Determined to Break

[Setzi Lunelle]

Despite her complete vulnerability in this situation, Setzi’s innocence had been lost a long time ago. Perhaps her optimistic worldview was shattered during her first battle on Ruusan, or maybe somewhere down the line when she betrayed those she loved, when she killed for the thrill of it, or the power it yielded, the benevolent farm girl was no more.

Was she also somewhere on that incline with Connor? Probably, but she was closer to the top than the bottom.

"The Dark Side is burning inside you.”

“No, it’s not. I assure you,” she murmured, holding so tight to that belief. If I say it aloud that makes it true, right?

But before she could stop him, a flash vision of Chastity slammed into her mind, a disturbing image of her most treasured loved one writhing in pain and distress. She doubled over, twisted to the side, fists clenched. And then it was gone.

“Is that your version of payback?” she spat, angrily, not an unexpected reaction due to his insidious Dun Möch. “For Toola? Is the last time you saw Chastity when I became her that evening in the snow? You wanted her then like you want her now. But guess what?” He would hear the next sentence not with his ears but with his mind.

No one has her. Like you said, she is dead. Why relive it over and over? She’s gone!!!

As she straightened, Setzi reached out for Connor’s hand and was relieved to feel the warm palm atop of hers, his fingers curling around her thumb and wrist. He would begin to feel a sharp pain through his hand, radiating up into his ulna, increasing in intensity as the seconds ticked by. The Padawan’s eyelids fluttered, and she groaned with determination as she began to “cure” her temporary blindness, using the former Jedi Master’s agony to do so. Darth Azurea had been an expert in this special brand of magical science, and even weary, she would try to employ the Force to grant her sight back.

As her vision slowly came back, Connor would feel the most excruciating pain searing through his hand. Already half-exhausted, the healing process would leave her completely drained when the ritual was over.

Master Harrison might be furious over her unexpected theft of his stamina for her own needs, but then again, she’d just shown him that the Darkside was still extremely strong in her, potent and close to the surface, and under that fragile, crêpe-like layer of skin lurked the same, seething and undulating blackness.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor stayed still, seated, and looked at her with calm, corrupted eyes. The warm breeze of the planet picked up a little through the funnel of the mountain they were camped under, their hair teased out a little as it blew over.

She was convincing herself that her world hadn’t fallen apart in a matter of seconds, and convincing herself that Connor Harrison was at fault, for everything. He didn’t react as she spat out her words to him, seeing that side of her come forth from the meek façade she had used in trying to convince the Jedi she was pure.

When she scrambled forward to take his hand, he didn’t pull back or fight her off. He just stayed still and let it happen naturally. He winced and bore through the sharp pain like a hot needle sliding up his hand and wrist, the Force energy being sucked from him to amplify hers. She was a heartbeat away from draining his life if she wanted – a pure Dark Side ability to destroy a life to preserve one’s own.

It was worth it, the pain. The needle-sharp pain eased when she let go, and his hand flinched and was numb, to which he looked at it, and let it rest on his knee. Then, he looked up to Setzi.

"Do you see clearer now, Setzi? Do you see not just the darkness before your eyes, but also the darkness inside?"

Then, he looked up to Setzi, gauging if she could see him. The scar down his eye. The amber corruption. A different face to the one she knew, yet, still the same somehow.

"Chastity Lunelle is dead to me as she is to you. A failed Jedi and a failed sister. You don’t need her anymore, do you. Look at you. She’s made you a jealous, frightened woman who once commanded Sith before her but now is trying so hard to cling on to a past as dead as her."

Connor edged forward.

"You are not a Jedi. You never were."

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

Her returned sight gave her a momentary boost of energy, but then she sighed aloud, letting her mouth open as the breath rushed out, shoulders slumping.

The form of Connor Harrison took shape, blurry at first but clearing as Setzi focused, her pupils dilating due to the lack of light in their habitat. The hand she’d tormented with pain was resting upon his knee. A water bottle sat by his side. The amber eyes she knew well, in fact, but they were not the ones she knew Master Harrison to own. It was as though she were looking at Darth Azurea in the mirror if she focused on the bile-yellow irises. The scar appeared… some would say handsome perhaps? Rugged? Setzi knew it was neither, a wound likely caused by some infernal dance with the devil.


The Padawan answered the first question truthfully. “I do not see the darkness inside me, Connor.”

No, but she felt it singing through her body now like a metallic reverberation, one which whispered ecstasy to those who embraced it, and the promise of all-consuming power.

But her tone quickly changed, the mention of her sister clearly drawing out the anger that simmered under the surface now, brought closer tapping by the Dark Side of the Force and likely due to the fact that her old friend before her had been altered so drastically.

“It's not jealousy. Not by a long shot. It’s that I’m done with chasing ghosts. If Chaz is dead, she’s dead… worm food… dust. Like I told you back on Voss, I can no longer entertain these specters of my past. And yours.”

Chastity was either dead or she was alive. There was no in between for Setzi. And perhaps there was some lingering jealousy, but she would trade anything to have her sister back… hell, she’d share the man with her if it meant she’d have Chastity back in her arms.

He moved closer, but she did not flinch.

“I wanted to be a Jedi under you. It appears that chance is gone. But whatever you are now, I do not want to be that. I am no longer a Sith warrior.”

He was correct in that she was someone, something in between.

Her eyes flicked up and down his form as though appraising a valuable relic. She could feel the Darkside tugging at the edges of her resolve, longing for him to feel the sublime pain she'd inflicted. Again and again. “Unless you show me why. Give me one good reason to stay right here and continue this conversation with you. But not just say it."

"Show it."

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Her mind was like a coiled spring. Waking up from a hopeful future in the Light, to then a prisoner of pirates, and now faced with a man she had feelings for and destiny shattered. It was the easiest way to bring forth the monster.

All the strength behind her words, her curled lip when she near snarled and her firm resolve about the sister and the Jedi. Connor stood up. She wanted to see. So be it.

He took of his greatcoat and lay it down.

"Peace is a lie, there is only passion."

Then, he rolled up his black jumper and peeled it off, revealing his torso.

"Through passion, I gain strength."

He held his arm out so she could see the extent of the damage, the only eyes to see following Maena. The arm's flesh was knotted and raw, from the severe burns from the lightsaber. Puncture holes could be seen going up the arm.

"Through strength, I gain power."

Turning, the other arm, a small amount of flesh missing and a black burn coating the shoulder.

"Through power, I gain victory."

Next, his front with the indents that ran up his side and a red and black gash, the burn of the lightsaber again and the lava that ate away and melted his skin. The burnt skin was just covering the muscle of his right bicep.

"Through victory, my chains are broken."

He opened his arms and turned around, to see the pink blanket of burns than ran up his back, a mix of fire and Force Lightning.

"The Force shall free me."

Connor turned to her, a body that looked like it had been assembled back by a surgeon. He knelt after reciting the code and place a gentle hand upon her neck, looking into her eyes with his burning amber. Each flick of the iris, the broken nerve endings and razed flesh under the left eye moved dangerously as if it was going to peel away.

"You want to be what I am. Not Jedi. Not Sith. Just a being born of the Dark Side with a power that has made me invincible. The galaxy will fall to our kind. OUR kind."

He lowered his head, the amber eyes glaring at her and cutting off the world around her. Setzi stared only into the eyes of a monster.

"Azurea." Connor let go of her neck. "It is time to reclaim your title."

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

Monsters.

Setzi had been playing hide and seek with them from the time she was a girl to her first experience as a Jedi Padawan. Was it curiosity that allowed her to stray? Stupidity? She once played too roughly with a giant fire beetle in a field of maze-stalk on her parent’s farm and nearly scorched half of the crops that season, along with half of their profits. She’d had so much promise at the various academies and temples, and Connor had too. Unlike Setzi the galaxy had benefited from Master Harrison’s steady presence up until now.

What have you done, Setzi, that can even compare, she thought?

Her brows lifted when the former Jedi began to undress, squinting to focus a little better upon his torso when it was finally revealed.

The words he spoke? Meaningless for the most part. Like a foreign language that she could not understand, but perhaps knew of the formal greetings... hello, goodbye.

But his body? Her fingers twitched instinctively, longing to touch the ruined flesh, a patchwork of burns and scars, as though she would be able to read the future upon the bumps and keloids. The front of his chest and arms? Even worse damage was visible and despite batca and pain killers, she knew that it was likely he was still in a fair bit of pain from all of that… desecrated flesh.

But instead of horror, she reacted with a sad, half-smile, the anger fading, along with her resolve. She would have to compare notes with him later, but as a Sith Lord, the ghastly injuries that Setzi had not only seen, but had willingly inflicted upon the innocent were comparable and familiar. Azurea meant “Agony” in the Sith language. That type of pain? She had given and received again and again.

“I am too weak now to heal you,” she said softly, finally broken down by the suffering of her friend. Had everyone turned away from Master Harrison? How could she be one of them?

Why, he had not forsaken her when she was at her lowest and darkest place! What did he do when she came barrelling through the snow on Toola trying to kill him with her clearly inferior battle skills and pure, white hot rage?

Connor had reached out for her. He’d offered his hand, palm up. He had not stomped and said, “begone demon!”

Her breath hitched in her throat when his hand found her neck, but his touch was gentle. And while his visage was, on some level, terrifying, by the Holy Stars it was still Connor Harrison!

“Azurea. It is time to reclaim your title."

It was such a sublime prospect that her body nearly surged forward on its own to capture the first bit of passion that would taste like the sweetest, ripest fruit. To savor him, drink the juice and swallow the seeds. But all Setzi could do was reach out and trace one of the angry scars on his chest as she’d done last on Voss. How much desire did he feel for her now? Was there a man in there at all that had any love for a woman like Setzi who had admired him so?

Her hand moved up to his face, placing it upon his jaw with a soft caress to his warm skin. And she leaned in and gave him a delicate kiss upon the lips.

She did not know how strongly his human heart beat and how much the monster had taken over, but even monsters had hearts and souls. If he’d been that transformed, she would quickly find out just how much of Connor was really left inside.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDwl-31afEc

 

[Connor Harrison]

There was little connection to her in the first few moments. He bared most of the effects of Maena to the top of his body. The cold black cybernetic arm of his left signalled the first major transformation he had taken following the confrontation. He was a mess, but this form knew nothing of the pain Connor felt – this was surface damage.

It was inside where the real monster lay.

Setzi felt pity. She felt sad, as signalled by her face. She even wanted to help.

Connor didn’t move as she became fixated on the image before her, and even placed a gentle kiss on his lips. He didn’t move. The kiss was cold and fearful.

"I know of you. I know your journey. But you can’t see the man who tried to help you now. He is gone."

Part of him wanted to break her neck there and then with his hand and leave her. But part of him knew the ally she could be, and become. To connect with the dark forces out there and to act as a force untamed by any by him. To serve him, to lead with him. To seek revenge on those who prevented him being the man he should have been.

He nodded.

"Setzi Lunelle, your place is not with the Light. It is in the Dark, with me. I will continue what he failed to do, and you will fight with me, you will stand by me and together we will show them what true power looks and feels like."

A smile formed.

"We are manifestations of the Dark Side and always have been. You just need to release yours finally."

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6rVJYmQFiY[/youtube]​

Her stomach roiled with both anticipation and dread as Connor kissed her back. His lips were as soft as a human’s, but the implicit warmth of trust and compassion was somehow lacking. Her eyelids dropped, and she sunk into his embrace, even placing her hand upon the metal cybernetic arm, exploring the cold metal with tactile curiosity.

He withdrew first.

“So you say. But I see him,” she insisted, though her voice was not raised. But one could not dance so closely with the devil and not get a little bit burned. “I still see Master Harrison. I still feel him on my lips.”

But then he echoed exactly what Setzi had either feared or known her entire life: "Setzi Lunelle, your place is not with the Light.”

“How can you be so sure? When consumed by the Darkness, I did not live up to my full potential. I betrayed family, and I lost my children. I can’t lose anyone else, Connor!”

The anguish in her voice was clear. Setzi wasn’t going anywhere - not yet at least. While she knew it was a fool’s errand to try and convince him otherwise, she would not forsake him like the others had.

And he could take care of himself alright. The Knight Lunelle had no presumptuous notions that he wouldn’t capably slay any kind of enemy no matter how strong they felt themselves to be. Master Harrison had years of experience, of battle and training, and despite his alignment, that was just a fact, not a mere hypothesis. Those young upstarts who felt like they could destroy him would find themselves sniveling in a pile of ashes.

But Setzi was worried about his self-destructiveness, and the power of the Darkside to cause reckless behavior.

Like yours right now, Setzi?

“I need rest, friend. And so do you.” Now finally being able to see what was in the habitat, the brunette Knight, unrolled two thin beds - a more high-tech version of those old camping sleeping bags she loved as a kid. “I will stand by you. But that’s all I can commit to at the moment.”

The shelter was warm and insulated, so Setzi removed her jumpsuit which left her in a white tank top, imperfectly stained with a coffee spills and a pair of white fitted shorts. She slipped her pale legs into the sleeve of the bed.

Would he sleep or would he stay up all night having feverish waking dreams? She knew plenty of Sith Lords who eschewed slumber, who barely needed it, and when there was cause to rest, put themselves in a meditative state instead. But she was so very weary from her time in the isolation chamber as all of that rest had the opposite effect.

Wise counsel of the Jedi would tell her to leave, to flee, to do anything but remain in that place for the night. But she could not leave her friend. Not now. Not when he was at both his strongest and his weakest.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Setzi said her bit and moved away from the ship she was kneeling before.

Connor stared at the dull green paintjob of the craft when she moved and he processed her words.

"I am not….Connor," he said quietly, crunching the sand under his hand.

He stood up and looked down at himself for probably the second time since he awoke. Fingers ran over the stitches, the scars, the skin grafts. The cold metal of his left arm severed below the elbow. The tiny marks on his right hand. Patches of skin that were raw from the burns interjected with his own sun-kissed flesh.

Exhaling and closing his eyes, he pulled the Force in around them both and let out a gentle pulse of power to sweep over Setzi. A reminder of what he was…and what she was trying to hide.

"You cannot stand in the shadow for long, Setzi Lunelle. You will have to choose one day soon to follow your destiny." He scooped up his jumper and threw it onto the rear of the ship away from the sand. "If you stand with me, then you will tell me where you go, who you are with and what you are doing, and you will report to me daily."

She avoided looking at him as she got into her sleeping bag.

"Your sister failed. Don’t make the same mistake again."

With that, he walked towards the spiralling path of the mountain that led down into the valley below, but he didn’t go out of site, he stood and looked into the distance and breathed. Slow breaths as he formed what to do next with her.

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

"I am not….Connor."

Setzi shook her blondish-brown hair out of the ponytail which had been holding it back and let it cascade over her shoulders. Propped up on her elbows, she murmured softly, “We will have to figure out what to call you then.”

His body was… a mess, and she could not help her expression - sad brown irises and a grimace upon her lips. As Darth Azurea, she’d engineered a creature made of flesh, but forged with Sith poison and the Dark side of the Force. Connor reminded her of her beloved Xilsaga, but his mind was far more sharp, his senses keen and honed - a dangerous predator for sure.

When the surge of power from her old friend cascading over her, thrumming in her ears, moving across her torso to infiltrate deeper, into skin, veins and even molecules, Setzi closed her eyes. She was so tired, she didn’t fight it, and let it enshroud her like a blanket in which to sleep.

"If you stand with me, then you will tell me where you go, who you are with and what you are doing, and you will report to me daily."

The control he wanted over her was… disconcerting. Still, plenty of Jedi Masters demanded that type of loyalty and an almost co-dependent bond from their Padawans. However the Jedi Order had more of an ascetic training schedule with long bouts of meditation and even solitude away from the Master, while the Sith pitted Lord and Acolyte as mortal enemies, a punishing regime of pain and control. To be broken and built back up, a stronger, more cunning warrior.

Or so she rationalized.

As suspected, Connor walked away. She felt certain, he wouldn’t completely leave her there on Deneba, but if he did that would be their fate. Too weary now to fight herself or him, she closed her eyes and curled into the sleeping bag, so she could rest. His lair was comfortable, she’d give him that, and soon she fell into a deep sleep, with the hope that no overwrought and febrile nightmares were to follow.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

His body didn’t move as the minutes went on. Nearly half an hour Connor stood letting the warm sandy breeze tease and awaken the follicles across his torso – the ones not burnt out or torn off anyway. His chest rose slowly and he opened his eyes from his time of light meditation.

The Force spoke to him, and he spoke back, ready to control and understand it with each passing minute. To learn more, to feel more, to grow. The embers were glowing perfectly, and now he just had to maintain them until they blossomed into flame that couldn’t be stopped.

With a spin on the heel, he came to and turned back to the makeshift shelter. The sky was turning a deep purple, with streaks of orange cloud floating high and the Meru station a blot up in the far reaching sky.

Setzi was asleep.

Connor walked around into the shade of the mountain and knelt behind her, crouching over her head and he looked at the structure of her face, her hair and breathing patterns. For a woman, she was pretty, granted. For a servant of the Dark Side, she was chained by the Light and that made her ugly.

A old poem came to mind; old text used to inflict fear on mortal beings.

Running a hand over his jaw, he shifted position slightly and placed a hand on her forehead gently. She stirred. He closed his eyes and bore down into her mind.

"I am the dreadful menace. The one whose will is done. The haunting chill upon your neck. I am the conundrum.”

Hijacking the deep sleep with perverted, dangerous, violent, joyful, gruesome images – flashes of war, flashes of peace, flashes of the past and the future.

"We will summon armies of wind and rain and snow. We made the black cloud overhead, the ice, like glass below.”

He manipulated her reliance on him to keep her safe, regardless of the path she walked on for now.

"Not you, nor any other can fathom what is nigh. I will tell you when to jump, and I’ll dictate how high.”

Faces from Connor’s life he put into her own. The ones who betrayed him now could betray her. The ones who helped him could now help her. Friends would bleed into enemies. Enemies would bleed into friends.

" The ones that came before you stood strong and tall and brave. But I stole their dreams away. Those dreams could not be saved.”

He drew the only hand of flesh and bone away that he had and rested it on bended knee, looking at her, letting the poison begin to eat away at her sanity.

"But now you stand before me, devoid of all dismay. Could it be, just maybe, I’ll let you have your day.”

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

And then the nightmares came, despite the promise of a deep sleep. Her body betrayed her by not waking, even though the most heinous of images flickered through her head like a holo horror movie. Connor’s hand upon her forehead was only felt in her unconscious mind, the gentle pressure barely acknowledged in the waking world.

While there was much to absorb through his illusory manipulations, she’d focused on one vision in particular. The one of Chastity returning to Voss, deranged and disturbed by Sith poison.

Suddenly, the answer was clear, the mystery solved. Connor Harrison had administered the poison himself. He’d built her sister up to be a capable Jedi and had torn her asunder with his dark magic. And then proceeded to lie to her on Toola, to lie to her on Voss.

I trusted you, she thought as her limbs trembled. Like an animal having a dream, her fingers and toes twitched, her body jerking every now and then. Whatever illusion or control he had upon her, Setzi would not know.

At one point, her hand grabbed his wrist, tightly, displaying the strength she’d once had as a Jedi or even a Sith, but she sighed and released him. And even more unsettling the Knight turned around to gaze upon his amber eyes, but she only stared right through him, the result of sleep paralysis from whatever hold he’d had upon her.

If the morning brought a little more madness from her, Setzi just wouldn’t know. For now she was content to play out the dark nightmares engineered by Connor as he sat beside her like a sentinel, keeping watch upon her sanity… making sure no one else had access to the Lunelle sister. Master Harrison had free reign to transform her in her sleep, despite her best, yet perhaps naive intentions.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

The buzzing of a group of Nimhorrhean saber-wasps stirred Connor from a light sleep. They made little noise, but the living aura stirred him as well as the buzzing of the wings as they ducked, dived and hovered around the base of the mountain, before flying off into the early morning sky.

Night had passed for them both and the sun was about to rise in the distance, behind a wall of far-reaching mountains on the horizon. The light was teasing from behind the naturally made structures, climbing high from the ground up like skeletal fingers into the sky.

Connor turned to Setzi, still sleeping.

Who knew what was going on in the recesses of her mind following the night’s events. What would she see when she woke? How would she feel? What would she want to do? If the girl was going to try and stay in the Light, then she would be his insider. The one to feed him information without even knowing, to feel dependant on. To feel he offered her safety and security.

A strong resolve only gave permission for a harder break.

The man stifled a yawn and cracked his neck and ran his fingers down the cybernetic arm. It was what he had been given on Maena, as black as the ground and the sky and part of the new man it was fixed to; robbing him of the desire to call himself fully human.

He looked to Setzi again.

And again he stretched out with a warm Force pulse of darkness that swept over her, like a comfort blanket absorbing into her skin and bone.

" Azurea,” he whispered, ”you must fight her.”

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

The purple-hued dawn came, but Setzi slept in, softly snoring in the camping bed like a sullen teenager who’d been out all night. Again, the Force pulse again caressed body and mind, with loving care almost, and Connor’s baritone whisper finally penetrated the deep slumber.

She sat up, wiping her face with a hand and turned to Master Harrison. Good, he was still here, human but yet not human. But here regardless.

“I had the strangest nightmare,” Setzi said, rising up on wobbly legs. Her skin was less pale now, the long rest causing a delicate, champagne pink hue to return cheeks. She began to hunt around for coffee, sugar… the mundane routine of making breakfast a welcome change from the daring rescue that had just taken place on the derelict space station the day before. Finding what she needed in one of Connor’s packs, she assembled the small drink machine, filling it the instant coffee packets. Setzi turned to face her friend again, hand on a hip.

“I dreamt that you were the one who poisoned Chastity.” That wasn’t the only nightmare she’d had but the others were difficult to remember, image fragments which made her semi-nauseous now. But food and caffeine would help with that. "But you'd never do that would you," she said absentmindedly, ripping off the outer plastic of an MRE with her teeth.

“How did you sleep?”

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor stood as she woke and rolled up his sleeping bag, tying it together and flattening it out. He may never need it again, but just in case they didn’t get far today, he left it on the ground under the shade of the gazebo.

He looked up at Setzi as she busied herself with getting instant coffee ready and rations. They had enough for a day or two, so whoever these campers were who “lost” their ship to him, he was grateful. The storm would have passed for sure, so it was a case of where to go next and where Setzi was going to accompany him to.

" I slept fine. Sleep isn’t something I need much of,” he said.

He glanced at the rations in her hand, and stood up, walking out of the shade and resting on the base of the large mountain, watching her.

”Of course I didn’t poison here. I didn’t know here. Connor did, but even he didn’t poison her. He tried to save her.”

Not taking his eyes off her frame, looking more human and eager to eat and make something of the day, he continued to her.

”You poisoned her.”

He let that hang in the air for a few moments. It was ghostly quiet, bar the sound of the coffee machine.

”You broke her spirit, you broke her trust and you broke her heart when you sided with the Sith. In turn, she was forced onto a path to be like you, but she was too weak to ever accomplish such greatness. Pushing and pushing, the poison eating away at her to be some great Jedi and warrior win back her sister, she succumbed to corruption and the ways of the Dark Side, but she was never going to pull through.”

With a casual look away, he smiled to himself.

”Connor tried to save her, and the Silver Jedi abandoned her, like you. So, no, I didn’t poison your sister. You did. And all the better for it now she is out of your life and you can continue without her…sickening jealousy and resentment.”

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

”You poisoned her.”

Setzi’s lips tightened, jaw tensing, and her face tilted slowly to the side as if to say “Really? Here at breakfast we’re going to do this now?”

Connor continued correcting and belittling her to which the Knight gave an annoyed sigh and nearly threw down the rations in frustration. Chastity was such a trigger for her, and he knew it. It did not take much to dredge up all of that guilt she’d felt over losing her little sister back on Ziost. “Do we need to continually relive this, Connor? Like I said, if she’s dead that’s the end of the story.”

Yet the lump in her throat which she swallowed down with a grimace betrayed her cavalier attitude.

Jealousy and resentment? That could not be further from the truth.

“No, it was the Sith who broke her. Your anger is misdirected.”

He may have thought Chastity was the tipping point, and while allowing her sister to disappear was certainly on the top of the list called “Setzi Lunelle’s Biggest Mistakes,” there was one which loomed like a behemoth.

“The Sith has ruined everything I’ve ever loved. But they haven’t ruined you… not yet.”

But was her cherished mentor and lover even salvageable? He was such an emotionless shell, cold-blooded and reptilian almost. The night before, seeing him so broken and droid-like, more monster than man, she’d had more sympathy. Now she only felt a simmering rage.

As the fragrant smell of coffee filled the habitat, a simple domestic odor so anachronistic from the turmoil happening between man and woman, Setzi walked again towards Connor. She would continue to challenge him until…

Plot twist, Setzi, Connor kills you? Are you willing to die here on Deneba?

He would be able to feel a change in her energy, and it was markedly darker this morning, despite the cheerful sun rising above the red mountains. In fact, she was so angry it was as though the habitat might burst with the pressure, and the Knight almost slammed him into the side of the mountain with a flick of her fingers, but meditative breathing helped to calm her momentarily.

“I don't think you would work for the Sith... so help me Connor I know you are smarter than that. But you are clearly in thrall to something in this galaxy… tell me, who are you aligned with and what do you plan to do with your power?”

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor looked at her, the tiniest narrowing of the eyes. She was so blind. So misdirected and so eager to be the righteous one. Much like the Connor of old. Much like those who always failed. Looking for the right things to say; the defiant things to say. It made them look so blind.

Without rushing, he walked over to her across the gap between them of the gazebo.

He didn't walk with haste, or shout, or fling the camp around. He just walked to her, cracking a pack of rations as he stepped on it, simply in his way, until he was in front of her looking down at the girl. His face lit by the morning sun, the crimson scar would stand out that tracked his left eye, another reminder of the creation of Xiangu. The scar. The hand. More her monster than his own man. The amber eyes seemed to spark at her as he glared into her own.

"Listen good, and listen well.”

A twist of his hand, and the pressure started to apply to her chest - her lungs and heart - just gradually, but enough.

"I care not for Chastity Lunelle. You asked a question, I answered. I told you the truth and if you cannot accept it than I must remind you that it is YOUR anger that is misplaced, not mine. I am not angry at the sins you have created or the fate she followed. And the Sith are but followers of the Dark Side. They can have any name the galaxy gives them. The Sith did not have a hand in this. The Dark Side did, the most natural essence of the Force that even they serve.”

He twisted harder for the vice grip to contract on her organs.

"Me allegiance is to the Dark Side of the Force. Those who stand in it are my allies. Those who respect me are my allies. Those who do not respect me or standing against it are my enemies. So.” He let go of the Force and she was free. "Who are YOU aligned with.”

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyuPWHwZru0[/youtube]​

On one level, Setzi knew that Connor Harrison was trying to break her. On the other, she realized she was already broken. Piecing together her fuzzy memories of returning to Voss after fleeing Glee Anselm, the Knight realized that unless she had sequestered herself, she’d had no chance of returning to the Light. The Darkside of the Force still clung to her, rooting her like thick quicksand, and that each time she tried to surface, the sinkhole mired her down.

Suddenly Master Harrison had closed the gap between them, and Setzi only followed his jaundiced irises with her own brown ones. Otherwise she moved not a muscle.

"Listen good, and listen well.”

He scolded her like a schoolgirl! Had he always this condescending? As designed, his Dun Möch began to do what it was intended to do… cause a schism inside her so that the Light would no longer be reachable.

But the physical pressure of his subtle attack caused her to gasp, as though his words were not enough to show just who was the superior warrior. Setzi doubled over, groaning, sputtering and coughing, clenching in pain. She knelt now before him, one hand steadying herself on the floor of the habitat, the other clutching her belly, her head lowered, dirty-blonde hair falling down like a curtain to shield the furious expression upon her face.

"Who are YOU aligned with.”

Never again would Setzi be aligned with the Sith. As she twisted in pain, she almost revelled in it at the same time - Azurea… Agony… sublime and sweet, anticipation building for it to be over, please be over so endorphins would rush in, bringing a wave of pleasure to erase the memory of the pain.

In the brief gap between squeezes to her liver, gallbladder, intestines and lungs, Setzi gathered up the Dark storm that had been pooling inside and threw out her hands to Connor, palms upright and blasted him with Telekinesis, strengthened with Force Rage in order to fling him off of her and slam him upon the mountainside.

“No one!” she screamed, her eyes turning the same amber as his, a matching pair of cat-yellow irises in the shade of the habitat. “I have no one left. No one but you! You give me no choice, Connor. I have no choice in the matter!”

If she did, she would leave on the spot, but her mind had become twisted now, convinced she was beyond saving herself. She did not voice an alliance with Harrison, but it was clear by her presence alone with him that she would not run or flee, that she would be his to mold and command.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

The reverberations from Setzi during her painful few seconds were strong, and Connor was ready for the explosion of energy.

He let go, and she acted.

She burst up from the ground like a coil had popped inside of her; the rage she was sat on, mixed with the guilt, the fear, the anger, the hate, the pity - it all boiled into a chemical reaction that her dark core made ten times bigger. Her face was contorted in a feral grim mace, her eyes had finally seeped that corruption, and her palms were stretched with claw like fingers to grasp, twist and pull apart the man before her.

Connor was pushed back, but he controlled the resulting fall back and landed on a soft bend of the knee to hold his frame. The rest of the gazebo was violently kicked to the side, snapping the supporting pole, sending their provisions into the wall of the mountain and kicking up chunks of rock, sand and dust in the air around him and peppering the surrounding.

He looked up at her from under his eyelids as he stayed still and stayed low to ride out her blast. He absorbed the power radiating from her. It was powerful.

And as quickly as she launched her assault, it ended. The rest of the items pushed into the mountain dropped to the ground with a clatter, and he stood.

"You always had the choice, Azurea."

He walked towards her, certainly not afraid of the monster she was becoming.

"It is time for us to take what we want from the galaxy. Take it from those who destroyed our pasts. Take it!"

A fist clenched and rose, a thin, greedy smile of power spread on his lips.

"It is time for us, Lord Azurea, to take the Light apart one Jedi at a time."

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

As though choreographed, Connor skidded back, stopping himself with knee and hand, rose and walked right back over to Setzi after her burst of rage and Telekinesis. She took a small mental step back to marvel at how strong her mastery of the Force still was even after months… a year in captivity? Her eyes flicked to the various habitat objects which had scattered and back to Harrison.

She knelt upon the ground still.

Connor radiated dark energy. He’d drank from the poison well, and now it coursed through his veins, a malignant property meant to build him up at the expense of the human vessel which housed it.

“Not Lord Azurea,” Setzi correct. “Just Azurea.”

It was clear what her old friend wanted, both here on Deneba and also for the future - no more shades of grey there.

But what is it that you want?

Her time had not advanced as his had. Setzi crossed her legs so she sat in the lotus-flower position, more comfortable than her knees and less supplicating. She wanted what she’d had right before status - the bond she and Master Harrison had, the plans with which to follow through - finding Chastity, finding her children even…

He might not like what she was about to say.

“You are powerful, but broken. Your wounds are the design of a pain artist, someone who excels in butchery both individual and hecatomb of the masses.”

Her fingers itched to heal the ravaged skin, misplaced musculature and nerve damage.

“While I’m happy for it to be just the two of us,” she corrected. “In order to do what you want to do, we’ll need infrastructure and support. Where do we go from here?”

No, Setzi would not leave Connor. She wanted exactly what they'd discussed back on Voss. A perfect, joyous life was an imperfect lie, one which she'd long seen through. But to serve under his tutelage, to find her missing loved ones... to perhaps even rescue the poor Xilsaga she'd created and heal that abomination also. This was what she wanted.

[member="Connor Harrison"]