Born of Darkness

[Via Dolorosa]

Looking over her right shoulder as she strolled through the desert, she spied the twin suns quickly making their way south as the twin moons and their sister, darkness, gave chase. She did not fear the dark but their were things and not things with proper names that stalked prey of any kind when the light vanished. She did not truly fear these myths of creatures that may or may not exist. In fact, her eyes never once saw the creatures of the night nor did her ears ever win the lottery to catch the ear piercing shrieks of the predators and the death cries of their prey as the struggle of survival was fought on a nightly basis.

However, her eyes had not betrayed her when she saw the remains of the four Acolytes, showcased in front of every Acolyte in the main chamber hall of the academy, that were caught on the sandy dunes after one nightfall. She did not fear these phantoms but she was also no fool. She knew her limitations and she knew that whatever was out there was beyond her limitations. One day she told herself she would be strong in the Dark Side of the Force to hunt and kill anything on the dunes. But today was not that day.

Pulling her robe around her and gently returning the hood to the top of her head, she began to trek back to the academy when she caught out of her peripheral vision on the right a shadowy image dart between two mounds of sand. Her initial response caused her left hand to reach down to the hilt clasped to her belt. Stopping mere inches from the killing tool, she let out a small chuckle and shook her head at her own foolishness.

She had just turned back in the direction of the academy when she felt through the Force a presence unmasking itself. Just having enough time to react, she quickly produced her weapon, pressed her thumb on the stud, activated the weapon, and spun around to catch the blade of a rival on hers. The two Acolytes soulgazed one another just as the last of the light began to dematerialize around them.

Her rival howled with battle rage, took a step back then attacked. Xhex raised her blade in defense to meet the on rush of an attack by a far more superior in strength opponent. And that is when the abomination struck from the blackness. The creature, or thing, fell quickly on her opponent forcing him to deal with the creature, alone. Xhex stood back and watched as her rival fought this monstrosity with every ounce of energy, physical and Force, to the end.

The horror struck out a massive paw with numerous sharp claws and caught her rival across his stomach just as he drove his blade into its side. The creature collapsed onto the brown surface with a heavy thud, puffed out its last breath and died. Xhex turned her calculating gaze at her rival and saw sanguine fluid cascade through his fingers as his hand fought to keep his innards inside.

"You coward," he gasped through winces of pain, "You are a coward Xhexania. You could have hel..." His final words ended in silence as he felt the hot blade of her blade pierce through his hand, through his chest, and coming out his back. "I'm no coward....I'm an opportunist," she hissed retracting her blade. Returning the powered down hilt to her hip, she glanced at the dead creature no longer believing it was a myth.

Standing at the double wide doors of the academy she heard the howls of the beasts coming to feast off the dead. With a cold and sinister smile she entered the academy knowing her rival indeed served one last purpose. Immediately one of the academy teachers slashed a back hand across her face, as she stepped inside, and accused her of letting a fellow Acolyte die without assisting him in battle. She tried to explain the situation was one of opportunity and she was only dispatching a Sith rival and was rewarded with another slap.

Anger overriding rationalization, she began to draw her weapon from its resting place when he let out a round of bellowing laughter and said, "Do you think you are strong enough to challenge me, worm?" Xhex ignited her blade and raised it up.



[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] She’d seen the Acolytes outside, lessons to the others of what might befall them if they overestimated themselves. She had no particular feelings one way or the other about them – perhaps a mild disappointment, the lament of four less meatshields, four less gears in the war machine – despite the gruesomeness of their end. Such was the way of things, especially here.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] And ‘here’ was not a place she’d expected herself to be. The Fringe had been her home for the last ten years, a section of wild space carved by outlaws – Sith and Jedi alike – that had nursed her back to health and given her a purpose when she needed it most. It was hardly as if her loyalties had changed by standing within the Academy wrapped deep in Sith space…merely expanded. First she had followed him, but poking around the group’s properties and the minds of a few of its people had brought her around to the idea of helping out simply because they were a people with ambition, a people with guts. She could respect that.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She’d started the day exploring the depths of the Academy, all endless rooms laid off cavernous corridors that echoed with the footsteps of those who dared to breach the silence. Matsu couldn’t be described as a strictly traditional Sith – she was too familiar with loyalty, too patient and slow to anger – but she found the idea of banding together as one group strange. The knowledge that had survived the Gulag plague spoke of their kind in much smaller numbers, eating each other in greed and selfishness. (And even though she is capable of moving mountains for someone who’s managed to gain her as an ally, she is just as selfish as the next otherwise.) But however odd, this mutation from their roots was advantageous – she could see that.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] The silence of the hallway made it easy to hear the confrontation by the front door and she’d heard almost the entire exchange before she ghosted around the corner to see the younger woman raising her lightsaber, her features tight with anger. In contrast, her expression was impassive as she came up behind who she could only assume was a teacher, the larger man taking a step backwards as he reached for her saber to answer the woman’s challenge. She might have let them duel, but there was something in that brash challenge that reminded her of herself – a decade ago, but it felt like another lifetime.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She snaked up, inches from the instructor, and reached to wrap the cold durasteel fingers of her left hand around his shoulder in a gentle (spider-legs, creeping, crawling over skin) touch. “That will be enough,” she said quietly, the kind of voice that hushed a room so others could be sure to hear. She thought the instructor might have been about to protest, unwilling to submit to someone whom he did not recognize within the Academy’s halls, but when he turned his head to look she saw something change in his expression (something's not right, not human, too sharp, she's eating my mind) before he just nodded and walked away.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She watched him as he left, her head turning to follow him (dolls’ heads, vacant eyes, turning on motionless porcelain bodies) until he’d picked up his pace enough to get around the corner and away from her line of sight before turning to look on the acolyte. “Come with me,” she said just as quietly before turning to find an empty classroom. The term was loose, a traditional name for what the nearly empty room might have been somewhere else. Besides the padded floor, the wall was adorned by weapons appropriate for nearly every discipline and not much else. Her Mohc-knives were sheathed at her hip and hidden under her robes, but she was otherwise unarmed.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She didn’t say anything more before she tore her way in to the acolyte’s mind, pressing through memories and thoughts she didn’t care about until she found what had just transpired outside – that she’d been attacked first, that she’d done the only thing to be done in that situation. Sure, there were speeches to be made about not harming your fellow acolyte, about how they were all important for the fight. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] But Matsu had never been one for speeches.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She pulled her knives from her side, idly spinning them between her fingers as she circled the woman. “And what about me? Are you strong enough?” Matsu was making no attempt to shield her signature, to dampen what she was or who’d she become. But she didn’t expect it to deter this one.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She hoped not.[/SIZE]

[member="Xhexania"]​

 

[Via Dolorosa]

The arrival of the female Sith had caught her off guard just as it surprised the teacher. Like a mist bred from darkness, the female manifested out of thin air. Or was it just in Xhexania's mind? She was unsure how this woman arrived. No approaching sound. No exposure of her presence through the Force. Simply put, one minute it was the teacher and herself, the next this woman had appeared to defuse the situation. A part of Xhexania was displeased that she had been robbed of this chance of killing this teacher. She hated him from the first time they met and she would continue to hate him until his eyes glassed over as death's cold embrace reached out and snatched him. Hopefully she would be the one to send this wretch into eternal darkness.

Suddenly she found herself surprised as the teacher walked away without even hurling a protest at this woman's words. While this mysterious woman watched the retreating instructor vanish from her sight, Xhexania's eyes remained transfixed on her. Who was she? Xhexania realized that she had never seen this woman haunting the corridors before this moment and waves of curiosity crashed over and through her. She would not thank this woman for her uninvited intervention but she would seek out what she could about her when, yet again, she found herself under the spell of shock. Did she hear the woman's words correctly? Did this woman want her to actually come with her?

"Very well," Xhexania replied finding herself responding without even knowing why she agreed to do so. With her hilt firmly in her grip and unsure of this woman's intentions, Xhexania followed a few paces behind calculating the movement of this foreign woman while trying, and failing, to gauge the strength of her through the Force. Every attempt to touch her via the Force ended with brick wall after brick wall. It seemed this woman was powerful and Xhexania wondered for the first time in her young life what was to become of her. She was no neophyte to the various ways one could be punished by the teachers here at the academy. She had earned her share of punishment, and a few scars to prove it, countless times and had become the most punished Acolyte.

She was defiant, confrontational, and refused to break. Several teachers, including the miserable fiend that just recently cowered away, have tried and failed to make her submit. She would die before submitting or bending a knee to one that did not deserve her respect. Up to this pointe, none have earned her respect.

Xhexania looked at the empty classroom, save the motley weapons designed for discipline, and knew that another punishment was forthcoming. So be it. "Get this over with...," Xhexania began before her words were lost in her mind. Was it still her mind? She could almost 'see' the fogginess entrench itself in her mind. Was it still her mind? She discovered rather quickly that she was powerless to exorcise whatever entity that had invaded her mind and then without warning it was gone.

The dancing blades were almost as mesmerizing as she found the owner of the well crafted blades to be. Then came the challenge followed by the onrush of a powerful signature and Xhexania knew who or what stood before her; partially. A Sith Lord! "It's not a question of whether I'm strong enough to face you. I think the question you should have put before me is whether I fear you enough so I do not want to face you, Sith Lord," Xhexania answered igniting her blade. "If you brought me here to break me then you have wasted both of our time. If you simply wish to punish me then again you will find no pleasure in doing so for the pleasure will be mine. If you seek to kill me because I rid myself of a rival who was not deserving of the name Sith, then I have a question for you Sith Lord. Is today the day you envisioned your death?"

Knowing she was grossly under matched against a Sith Lord, but had long since grown tired of dealing with being restrained by chains that held her back from perfection, dropped into her limited knowledge of Ataru.

Without thinking of the consequences, she attacked while her lips curled into a cold and snarling smile.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] There was a time when Matsu had been reckless.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] In the beginning she dreamt of nothing but destruction, violence for its own sake – no rhyme or reason, just death. She had been little more than an animal driven by emotion and instinct born of a power she didn’t understand. She only knew it made it feel good to use it. Such carelessness had almost been her undoing, and she had the metal to prove it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Somewhere along the way – sitting in a cold, sterile recovery room and concentrating on practice with her new arm, perhaps – she’d changed. She was not ashamed of who she used to be; the point was she’d progressed. She’d evolved. Where once she’d been fire she’d become ice (the top of a mountain at night, the sound of the wind whistling and the light of the moon, the spray of snow against her cheeks, the shallow, tired breathing of a daydream sinking in the silence of her power). Instead of burning herself out in dramatic displays she creeped – the spider crawling along the back of a neck, the movement in the shadows when sleep came hard. She’s good at pretending that nothing is wrong. And she does it so well, so practiced that there’s only the slightest shiver that a piece of the puzzle is missing. One could almost believe that everything is fine until taking a longer look. Being around Matsu was like walking alone, hearing the rustle of something in the trees behind, and turning to see nothing there. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] And by then it’s too late.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] So when the girl does not return with immediate rage, speaks almost calmly, Matsu is already considering her potential instead of just reminiscing on how the girl reminded her a bit of herself. To regulate oneself was a talent learned through time and maturity and if this girl could figure that out, learn to channel her power in favor of razor-sharp and concentrated precision, she could be whatever she wanted to be. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Physical combat was not her strength and were this girl a Lord her Ataru would have Matsu fighting her hardest against each blow. But as it stood it was good practice against someone determined enough to make it fun, quick movements in response to the jumping and twisting that characterized the lightsaber form. It’s as her opponent leaps over her head, saber crashing down in a threat to cleave Matsu down the middle – two sagittal halves – that the Sith Lord brought both knives up to catch the acolyte’s blade at either end, sending a rush of the Force up through her arms to blast forwards in a telekinetic wave, an attempt to send her flying.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] At the same time, at the moment where the girl might be flying through the air – though if by chance she found some way to come back from the shove, the Sith Lord would just press harder against her mind – Matsu used the distraction to attempt to latch on to her mind. There was very little Matsu could not do to another person’s brain, but motor manipulation was a favorite. She pressed her power out to try and take the girl’s arms, make them useless pillars of flesh hanging at either side of her body, incapable of lifting her saber to defend herself. And as added insult to injury she cast fear in to the mix, terror, the memories of a thousand lives she’d seen wink out – confusion, hard to think, stop me, keep me out, survive. And then she advanced.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Despite her excellent mental defense, Matsu could feel attempts at attack and would know if the Acolyte attempted to hurt her there. There were a thousand ways to defend herself without arms, without her lightsaber, and this was her test – if she could keep her head, Matsu will have seen enough.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] If not, her brain would be a lovely specimen.[/SIZE]

[member="Xhexania"]​

 

[Via Dolorosa]

With only a brief moment to stare into the eyes of the Lord, her blade driving in a downward motion to end this fight quickly, Xhexania realized for the first time that this could be a battle she could not win. But those thoughts were brushed away as she felt the unseen energy wrap around her and send her flying backwards, her destination; a cold and unforgiving wall. Twisting her body to right the ship, she was able to hit the wall with only enough force to slightly jar her. However, she committed herself to this and she would see it to the end one way or another.

Reaching out through the Force Xhexania grasped a weapon from the racks to hurl at the Lord, a distraction she thought would buy her time, when she felt the invasion once again of her mind. The object dropped before it had a chance to get air born and worse yet, Xhexania felt that she was no longer in control of her left hand, her weapon hand. Snarling loudly, she tried to raise her other hand and found that it too was no longer responding to her. Her limbs had betrayed her and she cursed them. She watched helplessly as her blade fell from her left hand, shutting off before it made contact with the floor. She had been disarmed so quickly she found the meaning of astonishment. She knew the powers the Lords discovered by truly giving themselves over completely to the Dark Side. And here stood one only a few yards from her. Death was laughing as it moved to claim her.

If that was not enough to cause one to give in and accept their fate, she began to feel frightened, afraid of what she did not understand but there it was, fear! She felt the deaths of so many as their fear swallowed them whole just before their eyes closed one final time. Where did that come from? Then came the visions that terrified her as a young child. The loneliness. The helplessness. The need to survive without the knowledge to do so. Xhexania was powerless to shut out these visions. She was powerless to halt the fear and terror. And, she found to her dismay, she was powerless to defend herself from dying. Her eyes now wanted to join in the betrayal and release tears.

As the female Lord stepped closer and closer, Xhexania began to think of her Mother. How could someone simply abandon their only child to the swamps of Dagobah? How could a Mother forsake the life of someone as innocent as a child? How could a Mother simply vanish from the child's life and believe she had done the right thing? Xhexania knew not what she had done to earn her Mother's scorn. Her reasoning for forsaking her. Her anger! Her hatred! Her malice! Oh, how she hated that woman, her Mother. Those nights she slept and dreamed one day she would be the driving force that ended that witches life while the monsters crept all around her. How she, Xhexanai, would stand over the lifeless corpse of her Mother with a smile and gratitude that her mother had birthed a monster. She hated that woman!

With each passing thought that raised her hatred of that one being whose sole responsibility was to protect her, she began to forget about her situation. Her hatred swelled! Her anger blossomed! She wanted to kill. She wanted revenge. She....she....she found she could block out these fears and visions. She discovered that it was her anger and her hatred that gave her true strength and power and fuel in the Dark Side, not that crude weapon that had abandoned her. What a fool she was! Closing her eyes, she inhaled these emotions while mentally drinking in the Dark Side energy. She believed she was Sith. She lied to herself. She believed she was a daughter of the Dark Side. She was mistaken. She understood just as death was drawing closer that she had not taken the great fall and that in truth, she was nothing!. If she was to survive this, she had to fall. Fall so far that she was far beyond the clutches of redemption and salvation. And fell she did!

Slowly opening her eyes, she felt changed. She felt complete. And she felt that not only was she one with the Dark Side and that she was truly Sith. She had been born into the darkness and accepted! She snarled again and allowed her hatred and anger, emotions she controlled, to be her guardians. Though a slow process at first, she began to throw up resistance to the mind domination she was under. Whenever the Lord attempted to retake control, she found the strength through anger and hate to swat them away, to banish the visions and mind rape. Slowly she began to retake her mind, one piece at a time, from the Lord. It was not easy and it was exhausting her mentally but she found that she could twitch her fingers, then move her hands, and finally raise her arms. She glanced down at her weapon then back at the Lord. Xhexania smiled. If she was to die today, she would die a proper Sith. And with a free mind.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] Matsu, unlike most Sith she had met over the years, came from affluence – a life of ease. And even in that there was nothing but good; no wolfish siblings, no secretly abusive millionaire parent, no wondering if people were friends with her only for her money. No, it had been picturesque. She found herself here, a product of pain and all the stronger for it, entirely by her own hand. Suffering was the path to knowledge – this she had seen with her own eyes, felt with her own flesh, garnered from walking thousands of minds. She had been born [/SIZE]wrong[SIZE=12pt]. But she had built something entirely her own. This girl’s story however, was unique. She watched it play out like cinema as she stabbed and prodded through the acolyte’s mind, letting her grope at the ways to shut Matsu out. ([/SIZE]The pain, the fear, the crushing sorrow, and an underlying anger that wrapped the entire package of negative emotion with a tidy bow – Matsu feeling their death.[SIZE=12pt]) Though she was living proof that trying times were not a requirement in the slippery slope to the dark side they were an undeniable catalyst – and this girl was bathed in the blood, rooted in the flesh of the dark. She just had to learn how to control it.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=12pt] At first she moved with impunity, shoring herself in the meatier depths of a place most considered their most sacred sanctuary. But eventually she felt small shoves – angry voices, a wall thrown up in front of her when she attempted to enter a room she had not yet seen. “Good, good…” she breathed quietly, though she was sure the younger woman couldn’t hear her through the hard concentration. At Matsu’s level any resistance the Acolyte could manage to put up would only be met with a harder shove – in the same way that duelists honed their skills until they were nearly unstoppable in their technique and strength, she practiced until her mental prowess was strong enough to melt brain tissue, leave soup in a useless skull. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] But what mattered was that the girl had figured it out.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt] And she had potential.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She would never used the word ‘tamed’ in reference to her power – to be Sith was to feel things to their full extent, to use passion for fuel. The dark side would inevitably consume its user, burn them out – it was evident in Matsu’s features, a high demonesque sharpness to her face the proof of her younger and wild days. The key was to sip, to achieve longevity. And when Xhexania opened her eyes and seemed a touch quieter – and there it was, the twitch of a whole hand, of regaining control of her limbs – Matsu backed out of her mind and let her back to herself. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] It was a moment before she spoke, letting the Acolyte collect herself and making it clear that unless she wanted to duel to the death, Matsu had no intentions of continuing what they’d just begun…at least not at the moment. “I am Matsu Xiangu. You are Xhexania,” she said by way of introduction. She did have the unfair advantage of walking the Acolyte’s mind after all. “You are masterless, but that can change.” She tilted her head, blinking slowly, an eerily reptilian expression of question.[/SIZE]

[member="Xhexania"]​

 

[Via Dolorosa]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]



Xhexania stole another glance at her weapon when the woman finished speaking her words. The weapon would remain where it laid not as a symbol of fear or defeat but as a testimony to the respect she had for this woman's power. Xhexania had witnessed various types of powers associated with the Force and even some of the unnatural abilities that only the Dark Side could grant. The experience she learned, what this woman done to her mind, was special; almost gods-like. She had been rendered powerless and insignificant in mere seconds. That sort of power was something she found herself craving. To dominate the mind of another, to usurp their will and bend it to yours, and to defeat your opponent without even resorting to technology such as a lightsaber to accomplish this was fascinating.

Silence fell between the two again giving Xhexania the chance to recover her mental strength, to gather her mind's composure. And to grasp what this woman was saying. Xhexania suspected to be punished for her insolence, even put to death but instead this woman, this Sith Lord, was proposing to take her as an Apprentice. A chance to study under a Lord rather than a Knight was something few Acolytes achieved. If she accepted this offer it would surely increase both her status and prestige among the other Acolytes, perhaps dwindle the number of rivals that sought her end. Or increase them based on their own personal jealousies.

However, she cared nothing for prestige or status here at the academy and found it both annoying and tedious the lengths most Acolytes went to achieve it. No, she would accept this offer for none of those reasons but to further herself in the knowledge and use of the powers from the Dark Side of the Force. She would indeed grow powerful under the watchful eye of this woman, and in time, she would become a legendary Sith. One known for great power, wisdom, and fear.

Bowing her head and closing her eyes, palms displayed out in a gesture of acceptance, she said, "I pledge myself to your teachings and wisdom. I pledge myself to succession and pledge myself to punishment for failures and shortcomings. I will stand by your side as your Apprentice, learning and defending your teachings, or die for displaying ignorance. Your enemies are my enemies. Your causes are my causes. Shape and mold me as you see fit, Master."

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] She wasn’t sure how to feel when Xhexania pledged herself. Most of it was exactly what she wanted to hear: dedication to teachings, an aversion to failure, taking a place at her Master’s side. But still, something twitched in the back of her head. She had known freedom her entire life, used it in ways both personal and sweeping. She’d joined an outlaw gang of the dark and the light that guarded its own but above all valued freedom. The ways of this Sith order were strange to her, their fanatical devotion to a higher being and willingness to accept harsh rote orders something like viewing a foreign culture. She could understand and respect it – otherwise she wouldn’t be here. But she didn’t share it and if that sort of relationship was what Xhexania craved she would be up front with her.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] “My old Master did much the same to me when I met him. He punched his way in to my mind, a place I had vowed no one would ever touch again – not after this,” she said, holding up her monstrous cybernetic, a durasteel and titanium weave ending in devastating claws – a story for another time. “He put me through some of the worst pain in my life. He blinded me. He drowned me. In the space of thirty seconds. Endless power and he didn’t even lift a finger. In the same breath he showed me what I could do to others too. But he never made me anything but a better version of who I was.” In truth, Matsu loved her old master Ovmar. She fought in his battles and he fought in hers. (In her mind, love was not a weakness unless felt for the weak.)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Matsu took a few steps closer, the similarity in their height making it easy to watch her apprentice’s white-out eyes, to wonder at them. (Oh, she DID crave the unique…) “What I did to you just now is a fraction of my power. And it can be yours too. True, I will punish you should you fail, as is fit for your crime. I will expect you at my side. I will expect you to give me everything.” She paused, considering. The risk of showing weakness around Matsu was clear. “But as long as you prove yourself worthy, I will never mold you in to something you’re not. All I ever wanted was freedom Xhexania, and I would be loathe to take it from you.” She smirked, the points of her artificial canines peeking from beneath her lips. “You’ve given me no reason to subjugate you yet. That teacher yelling at you was rather obnoxious, I would have liked to see you kill him.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] As she said that an idea popped in to her mind. “As a matter of fact, perhaps I still can.” She settled herself, pulling down the walls around her fortress of a mind just enough for Xhexania to give her a vision. There were perhaps three mentalists capable of breaking in to her mind – one was dead and the other two would still have their work cut out for them. To be given even access to plant a vision was a privilege though she kept all other areas locked off. “Imagine what you might have done to him, and then project it to me.” The rest she left to Xhexania. The girl had figured out how to regain her arms – she could figure out how to give Matsu a vision.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] This was different than telepathy, more than a simple communication. If her apprentice concentrated hard enough she could even make it real for Matsu.[/SIZE]

[member="Xhexania"]​

 

[Via Dolorosa]

Xhexania not only listened to what her Master was saying but soaking it up. There was both wisdom and truth in what she was saying in regards to Xhexania. She wanted to claim for herself what her Master possessed. Xhexania did not want to be a carbon copy of her Master but instead wanted to be something far greater than this woman. She wanted to far exceed everything this woman was in terms of power and wisdom. There was much she could learn from her Master but there would come a time when there was nothing more her Master could bestow upon her. Xhexania would no longer have any use for her Master and what then? Would she attempt to kill her? Would she allow her Master, former Master, suffer greatly in the knowledge that she had now been delegated to nothing or simply would she take her leave, the two never setting eyes on one another again sparing this woman the agony while allowing her to keep her pride? The future was always changing and Xhexania was never one to dwell on it. When the time came, the Force would show her what needed to be done.

"Yes, Master," Xhexania replied then closed her eyes. It was not hard for her to envision what horrors she wished to infect that teacher with. Many a nights she sat cross-legged on the floor, in deep meditation, in the centre of her sleeping quarters plotting his demise. Not just his but there were others, teachers and students alike, she wanted to exact revenge upon. She didn't hold grudges, she was just vengeful. And now what her Master had said about this ability to invade the minds of others, to bend and break their wills was only the first steps in reaching her greatness. Others spoke of fate and destiny but to Xhexania, it was greatness that bred fear into others. True, the fearful could one day find their courage and rise up against her but by then, it would be to late for the fools.

Focusing her mind on the vision, smoothing it out and calculating how she would dispose of the teacher, before slipping it into her Master's mind, she called up several images, casting away those that seemed all to merciful. She never granted mercy and if there was ever a being who was undeserving of it, it was him. After several passing minutes Xhexania was ready to move her completed vision to her Master. Taking a deep breath then slowly releasing it, she began the transfer.

The vision began slightly foggy at first but the more she focused and held it with her own mind, the clearer the picture became. The teacher fell to his knees, his hands reaching to his head then sliding down to his face where his fingers began to scratch and claw at the flesh on his face. Without being allowed to experience the pain of what he was doing to himself, he began to dig deeper and deeper ripping chunks of flesh while blood, his blood, began to stream down his ruined features. Without using words but only pointing at him, the figure of Xhexania forced him to move his bloody fingers from his face and one by one, took his own eyes. Blinded and bleeding he begged for mercy but soon his words became nothing more than sounds of gibberish as she forced him to chew off his on tongue. Then move to his fingers, biting them off one at a time until only bloody, fingerless hands remained. The figure of Xhexania extended her hands, splayed her fingers apart, and released from her fingertips a purple stream of electrical energy that engulfed the teacher, sending his body into convulsions. With his life force now depleted and his body a smoking char, she halted the attack and watched, smiling, as his body crashed to the floor.

Xhexania opened her eyes, took several breaths to settle herself after doing something she never knew she was capable of doing. She never knew she could meld her mind to another or send such a powerful vision. She was not exactly exhausted but it had taken a slight toll on her. Up to now, the only Force abilities she had to call on only took small portions of her Force energy. This was something more advance. And she found herself loving it!

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She could feel the will to surpass her Master in the girl and it was an emotion she would cultivate despite its dangerous connotations. The Lady was not so foolish as to believe it an impossibility – such was the nature of progress, and for years hadn’t even the strongest of the Sith fallen to the one they’d dedicated so much time to training? The Rule of Two had had its day, a method of purification that weeded the strong from the weak with brutal efficiency. Although it had fallen to the wayside with the advent of Sidious – for even Plagueis had thought to give his apprentice the gift of immortality, rule the galaxy from the lofty heights of their ambition – she could see why it had worked by then.

It couldn’t now. The Galaxy had known too much change since the Gulag plague had run its course through its planetary bones.

What she sees within the vision is satisfying. There were many things that Matsu could teach about illusions and mind control, about the path of least resistance, using environment to influence the grip of a vision, the places to press for most success – but she could not teach subtlety. It had to be inherent in her apprentice, or at least the capacity for that behavior. Xhexania was without precedent in Matsu’s experience, a breath of fresh air in a string of learners that had disappointed in one way or another. All were weak, some even disappearing entirely rather than admit there were things in this life they were simply incapable of doing. This woman housed both unknowable limits coupled with the potential to control herself to use her power to her full capability. Rare. And a neat find for Matsu.

“Good,” she breathes as the vision ends, the taste of blood in her mouth – tannic, metallic. What Xhexania created came brutally close to the same sort of hostile takeover that had preceded Matsu losing her arm and she liked the unapologetic flair of the gruesome in her apprentice. “In time you will learn how to create visions so powerful you will not need to control their minds with an iron fist. All it will take is some creativity and they will bow before you, victims of the things you tore from them and awakened.”

She drums her metallic claws along the skin of the other arm as they cross, fluid despite the weight of the metal – a learned compensation. A little smirk tugged at her lips as she tilted her head. “Now come – we should make sure nothing’s left of that man you killed outside.”

[member="Xhexania"]​

 

[Via Dolorosa]

"Yes Master," Xhexania said as she followed her Master from the room, the room that would be the catalyst that sent her down the path of no return. In the brief meeting with the Sith Lord, her Master, she had learned more about herself and the nature of the Dark Side then she had the entire time subjugated to the teachings, teachings she came to understand, taught by Sith teachers to proud to openly admit their own failings. The Order delegated them to construct the foundation of Sith teachings for the Acolytes while the Knights and Lords shaped the Acolytes into proper Sith. It was no wonder the teachers seem to use brutality and punishment whenever applicable, their purpose in the Order was unpredictable as walking on thin ice and they knew it. In Xhexania's opinion, the Order should have simply done away with them. Cull the weak, cull the failures.

As the duo, Master and Apprentice, moved through the academy several jealous eyes fell on Xhexania. Many had long suspected she would be either killed by a rival or by one of the teachers, most voting on the latter since many of the former had failed. Xhexania suppressed a smile. She did not need to address those eyes, the sight before them all was the only insult required. However, Xhexania got a glimpse of the teacher and when their eyes locked he turned away but she could feel his anger and now she did smile. It was not a smile of victory but a warning that one day she would return, and on that day, he will bow before her; either by his choice or by hers.


Completed!!!

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]