Private The Sorceress of Ossus

[Magdalena Bloodscrawl]

Wearing: Ritual Gown

Armed With: The Force.

Objective: Hatchet burying


Aboard: Ancient Haven



The Lambda Class Shuttle docked after requesting permission. The old Haven station had been located just slightly outside the edge of Alliance territory, in an uncharted system. She had shown it to him once, after converting him. He didn't even know if what he would find would be an abandoned wreck once he reached it. But to his surprise, there it was, fully functional.

Nathan Bloodscrawl had sat in the shuttle, hyperventilating, wondering if this was a really wise idea.

His hands trembling, he steadied himself, straightened the tie of his black business suit and composed himself before venturing out of the shuttle, viewing the temple like atmosphere with it's ancient tapestries in the hangar bay depicting the Blood Lotus with the symbol of Ashla at the center on them.

Nathan gave no reaction as the blue robed anchorites approached.

"A peaceful greeting to you, weary traveler..." one of the female anchorites said, her hood covering her face. "Have you come to cure or heal yourself of something? We have quite a number of skilled healers, all personally tutored by The Lady."

"I'm here for neither." Nathan Bloodscrawl answered curtly. "I ask to speak with The Lady herself."

The Anchorite tilted her head in curiosity.

"May I ask why?"

"I was one of her Deputies."

Both anchorites stepped back.

"Was?!" she said in a very quiet, shocked voice. "How...how did you undo the alterations?"

Nathan Bloodscrawl was still as a statue as his mind flashed to thoughts of his beloved Lysandra.

"My will to be free was greater than her magic."

"Yet here you return. Why? Is it for revenge?"

"Whatever wrongs your Lady has done to me, whatever grudges I may yet harbor because of them, she never forced me into that pit of blood and dirt. I chose to walk in on my own. Anything unresolved between me and her at this point is of such low issue as to be best left in the past. I am here to talk futures. In any case, I would not willingly violate the life debt."

The Anchorite processed his words.

"Please wait here a few minutes." she said, departing quickly to use a com link in private.

Nathan remained still as the minutes passed before the Anchorite returned.

"The Lady will permit an audience...please follow me..."

Nathan followed the Anchorite through tranquil passages filled with custom rows of plants in small terrariums lining them, passing by open chambers where other Anchorites meditated. They entered a Turbolift and began to go up.

"If I may ask..." The Anchorite said as they went up. "When were you recruited--"

"It was before your time." he answered as the lift opened into a large, temple like chamber. He spotted two human deputies, each in black biker gear, eyes a sightless milky white, lower faces covered by a blue bandana. Teenage Padawans rescued from the brink of death by emergency blood rituals. Their former identities never resurfaced. Each carried the lightsaber they had been found with, however, or supplied one by the one who altered them.

Nathan came to a full stop as the Deputies rose from their knees slowly and mechanically, movements of the head slow but unnaturally smooth as they observed him at a distance before standing to the side and letting him and the Anchorite pass.

Nathan walked across shiny bronze floors and the Anchorite went ahead of him slightly and pushed open the doors to a Utilitarian chamber that had a simple desk and chair, in front of a great transparisteel observation port that showed a star in the distance

"Mistress? The visitor has arrived."

"Of course, thank you..." came the accented voice sitting in the chair at the desk, it's back turned to them.

The Anchorite bowed and left, closing the doors behind them.

Nathan finally stopped hiding his presence in the Force.

The seat slowly swiveled around and Nathan's blood chilled slightly as he beheld the blond woman in the deep blue gown, smiling warmly.

He remembered her face. How he had only wanted to make the best of his situation at first after being altered. His name stripped. His memories dimmed. His desires to do anything but the Force's will gone...only a church militant had left the burning ruins of Castle Bloodscrawl, not a the scared teen who had been out of time.

He had eventually forced himself to break free of her vision. Of his status as her most favorite conversion. The Lady's Deputy In Chains, called from wherever he was, whoever he was helping, to obey a command.

Being altered did not mean he was unable to suffer. That being said, the Sorceress of Ossus had gone out of her way to avoid abusing her authority. He had never been given a task beyond his abilities. Just ones difficult enough to push him to his limits while putting him at extreme risk.

But eventually, for all her admittedly equally extreme caution to avoid giving him cause to hate her while in her service, they had eventually been forced to opposite ends of the battlefield...

"Why, Nathan Bloodscrawl. I haven't seen you since the fall of your family's castle. How wonderful to see you alive and in good health."

There it was, in a nutshell. Cool as a cucumber.

"You look well." he noted.

"Thank you, Nathan." The Sorceress said pleasantly. "Please, won't you have a seat? We have so much to catch up on..."

Nathan took a seat.

"I sense Pain. Confusion. And mixed in all that is Hope..." she noted, eyes closing a moment, before her mouth deepened into a frown.

"Oh dear..." she said, opening her eyes. "I...I sense something terrible in you... something festering..."

"That part is strictly my problem." he said firmly.

The Sorceress raised an eyebrow.

"If that was true, you would not be seeking me out." she replied. "Your problems are significant enough you have returned to the one you once fought tooth and nail to be free of."

Nathan's eye twitched.

"The situation has changed. I am at war with the Sith, and am assembling an army to fight them."

The Sorceress sat back, her suspicions about his kind of army rising.

"It pleases me to no end you have returned to holy work..." she said. "Word has traveled of the Sith presence in the core. But what army could you have assembled on your own?"

"It wasn't exactly on my own. I am reforming House Bloodscrawl. My efforts see to the treatment and safety of thousands of refugees, on a Jedi world. I have come here because I have a proposal."

"I'm listening..." The Sorceress said.

"I have a military and logistical apparatus in place. What I lack is a Religious framework to produce desirable behavior in a population..." Nathan answered bluntly. "Something Jedi aligned, but not so strictly it will bend just because some Council Master tells it to."

"And you feel that I possess such a framework. I am flattered. And what would my official position be called, were I to accept?" she asked.

"High Abbess of Kytrand...and..." Nathan hesitated a moment as he watched shock and surprise spread on her face.

"What is it?" he asked.

"You found the lost world of Kytrand?" she said in a whisper. "Oh, my, Nathan! You've accomplished so much. And such is the irony you would tell me of all people, this!"

"Why is that an irony?" Nathan asked.

The Sorceress leaned forward, fingers clasping together.

"Nathan, did you never wonder why I was imprisoned in the Undercrypt of your family's Castle?" The Sorceress of Ossus asked.

Nathan shrugged. "I admit...the question entered my head on occasion. But people living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. So I never asked. And since it turns out you know about Kytrand...how come you never tried to get the secret from me?"

"Because by the time you found me, I had been in that crypt for so long that all desire to find Kytrand had left me. And besides, I had to discover the fate of my enclaves. There was so much suffering to attend to that it ended up occupying large amounts of my time, in between guiding you towards problem spots."

Nathan stared at her a long moment.

"I might not have found the strength to defeat your magic had you not asked for the one thing I could not give you."

The Sorceress sighed.

"Ah yes. Elaine Tear." She sighed. "Both of us would have been served well with the absorption of that one. Your family would have been avenged, her power, talent, and face slowly repurposed to something less bloody, giving me an in into Ession's society. I should have guessed your need for a more visceral form of closure would be at odds with that, no matter how converted you were."

Nathan did not react to the casualness of her statement, as though mutating him with the Force into an agent of her will was simply business. It was a reminder that no matter how pleasant one of her kind was, their viewpoints were truly alien in certain ways. In her mind, the greater good was being served.

For a split second he reconsidered his decision. But things had gotten so dangerous she would be the least of his problems.

What would be needed to keep all those teeming thousands cohesive was a singular vision, the forging of which was simply beyond him. Or anyone currently on his side.

It wasn't beyond her, however.

"So, why did you want to find Kytrand?" he asked.

"Oh, I suspect it was for the same reason you found it." She replied "I wanted to use the gigantic Clone Army hidden there. The Bloodscrawls disagreed."

"So you came to blows."

"I didn't kill anyone..." she emphasized. "I want that on the record. I even went out of my way to avoid injury to them. Unfortunately my tactical acumen was not as developed as my inclination to mercy..."

Nathan blinked.

"Ok. Start again. From the top..." he requested...

"Leave absolutely nothing out..."

 

[Magdalena Bloodscrawl]

"Starting from the top is a very hefty request, Nathan..." The Sorceress replied with a sigh. "But I will indulge your curiosity... provided you indulge me one thing in turn..."

"And what would that be?"

"A little distance. I would like you to permit me to tell you as someone who has missed you dearly."

Nathan stared.

Upon his conversion at her hands, he had gradually started to realize she had taken an above average interest in him personally, using his presence to explore the concept of Motherhood and family for the first time in her twisted existence. She had gone above and beyond by even her own standards, specifically creating a personality and form to indulge that need, even going so far as to create an additional Aunt and even a Grandmother persona for use around him specifically. Even as a Deputy, he had found it utterly bizarre. He would sometimes answer her telepathic call expecting an assignment, only to find himself spending up to a solid week in a sort of "Pantomime" state where she would strangely do her best to act like Family, even though there were clear gaps in her knowledge on the finer details to a boy who barely had the mental will to still utter a few short sentences, and barely remembered what the feeling of having a family was like. Such things had become almost beyond his ability to comprehend after being converted. He had done his best to go along with it, but he had never truly gotten used to it.

Now he found himself indulging her again...

"Alright, Sorceress. As you wish..."

The Sorceress concentrated, and her flesh bubbled and shuddered violently everywhere, as her hair retracted and curled, changing color as her mind and form vanished into that of a much more elderly, tanned skinned woman with Brunette Hair.

Magda Crownwraithe opened her eyes and smiled lovingly at Nathan.

"Oh, my Son!" she gasped in open joy. "It's a miracle! You're alive!"

"Hello...Mother..." he replied, indulging her with a severe amount of unease.

Magda rose in place of the Sorceress, gown clinging to her as snugly as it did in the other form.

"I have missed you so. Blondie has so little cause to pull me out these days. Just collecting dust in her subconscious, right along your aunt and grandmother!" Magda said as she went to prepare some tea.

"Absolutely dreadful..." she muttered. "But just seeing you has really brightened my day..."

The tea was soon prepared, and Magda set down a cup for them both.

"Now... Blondie seems to think the story will sound better if it comes from me...to be honest I'm not sure, sweetie, so I'll let you be the judge..."

"Does it bother you at all that the only reason you exist is because The Sorceress wants you to? That the only reason your thoughts can form at all is because she has retreated into her own subconscious in order to properly will them to form?"

Magda shrugged. "It doesn't. Though I am fully willing to concede that the reason it doesn't bother me is because she doesn't give me the capacity to be bothered by it. In any case, I am what I am, until I am her again, and I can't help what I am."

She then smiled. "But just because I only temporarily exist doesn't mean I don't love you as much as someone who fully exists. Now, about Blondie's imprisonment--"

Magda leaned back in her seat.

"The Sorceress of Ossus has been around for Millennia. To recount her whole history would take more hours than a single afternoon could offer. So I will start with the exact moment she found out about Kytrand..."



Ten years before the onset of the Gulag Era.


Nar Shaddaa...

The Sorceress of Ossus had been in the depths of this criminal hive for over a decade, tending to the souls of the downtrodden. The church she had constructed to promote worship of the Force had been made in the skeleton of an old factory long abandoned by the authorities in the lower levels. She had gathered the poor and the homeless at first, and had inspired them to help renovate the old facility into a means of treating the sick and injured in addition to administering to them spiritually. She would speak from the pulpit, telling them that the Force was Balance, and that by trusting in it, they would be a part to deciding the nature of the universe itself. Such rhetoric was of course very tempting to consume in the relentless criminal hellscape the Exchange, Black Sun, and the Hutts had made it into. She had found many listeners.

The Sorceress stood on the Pulpit, wreathed in her blue, shimmering gown of armor weave.

"Today, my congregants, I would like to touch on a notion of forgiveness that the Light Side encorages." she spoke firmly, with authority, yet using her matronly smile and relaxed posture to command the attention of the devout crowd who hanged on every word uttered by the old, wrinkled blond woman with tanned skin and and a round, carved face.

"It is easy to hate the people who keep this world in the grip of near lawlessness..." she started, raising her voice just enough to carry without sounding harsh.

"But we must remember that they were once innocent too, and all that separates them from us is refusal to adhere to the will of the Force--"

She heard loud obnoxious clapping in the back. She refused to even be annoyed.

"It seems one amongst you would offer their critique. Please, step forward. I will not silence critics."

The surly man who had been wearing one of her acolytes blue robes stood up, threw it off immediately, revealing he was holding a shotgun.

"Ohhh, we"re disobeying the Will of the Force by making these people pay their dues on our turf, eh? Last I recall, we were here first."

"And the Force was here before you..." The Sorceress corrected. "So where is your claim now? What do you or your master gain by taking from these people what is surely a pittance, not even worth the trouble of coming here to begin with?"

"it's the principal of the thing, see." he said, hefting his shotgun.

"You're in Rofolin the Hutt's territory. If you're gonna be in his territory, preaching this nonsense, you pay the toll like anybody else. You ain't special. Nobody here is. By our side's estimate, you're all two months late. Our boss is a patient sort, but you're straining him to the limits of his ability to be so. So he sent me to give you a friendly warning. You get exactly 'one'. Pay twelve thousand credits in two days when I come back here, or I'm going to leave immediately, then return, and I'm gonna have a whole bunch of mercenaries with flame throwers. MANDALORIAN mercenaries with flamethrowers. And then we turn this whack job clubhouse into a cigarette tray."

Everyone was silent. The thug shrugged.

"Hey, I don't make the rules!" he exclaimed in a friendly tone. "I just enforce 'em. Nothing personal, y'see..."

"It's always personal. Every bit of it." The Sorceress responded. (It had NOTHING TO DO WITH BUSINESS!: 90 XP)

"Hey, if you don't want to pay, my boss is more than happy to give you all a two hour head start to get the hell out of the Nar Shaddaa system. You probably won't make it, but that's more of a head start than any other Boss would give you."

She stared at him a moment.

"Your terms are reasonable..." The Sorceress replied. "Your payment will be here when you return in two days."

"It had better...any other Boss would have fried the lot of you." The thug said walking all the way back to the entrance.

"Twelve thousand!? We barely have TWO thousand!" one of her anchorites exclaimed. "How can we come up with that kind of money?"

"We should fight back! I'm sick of being bullied by these nerf herders!" another exclaimed. "With our teacher at our side, how can we fail?"

"I will 'not' support any course of action that leads to violence. Besides, such a gesture would be in vain. I am powerful, true, but not invincible." The Sorceress said. "Even if we were to somehow drive them back, they would come back and hit us again and again until we fell. Just driving them back the first time would prove so ruinous to us we could never survive the next time they came."

"What's your plan, Mistress?" The first Acolyte asked.

"I am afraid I must keep that to myself." She answered softly. "For now, gather your senses and meditate. Calm yourselves. In the morning I will tell you what I have set in motion and what my plan is."

The Sorceress then departed the pulpit, and retreated to her utilitarian office chambers, feeling the distress of everyone present. She went to a small blue carpet on the floor and went to a kneeling position, closing her eyes.

The flesh on her face started to bubble and warp, seams appearing as her face detached itself from the muscle beneath, her head rapidly repairing itself while the face scuttled into the closet to form in private.

There was a knock at the door.

The Sorceress rose, her face regrown back to the wizened round and carved visage as she rose from her meditation space and went to open the door, beholding Drenar.

He was one of her most faithful acolytes, once a malnourished child callously put out of the orphanage when there was no more room. She had nursed him back to health and taught him of her beliefs and he had been a faithful acolytes ever since. A strong and handsome young man of twenty, with fair skin and dark hair.

"May I speak to you alone, a moment."

"Why of course, Drenar. Please..." she said, gesturing for him to come in.

Drenar entered her sparse office and she invited him to sit in one of the simplistic sofas in the center of the office, while she took the one opposite.

Drenar looked around. Everyone else's domicile had some minor personalization. But not her.

She had never given him anything but the most well meaning advice. There was no one he trusted more.

And yet...

There was some small amount of discomfort he always felt being in her office, as it felt more inhabited then lived in.

It was especially disconcerting that he never saw a book laying about. Or a kitchen. Or a bedroom.

And more recently, it had started to bother him that he never could remember seeing her eat or drink anything.

Still, he suppressed those slowly growing concerns.

"What troubles you, my friend?"

"What if I told you I had an easy way out of this problem?"

She leaned back.

"I'm listening."

Drenar reached into his pocket and pulled out a shiny pink pearl, laying it on the coffee table between them.

"I had it appraised..." Drenar said. "Forty thousand."

She smiled in delight. "Such great fortune you've happened upon! But why did you not come forward earlier?"

"Because, well...the pearl has kinda been mine for years. Never told anyone. My father swore me to secrecy, you see."

"You made an immense sacrifice to break your vow." she noted sympathetically. "But why would your father impose this vow?"

"My father used to be an equipment technician in The Bloodscrawl Medical Corporation." Drenar explained. "One time, he got a real hush hush, under the table sort of job. Takes a private flight to a planet not on the charts. He had to repair Bacta Synthesizers."

He glanced at the pearl.

"He was sworn to an NDA to never talk about where he went. The Planet is called Kytrand."

The Sorceress leaned forward. "Do go on..."


"So a worker blabbed to a son..." Nathan noted.

"It happens..." Magda replied bluntly. "But don't take that as a critique. I'm sure you're doing everything you possibly can to keep it a secret."

"Anyway, he blabs to her and what happens next?" Nathan asked.

Magda sat back.

"His father had fallen on hard times. Inoperable Tumor. Nothing they could do. But he tells Drenar the secret and passes on the pearl. Blondie of course presses him for everything...and comes to the inevitable conclusion that the answer must lie in a Corporate outpost, as to its location."

Magda flinched and winced.

"Something wrong?"

"No... someone's just finally gotten the strength to awaken...pardon me, I'll only be gone a moment, but I can't deny her this..."

Magda's face bubbled and shuddered, pigmentation changing only slightly as her visage further shriveled and wizened into that of A much older woman with more subtly carved features and longer, wavier brown hair .

"Grandson, it's a miracle! How have you returned?" Margaret Crownwraithe asked in a warm and pleasant voice.

"It's...it's a long story, Grandmother..." Nathan said, pinching his nose.

"Well, you must promise to tell me all about it after you're done talking to Magda! And I have a few choice questions about that Force Wound I sense within you..."

"We'll talk about it. I promise..." he muttered, rubbing his eyes.

"It's so good to see you again..." she said as her mind and form warped back into that of Magda.

"She really missed you. She was inconsolable after your death, we all were."

Just then the station sounded an alarm.

"Long range scanners went off..." Magda noted, going to her host's personal computer.

"DP-20 Frigate. Fully kitted. Attack vector."

"And just as I show up. I don't believe in coincidence..." Nathan spoke, rising.

"Does the station have defenses?"

"Strong shields and jammers. But that's it..." Magda said

"We must prepare to repel attackers..."

Magda's face started to bubble and shudder back into the Sorceress of Ossus...only for Magda to start resisting the change back. Her body fluctuating across the surface violently, features melting from hers back to that of her Host and back.

"No. No....want...to...stay...fight...at...side...of...sonnnnnnnnnnn....." she struggled to get out through constantly warping lips, the very teeth in her mouth shifting and rolling around, changing position until it shifted back to Magda's face, this time stabilizing. She held herself in place through sheer love of her adopted son.

"I spent three centuries deep in Blondie's ID mourning the fact I never once got to fight alongside you." Magda said firmly. "I will not be deprived of such a blessing a second time..."

"As you wish..." he trailed.

Ten minutes later...

"As a gesture of Goodwill, I didn't arrive empty-handed..." Nathan said as Magda followed him up the ramp of the shuttle he had arrived in, opening the cargo room to display a large case.

Magda's flesh shuddered as she felt the subtle notes of the Force within the case.

Nathan opened up the top and Magda gasped as she beheld a pair of women's faces, each quite different from the other, though both old and wizened.

Magda approached.

"What a wonderful gift!" she exclaimed. "I'll absorb them immediately--"

Her whole body violently deformed everywhere, warping constantly between Magda's form and the Sorceress.

"No. wOn'T gO BaCk tO shadows...staY FOr sOn..." The creature hissed before resettling on Magda's form.

"Besides your presence I simply could not have asked for better..." she said, going over to the face's and touching them.

Her flesh rippled and warped on her face, shifting between her face, the face of the Ossus Sorceress, and the two faces she absorbed before settling back on her own.

"There. That should give me a little more staying power..." Magda said. "Are you ready, son?"

"Born ready..." he replied.

"Then let's not waste any time..." she said having brought a spare of the Gowns her host used.

She concentrated, her face bubbling and splitting away from the skull as she lay the gown on the deck plating, her split off face scurrying into the folds of the gown and rapidly growing and filling into it. The fleshy humanoid shape I the gown soon bubbled and warped into the appearance of his "Grandmother".

Margaret blinked open her eyes and stared at Magda.

"Why Magda, you made a fragment! You've never been able to do that before." Margaret gasped. and then she spotted Nathan.

"Grandson..." she said, gliding over and hugging him.

"Oh, today is going to be a wonderful day..." Margaret said in a matronly tone which caused the faintest flick of a smile to cross his features before it was gone, having caught himself.

The Sorceress of Ossus was a master manipulator.

 

[Magdalena Bloodscrawl]

"That ship will be here in one hour. If we had ordinary sensors, we might not have caught them until they were right on top of us. As it stands, however, we have been provided a small window with which to act. The Crew and patients are being transferred to a more defensible area..." Magda explained to Nathan as they viewed a holographic layout of the station, showing a readout of the most likely breach points.

"They will almost certainly attempt to take control of engineering first..." Margaret surmised as she circled the projector. "Which is why we must devote a significant portion of our defenses there."

"Do your people have weapons?" Nathan asked.

"Nothing more than simple blasters..." Magda answered. "And stun blasters at that. This is a hospital, not a warship, Nathan."

"Great..." he muttered. "I don't suppose any of the crew or patients have ever been in a fight?"

"Not the kinds you win..." Margaret answered.

"Barricade whatever you can. Looks like it might be just us three."

"More than enough."

"Can we get a distress signal out?" Nathan asked.

"The reason we caught them is because of a passive scanning system consisting of large electrotelescopes. They are approaching at the lowest possible speed to avoid triggering our normal sensors. We send a distress signal out, they will know the game is up and charge in at full speed, reduce our lead time of one hour to five minutes, and that's an optimistic estimate." Magda explained.

Nathan twitched. Syd was already calling for help after feeling his situation through their Bond.

"Help will get here. Eventually. But not before that ship does. We're on our own for now." Nathan said, cursing his luck.

"Tell all your engineers to start making booby-traps. Electrically based, preferably. Use all the spare parts. Cannibalize all but the essentials." Nathan advised. "And tell them to mod the blasters if they can for lethal setting."

Magda nodded, relaying the instructions over the intercom in the voice of the Sorceress rather than her own working class accent before turning back to Nathan.

"We are sending as many as we can into the most heavily armored sections. We set them up as panic rooms when all else failed." Magda said. "That's about all we can do."

"Sure you can't make another fragment, Mother?" Nathan asked.

"It took a large amount of concentration that nearly exhausted my ability to control the body. And I'm still absorbing the knowledge from those faces you brought..." Magda answered with a shake of her head. "Once I've assimilated all that fully, I may have the strength to do so without risking loss of control."

"Magda is it absolutely essential you stay in control? I can look after him just fine." Margaret protested. "I can feel the strain it takes you to stay in control from moment to moment.

"Mother, I am not being deprived of killing the wicked alongside my adopted son, and your adopted Grandson." Magda replied firmly, hands going to her hips. "Let me have this."

Margaret sighed. "Of course daughter. As you wish."

Magda nodded. "Now we wait."

Nathan took a seat.

"My, this is much more spirited than when we first met." Magda said to him. "When was it we met, two? Three months after Blondie converted you?"

"Seven months." Nathan said, struggling to dismiss the inherent madness of trying to have a conversation with the same person pretending to be multiple people, including one just spawned and programmed to think itself a relative, just like he had struggled to in his youth. The Sorceress was insane like all her kind. Brilliant. But insane.

"I do believe this is the longest conversation we've ever had with him." Margaret noted. "He wasn't exactly talkative as a Deputy."

"It's a regrettable side effect of the conversion process." Magda admitted. "but in order for Blondie's magic to work, it requires the redirection of Brain activity."

There it was again. No matter the face, they were never given the capacity to disagree on any but the most fundamental level.

Nathan's mind switched back to that day he finally understood what sort of creature he was dealing with...



Morris Crownwraithe walked into the chambers of the Lady expecting her to be in her meditative position, on both knees, waiting for him to report so she could hand him out another assignment against a dangerous Dark Side User.

He was not expecting to find a tea set laid out on a coffee table, and the Sorceress seated in a long backed wooden chair, with an empty one opposite her. She turned her head and smiled, gesturing for him to join her. He did so in a stiff robotic walk to the seat, sightless eyes never leaving hers. The little shred of him that was still human felt slight unease around her.

He took a seat, waiting for her to speak.

"Welcome, Morris." The Sorceress said. "It warms me to see you healthy and alive."

"Thank...you...." Morris said.

"Morris, I know you are still capable of feeling distress, anxiety. It's the price one pays for emergency conversion. Neural activity gets redirected to other areas of the Brain that facilitate survival, adaptivity, intelligence, willpower, at the cost of areas of activity the rest of us take for granted.

NO response. Not even a TWITCH.

The Sorceress sighed, and leaned forward.

"Nathan?" she called out softly. "Are you in there? Please, will you look at me?"

Morris Crownwraithe's eyes slid to meet her gaze.

"In converting you the way I did. Marking you...It means I have adopted you as my Son."

One of his eyebrows crept upward ever so slightly.

The Sorceress leaned back. "The Conversion Process was developed to save the lives of those too injured for ordinary Medicine or even Force Healing. But the cost to the person treated was deemed too great by more...'stodgy' types." she said. "I, of course, respectfully disagreed with my peers and continued the process in secret. Gathering Padawans injured beyond all hope of conventional treatment from various battlefields, and giving them a new lease on life under my guidance. Bodies broken. Shattered. And countless other forms of ruination. Clinging to life by a thread. In no condition to speak. Comatose. With this plague, no traditional means of treatment are even readily available."

The Sorceress's eyes glanced at the tea set on the table between them. The kettle, utilitarian durasteel like the rest of the set, rose of its own Accord and poured tea in both their cups.

"Of all the alterations I have ever done, you were the only one who I saw directly after their life was destroyed. Mere minutes after, in fact. You were the only one I ever had the chance to speak to before altering them. And you were also the only one who's name I ever knew. That made you special. I took it as a sign. So I adopted you. And it's time I start making good on my obligations. You've had a difficult past few months, so the next two weeks, I would like you to be my guest in this temple, catch your breath, and so we can begin the process of learning to be a family in addition to crusading against heresy."

Morris removed his bandana. He took a sip of tea.

The Sorceress avoided wincing as she stared at the results of her alterations side effects on his face.

"I think we both realize, however, that there are gaps in my knowledge personality wise that would make me difficult to be your Mother as I currently am. For all my desire to leave the Galaxy, to leave people better than when I found them, I am not...'human'... enough..." she trailed, tapping her fingers on the rest of the chair.

"So I have created a workaround to our mutual predicament. I have used my magic to craft a persona specifically designed to connect with you in whatever emotional capacity you retain while possessing a non threatening appearance."

Morris/Nathan's heartbeat quickened by precisely two beats, an ancient Essonian word for users of forbidden magic jumping forth silently from the subconscious:

Hagazussa

"I understand this solution is unconventional. But I truly do want to try to give you some small piece of what was taken from you. I cannot replace those taken, but I can try to make your existence more bearable in a way I never could with my other deputies, to whom I have only ever been a guardian and director to."

The Sorceress clasped her hands patiently together.

"However, this is not something I can order of you. If you are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, simply remain silent for thirty seconds. If you speak before that, I will withdraw the idea, and not bring it up again."

The seconds began to tick away.

instinct, what little remained of it, told him to speak. But something his adult self later identified as sheer, morbid curiosity stayed his tongue the whole duration.

Morris quickly stood up and backed away as her flesh bubbled and shifted everywhere on her, pig like squeals erupting from her throat involuntarily as her mind and form vanished under that of a woman with tanned skin, a heavily wrinkled complexion, and a large, dark haired perm. She opened her eyes and flashed a smile of white teeth.

"Hello Morris. I assure you, there's no need for fear."

(Tom Hardy Bane: That comes later)

Morris took a step back further. The woman the Sorceress now was slowly stood from her seat.

"You must be so very confused." the new woman said, her face twisting in sympathy. "It's ok. It's your right."

Morris didn't move, eyes locked on her every movement.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Magda. Magda Crownwraithe. I have been created to be your Mother."

She took a step forward. Morris didn't move. She smiled again.

"Whenever I am permitted to exist, you shall always be my number one priority..." Magda promised, feeling an intense, motherly love building the longer she stared...

"You're such a handsome young man." she said quietly.

The teenager instinctively clasped the lower half of his face.

"No. Don't hide it. Not around me. There's nothing wrong with you..." Magda insisted, stepping closer.

"You're perfect. A masterpiece..."

Morris was still, his hand fell away from his lower face.

"Never be ashamed to show your face around me." Magda encouraged with a motherly smile, a hand resting on his shoulder.

"You are too precious to me to conceal it..."


Nathan snapped out of the memory.

"We aren't going to defend this place going down memory lane..." he said. "Let's figure out just how to keep them from engineering."

 

[Magdalena Bloodscrawl]

Fifteen minutes later...

"I want traps placed here, here, and here!" Nathan ordered, pointing to spots close to doors and turns in ship passages. The crew worked feverishly to create as many difficulties as possible for boarders to advance. Key doors had been magnetically sealed and welded shut to blunt the speed of the advance when it arrived. He didn't even know who was coming--he didn't sense the darkness of the Sith...

"Grandson, who do you suppose it is coming to pay you a visit?" Margaret asked as she oversaw the traps being installed.

"Dunno. Made some enemies..." he replied as he headed over to a repair bay "Could be a lotta folks..."

"Our profession does invite all manner of vengeful sorts..." Magda lamented.

"We haven't got much time... Grandmother, You're staying in engineering. Me and Mother will head closer to the bridge. How many Deputies are aboard?

"Four in total." Magda answered. "They're all protecting crew and patients."

"Keep them there." Nathan said. "Is there anything else here we can use?"

Magda thought a moment.

"Follow me..." she said.

Nathan followed Magda down the halls until they stopped in front of what looked like a repurposed storage bay. Magda's tanned hand temporarily morphed into the fair skinned hand of the Sorceress, and placed it on the biometric panel next to the door. It scanned it and the door unlocked with a chime playing.

She walked in, and Nathan stared.

"Personal stash?" He asked staring at all the relics she had collected.

"More a vault of memories...but yeah." she answered.

His eyes swept the large area, until his eyes locked on something he was very familiar with.

Nathan went over to a lengthy weapon on display, a Shoto attached to a chain.

"You kept it..." he said, going over, looking at it.

It was a glossy metallic black in most parts, save for parts near the top in brass. The remains of his his father's temple guard pike, repurposed. Reborn.

He stretched out his hand.

"I do not bear the same name I had when I made you..." he spoke to it. "But you will serve me nonetheless..."

The weapon stirred, lifted of its own Accord and coiled around and up his arm like a serpent before wrapping itself around his torso diagonally...

He turned to her. "Are you ready?"

"Of Course, Nathan..." Magda answered.



Twenty minutes later...

The Frigate, filled with Mandalorians from the Mandalorian Clan Mobius, in hiding since the collapse of the Enclave, approached the station

Red Mobius , leading the attack, picked up warning scans.

<Heads up, friends, we've been made. Whole bunch of Electrotelescope Arrays serving as a passive sensor system> Red told the others, their own sensors frayed and short range, out of date.

<Chit, They've had a whole hour to prep!> Dervast, her second complained.

Red, in her bone white Mandalorian armor, ran the scans from the bridge.

<They've placed makeshift explosives on the best parts to attach a boarding tube to. We're gonna have to go extra-vehicular...> she told everyone.

<Great, just great. I hate bloody spacewalks!> Dervast grumbled.

<You too, huh?> Red asked the red and green armored Mandalorian.

<We should just use our weapons to cripple the station. Show 'em we mean business.>

<I didn't come here to burn a Hospital to the ground. I came here to get Nathan Bloodscrawl. I want him alive> she insisted. <And we can't do that if we go pillaging.>

<This guy had better be important, Getal> Dervast warned. <You're a dedicated member of the clan, and your knowledge is prized, but the Elders are concerned about this obsession you have developed with locating this Jedi. They find it unhealthy.>

<He's important.>

<I wish you would be open about why.> Dervast replied quietly. <The Elders will permit you only so much in seeing this matter through as you desire, and that is strictly because of the years of Goodwill you've built up. If coming into contact with this man proves folly, if he knows nothing of value, they will cut your endeavor short. Don't be so concerned with catching this guy that you forget the best interests of your clan.>

<Obtaining what this man knows is in the best interests of our clan. It's vital to our very survival.> Red insisted, hefting her Warhammer.

<Now let's go nab a Jedi>