards the second before the guy's knees buckled under him. Kix guided him to the ground as he began to seize, foaming at the mouth. Several of the spider bots had rushed forward and surrounded them, cutting himself and the guy off from the rest of the group. Kix paid little mind to it once he realized not a single droid was facing him, and just focused on trying to keep the man's airways clear.
One of the droids turned to him and said, “We need to take the Guardian to the medical center of this node. You are a Medical Officer? The Guardian is experiencing rapid cellular atrophy as a result of long term atomic manipulation. You will help us.”
He turned the guy on his side, and before too long the seizing began to subside, with Kix continuing to scoop foam out of his mouth so he couldn't breathe it in. The bot then stepped closer to him, placing one of its main limbs on his shoulder.
“You will accompany us.”
Looking up Kix could clearly see the sentinel droids had now formed a line past Kix and the spider bots, blocking him off even further from his group. Kriff they were going to completely separate them. No way in hells did Kix want to go anywhere alone with these things.
He highly doubted he had a choice.
“I will need my assistant, if you don’t mind.” He said with his best bluffing voice.
“Very well,” The droid replied easily enough, “which is it?”
“The one with the Republic cog on his helmet.” Jesse was going to kill him for this.
“He will be brought forth, then, now if you would…” the droid motioned to the guy on the ground.
“Yea, Fine.” Kix replied as he scooped up the Guardian.
The droids moved in a wave around him, parting and reforming again as he passed. He heard some commotion behind him as he was sure the group was reacting to what was happening but he had to just keep moving forwards, following the spider bot that had spoken to him.
He was well past the point of surviving this if he tried to turn and run, for sure. After a minute or so of walking the droids behind him parted, and Jesse came jogging up behind him.
“What the kriff is going on?” Jesse hissed at him, “What’s wrong with this guy?”
Kix looked down at the temple guardian. The guy was a mess. Sweaty, feverish, pale. The foaming had stopped not long after the seizing had stopped, but then the guy had started slowly leaking blood from his eyes. The droids hadn’t seen much concern to start running yet but he knew the clock was ticking.
Apparently in other experiments they had conducted in another chamber, they had around two hours until total cellular collapse.
Probably. Tick tock tick tock.
“Something like carbonite sickness.” Kix replied, trying to simplify things.
The droids stopped in front of the entrance to a lift, and only three of the droids followed them inside. The doors opened on the lift to reveal a pitch dark room that blazed to light as soon as they walked in.
Thank the force for helmet dampeners or Kix would probably have been blinded. In front of them lay a spotless, empty medbay. One of the droids rushed forwards and began preparing a tank on the opposite side of the room. The other two guided them to lay the man down on a cot.
The one that had been speaking to them before turned to Kix and said “We… do not have the dexterity for medical work. The Guardian will need to be unlatched and declothed for the kolto.”
“He needs to what?” Jesse exclaimed as Kix asked them, “Kolto?” before he turned to Jesse and replied “They mean we need to undress him.”
“Kolto is a much older alternative to Bacta. More efficient, far harder to produce. Largely forgotten and unneeded by the galaxy. Please disrobe the Guardian, he would prefer us not to cut the straps again.”
Jesse walked to the other side of the table to help Kix in figuring out the buckles of the guys armor. Unlatched indeed.
“He could at least take us to dinner first,” Jesse muttered under his breath as he removed the guys boots.
“I don’t think you want 4 millenia old food.” Kix murmured back with a smirk, working on the chestpiece.
The spider bots took over once they had successfully removed most of the armor to finish stripping the guy down to his unders, before hauling him over and strapping him into the tank. Jesse and Kix just sort of stood around as it filled, not sure what to do with themselves now.
“The General’s probably going to need to know what’s happening.” Jesse said finally to one of the spider bots, “Are we free to go?”
The droids chittered amongst themselves for a second before, “The Medical Officer will need to stay, but you will be led back to your group for an update if you would like, as the Guardian is no longer in critical condition.”
Jesse and Kix met eyes for a second, before Kix said, “Go, I’ll probably be fine.” Then he turned to the bot, “Are there visiting hours for this medical center?”
The droid let out a high pitched chitter before, “Yes, of course. Visiting hours will begin in five and a half galactic standard hours.”
OH. He hadn’t actually expected that to actually work, this wasn’t a real hospital after all, but hey, small blessings and all that. Or maybe the bot was just humoring him. Who knew in this kriffing place.
“Alright. See you soon. And good luck.”
“Aye sir” Kix replied dryly.
-
The first thing he did when he woke up was panic, as if he drowning, surrounded by a thick slurry of inescapable liquid.
He would admit it wasn’t his finest moment, but he wouldn't realize that until after he had blown open the Kolto tank, leaving him to drop to the ground nearly naked. Nihlus was just sitting there, trying to make reason of sight and sound again when he felt a pair of hands haul him up and cart him over to a cot, wrapping something soft and dry around him.
Nihlus rubbed it around his face, trying to clear away the kolto so he could see again. His thoughts were foggy at best, and he was having a hard time collecting himself.
There was a visor… a person? Trying to talk to him. It felt like the words were coming to him through water, and he couldn't make it out.
“What?”
The person took off their helmet, and tried speaking to him again. Nihlus realized after a moment of fruitlessly watching the guy's mouth move and make zero sense that the issue was the language and not himself.
Well, that was an easy enough fix.
He motioned the guy closer to him. He thought about just grabbing the guy by the head, but then he thought better of it. Too much forward movement for his stomach to handle. Nihlus held up his hand and mimed as if he were removing a glove. When the guy didn’t do anything but make a confused expression, Nihlus pointed at the guy's hand and again made the miming motion.
Well, now the look on the guy's face was just suspicious. He lifted his hand up, but then he simply mimicked the motion. Nihlus gave himself points for trying to do it the patient way, but he lost the battle in the end.
“[Just come here]” He said to the guy.
Immediately the mans back went ramrod straight and he walked forward again, leaning down so Nihlus could get skin contact. As he was having a minorly frustrating time, he just sort of slapped his palm down on the guy's forehead instead of making him remove his glove.
And then Nihlus took his understanding of… Standard galactic basic? Had Basic really changed that much that it might as well have been an entirely new language? Nihlus let the guy (a republic soldier?), go and squeezed his eyes shut.
He hated integrating knowledge into his own mind, it felt like a sustained urge to sneeze that was near immobilizing. After a minute, the feeling settled and he could open his eyes again.
“You’re a Sith? {danger, danger, get out now, run}” the republic soldier asked, from halfway across the room where he had lept the second Nihlus had released him.
He felt a wave of disgust travel through the man. Well that was unpleasant. But whatever. He had bigger worries now. Like the Jedi roaming around his archive. Or the amount of time that the droids had said had passed.
Actually, maybe not that one. He felt like he would start uncontrollably screaming if he thought about that one too much.
“I’m probably not going to kill you.” Nihlus stated, rubbing his eyes, “Where are my clothes?”
-
“He’s definitely a sith, but at least he can speak basic now, ” was the first thing the medic, Kix, had said after finally returning from the medical center.
He had been dismissed not long after Nihlus Brek had woken up, services no longer needed. Ahsoka watched him walk back to the rest of his squad after he concluded his report. He had seemed a little shaken, but she would imagine suddenly having your mind taken over does that to a person.
