Arise Darth

[Darth Ophidia]

Darth Ophidia stood before a deserted Sith Temple on an unnamed planet. Her hands were clasped behind her back and her eyes were closed as she drew breaths from the frigid air in silent meditation. The planet was completely consumed by the Dark Side of the Force, driving all who dared to remain there mad with hatred, despair and fear. Her skin crawled as the still air and creeping silence of the planet seemed to scream at her from every direction simultaneously. Of course, she would be able to resist its constant attack for long, but everything had its end here. This was where failed Sith went to be forgotten, lost in the emptiness of time and space.

She had called her Apprentice here, Acolyte Animus Malgus, without telling him what was going to happen. All she had given him was a set of coordinates to what would appear like empty space. She stood there on the frozen desert planet, clad in only a simple dark robe. No armour, not even her assassin blade. Only robes and lightsabre. This was a matter of Sith Tradition, and as such only the essentials were present.

She called to [member="Darth Mythos"] through the Force. It was not a command to ignore.

 

[Mythos]

Animus received the command and was out immediately. Packing many tools the likes of which he though an entire war would need was with him when he got to this off beaten planet that he could not find, in the most obscure star charts. When he docked the planet the intensity of the planet was that of Madness and Despair. He walked for hours enduring this mental attacks as the Massive Statues of Ancient Sith Seemed to be looking to upon him ready to lay him to rest. The reason of the trip was not of Animus' knowledge to the moment. All he had known is that his master had called, and he would come. Wherever the planet, however deep the pit, he would come. Much would die.

He arrived, after hours. The Place was horrid but he did have enough supplies for weeks on end. Arriving at what looked like a massive Temple he saw his Master with her hands clasped behind her back. Her face was not too pleased. This was no training session.
The planet whispered to him. Legends of Failure and Death. Torment and Suffering. The History of this place was lost beyond measure.
Animus however had no times for Archeological dreams. His master stood before him as he knelt in the barren snow.
"You called Me Master. I Have Arrived"
[member="Darth Ophidia"]
​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Her eyes opened slowly and heavy lidded as her gaze turned down on her kneeling apprentice. [member="Darth Mythos"] was about to face his last and most dangerous trial. What he would face, she could not predict. Whether or not he would live was up to his merit. Only one thing could she guarantee: He would never be the same.

" Acolyte Animus Malgus, my apprentice."

She stared at him intently under her bare brow. The red irises of her eyes burning with an uncanny intensity against her otherwise monochromatic grey hues, in a face darkened by the shadows cast of the barren wasteland she had called him to. She sounded more formal than previous encounters, grave almost. Her raspy voice had no sting of sarcasm, but a sombre tone that demanded nothing but the out-most attention and alert. There was no sadness, no happiness, no anger in her tone. The only discerning trait wound be a certain element of judgement. That was indeed her role on this day: To judge his worth.

"How far are you willing to go to step in to the ranks of the Sith? What sacrifices will you make for your power, and for the Dark Lord?"

In her hands, clasped behind her back, she held a syringe in her blackened left hand. She did not fidget nor squeeze it. In fact, she appeared as solid as the stone-carven Sith Lords of old that surrounded them. Their withered faces staring blindly into the dry, frozen ground.

 

[Mythos]

Animus made no moves to Arise yet as he stood there and the blazing harsh winds beat upon his cloak mercilessly. Various thoughts raced through his mind, one being that this was a test of his Loyalties as a Sith Acolyte but none of those thoughts were that this was his final test before knighthood. He did not answer immediately as he considered her words and let them deepen in his mind before he finally uttered simple words, but words he knew to be a good answer to the proposed question.
"To Success, or to Death My Master."

The wind blew harder but it seemed to allow him a moment of silence to utter the words and echo in the massive plain. What was this place? Who built these statues? Why is the Darkside so alive here? Questions for another time as now his task here was beginning to unfold. He missed his master as it seemed an eternity since they met in Iridonia and she had to haul him off with a stretcher because his injuries were more than a little severe. Luckily he had survived that encounter... could he say the same about this time?

Every time he had met his master he faced death straight in the Face, First it was a Steel Crate that she dropped on him, then it was the time she blindfolded herself and tried to kill him if he could not hide and of course Iridonia, when she went all out and almost did finish him. He had no doubt, this day would bring yet another face to face encounter... With Death. The thought made his lip curl in a smile.. of all the masters in the Galaxy, he was blessed or cursed depending on the situation, to have the Aspect of Death as his Master... How many Apprentices died in her training? He would have to ask that one day.

[member="Darth Ophidia"]



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[Darth Ophidia]

For a moment, a smile curled the edges of her purple lips as her apprentice used Darth Ophidia's words to answer her question. Success or death. She had lived by those words, and she estimated that she would die by them as well. It would be a death she embraced. When the end of her merit became apparent and she could no longer push through, she would die. If her apprentice was honest in his words, so would he one day. A beautiful death.

"Very well."

With a movement of uncanny grace, she let her hands glide to her front. Her fingers unfolded from her grasp on the syringe, and with telekinesis she let it float to [member="Darth Mythos"]. It ceased and hovered over Animus, just outside his grasp. He would have to stand up and take a small step forward to grasp it. It was a symbolic step. If he was not willing to stand and take that step, then he did not inhabit the courage he would need.

"Inject yourself with this poison. If you are worthy; you will live. If you are unworthy; you will perish and be left in this wasteland, nameless and forgotten. Success or death."

She remembered vividly the visions she had seen in her encounter with the same concoction under the tutelage of [member="Darth Ferus"]. What the others had seen, she did not know, but she knew her master had watched through their bond as Master and Apprentice. As she had been observed, she would now be the incorporeal observer of her apprentice's trial and travails with the Dark Side of the Force.

 

[Mythos]

He rose his gaze hearing her words with a thought on his mind, what did this mean? He did not speak, he did not think of anything else expect that injection that floated above his head and out of his reach. For a second he thought the Needle would come down, or that she would inject it into him herself but the moment lingered on and he understood that he must do this himself.
Mythos stood from where he knelt and arose to take the syringe from the air and uncapped it's point, his earlier thought were confirmed so quickly it had become predictable, the words she spoke were not just words they were a way of life. One Mythos had adapted and would adapt to his life and let them engulf him. However, there was the Awkward moment when he realized he did not know how to work a Needle...

He looked at it and observed it's insides for a moment before he realized that the pointy end goes inside your body and that's about as complex as this would need to be. He thought of where it would be best to inject it in, no if he should inject it, but where. The thought of Failure was the same thought as that of death, they were a synonym in his mind. Stabbing it into his leg and injecting all the Liquid inside he looked back at his master after the deed had been done. "I will no-" His words were cut off with a massive surge of pain that made him fall in screams of agony, thought of doubt began racing through his mind but he managed to brush away the darkness that sought to subdue him. Seething in pain he found it strange that he began to see everything... differently. "Master?" His voice trailing off in an Echo of Darkness and said with a tone that only passed through his teeth because of Will and desperation. "Where is everything!?"

Darkness... It took him in it's blanket.

[member="Darth Ophidia"]​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

As [member="Darth Mythos"] set the needle in his body and injected himself with the poison, Darth Ophidia closed her eyes and folded her hands on the centre of her body. She slipped into a meditative state, focusing on her apprentice. She would observe him, but she could not interact and she could not do anything to aid him. This was his trial, and it was beyond her control. The Rattataki Sith Lord caught blurry glipses of what Animus saw, heard, felt. Herself, she felt the electric grasp and the thundering whisper of the creature she had met. It laughed in cruel expectation.

"Now, my apprentice, you are on your own."

Again, a small smile curled at the ends of her lip as she fished for glimpses. Darkness only, so far.

 

[Mythos]

In the Darkness that took him Mythos entered a catatonic state that made his body twitch and spasm but in his eyes and mind he was gone, elsewhere, in a plane within his own mind. He waded through it, like swimming in a black cesspool of eternal darkness and despair. It was all gone now... Everything was black, everything was gone and he faced his one true fear, more than anything his fear was being alone, in the dark, abandoned. In the Darkness he screamed, calling out for anyone to listen but there was no one there, he could not remember that he injected the poison as the visions took him and put him the one place where he could not escape. His Mind.
For what seemed like an eternities eternity he waded through the blackness, calling, screaming, shouting on the top of his lungs but in reality his body was slumped down on the snow, twitching and convulsing in what looked like a massive Epileptic seizure.

His mind was much more cruel, "Master? where are you? Can anyone hear me!?" only the endless Echo of his voice boomed of the invisible walls of the impenetrable darkness that drove him to the one thing that could cause him to fail this test... Desperation. His heart rate got out of control as he waded through the blackout searching and screaming "Master, Master Don't leave me here!" again and again and again but to no avail as the cloak of never ending darkness did not lift from his mind. It was the pain of his heart bashing out of control that brought him to the thought.

"This isn't real... this is all in my mind... Animus calm down" He spoke to himself but as he did the Darkness below his feet began swallowing him down under like quicksand. Desperation and Hopelessness began setting in but this time he repeated what he said before, the words that got the quicksand darkness moving. "This isn't real, it's all in your mind. Focus... Animus, Calm Down." It was his mind saying it to himself but it used the voice of Ophidia to assert himself. He was now submerged, and the Darkness swallowed him but he meditated, slowing his heart beat... Now he was somewhere different... He could see... the prairie? Naboo?.... Dad? Mom? I'm.. Home?

This second fear... Homecoming... facing his Sins...

[member="Darth Ophidia"]​

 

[Mythos]

The sounds of crushing bone and muscle, screams and the familiar waves and creek of the running lakeside and finally the sword upon the fireplace at the very top of Malgus manor. Meanwhile his real body was looking worse by the second a shivering cone of cold covered his entire body and his face looked blue on the backdrop of the snow covered ground. In his mind and vision Animus was trapped in the labyrinth of an impenetrable dark cloud of despair and death. His heart beat every time more rapidly and his eyes were clotted in red tainted blood drops with every beating thump of his heart. "You are all dead, and i need to arise from this illusion!" Only darkness echoed back, his will fading with every move he made as blanket of pure darkness covered his eyes. Breathing became harder, but his mind was the most affected, pain and the most unbelievable cold entered his being, he could not scream or shiver or move, it was a state of constant cold and pain while a small glowing red light approached his eyesight while covered in darkness.

As time passed Animus felt death coming closer, but the acceptance of such a thing was never in his mind. He fought through the darkness, the pain and the cold until some leverage of movement caused him to physically move with the force. Yet what he was when the red light washed over him made such an attempt at movement futile and irrelevant. Heat closed around him as he was cloaked with the mantle of the dark side of the force like never before, hatred and anger burned inside him giving him strength yet he still could not move and the cold struck him with every gust of wind. Hours had passed, in this time he saw the glimpse of true power and undeniable fury withing him. Yet the poison in his veins plunged him deeper into despair and closer every second to death...
[member="Darth Ophidia"]
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[Mythos]

His fears behind him, and his will to live thrown into unconsciousness, Animus Malgus was near the edge of death upon the snow surface of a forgotten world. Whispers in the dreams of his faded reality whirled upon his mind bombarding his subconscious with twisted tales of macabre power that lay hidden in the galaxies past. Time had passed since the initial surge of dark energy, his body was giving in to frostbite and by this time when the toxin began to give way, his mind was near unconscious and nearing a critical state. As fate would have it and with a shuddering ripple in the force, Animus slowly opened his eyes and breathed in rhythmic short breaths while a sharp pain of frostbite awoke him from near unconsciousness. While rising from his slumber and regaining one by one every one of his senses he saw flash the signs the One Sith and the runes upon slabs in a great valley, voices of far away tales and ancient secrets long forgotten and lost to time. He did not rise, not for lack of will or strength though both cost him immensely, but for the command of his master who he faithfully knew to be near even if he did not see her.

"Master..."

His hands cold and numb looked blue and his face pale in the backdrop of the snow and land faded into the landscape. He could still hear the voices of the ancient ones who warned him of his rise, he knew the Myth he would leave behind. He was ready to become a true Sith this dawn. An entire day had passed since the fall of Mythos into the snow and death, now he was empowered by a force that he slowly began to understand.... his journey had been complete.

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Myth myth myth myth

As your apprentice serves my One Sith, he shall be known as Darth Mythos.​

Darth Ophidia opened her eyes and released a column of hot breath into the frozen air. It escaped in a cloud of translucent vapour over the rim of her scarves as her eyes once again adjusted to the surroundings. Those irises, once like pale steel and the grey clouds above, now like burning embers of a whispered flame. Blood trickled from her nostril as the headaches hit her. She gasped for breath looked for the body of Animus Malgus on the ground. The folds of her robes straightened out as she rose up in her full height and wiped the blood from her nose. It was not every day her mind was touched by the Dark Lord himself. Then again, it was not a daily occurrence for her to knight a Sith.

Calmly, she strode over to the body of her apprentice and looked down upon his form. A wry smile remained on her lips, along with a smear of blood. Her first knighted apprentice lay on the sands of the desolate planet, beaten, but alive. Inside, she felt a sting of pride.

"You live, yet Animus Malgus is dead. Arise now as a Knight of The One Sith, and claim your new identity under the eyes of the Dark Lord."

Darth Ophidia removed her glove from her left hand, showing the black and scarred skin underneath, and extended it to the Knight-to-be. It was the last offer of assistance she could give him before he truly entered the ranks of the Sith. Once a Knight, his life would no longer be hers, but belong to the Dark Lord, as did all Sith.

"Arise, Darth Mythos."

[member="Lord Mythos"]