End of the Line

[Bryn Celli Ddu]

The freshly graduated teen was just thrilled to be done with high school finally. Now all she needed to do was earn the highest degree in her self defense class and really get started on life.

She walked blissfully unaware that she was being followed and her life would soon be far different for her than what it was now. Celeste was on her way to the classes and would be away from her parents for several hours. More than enough time for her to be kidnapped and stolen away before she was missed.

Imperial agents had been sent to subdue and collect her. A painless dart hit her and she fell to the ground. They had waited until the perfect opportunity and gathered her from the only lonely area on her route between the two locations. Darkness took her and she didn't even know it...

[member="Vanessa Vantai"]

 

[Onrai]

When she awoke she would find herself on a table. A collar would be around her neck and electrodes would be placed upon the single-piece garment she had been changed into. This was a deliberate act by her captor, a blonde woman who currently paced around the table.

“Back... I’ve been back, and I need something - some sort of student.” She said. The only others within the room were a medical droid and two men wearing damaged and battered Sith Empire stormtrooper armor, jury-rigged and cobbled together beyond all recognition. The woman had only just returned from the void that was the Unknown Regions, and her personnel were yet to have fully restocked and replenished their stores from the newest Sith Empire’s coffers. Yet here was an opportunity to provide something anew, to help build up the infrastructure for her next grand plan.

“Ah, she’s stirring. What is your name?” Vanessa inquired. She began to focus, slowly easing the darkness of her presence into whatever cracks of the woman’s untrained mind existed. The process of reforming this woman into something truly spectacular was going to be tedious, but she would succeed. Of that she was certain.

[member="Bryn Celli Ddu"]

 

[Bryn Celli Ddu]

The teen tried to sit up, but didn't make it very far. She also quickly discovered her arms and legs were bound as well. Dark eyes look at the blond and narrowed. Struggle was futile and she gave up on her struggling. Some resolve to accomplish that burned in her eyes even if she just laid on the table.

She could see some of what was around her, wondered where she was and what was going on. Not to mention who the blond was.

"Celeste Heable. Where am I and who the feth are you?"

With the limited movement granted to her, she flexed her toes and clenched her fists. Opening and closing them as if she wanted nothing more than to break out and beat up her captor. Not to the death, just to the point where she could escape and return home.

Then she looked down to see what she was wearing.

"Where are my clothes?"

[member="Vanessa Vantai"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Bryn Celli Ddu"]

"No, your name is not that." She would soon be shocked by the electrodes. "You see, that is who you used to be." Her pressure would continue to be applied to Celeste's mind. It would continue to ease into her, breaking down her mental barriers and working to annihilate the traces of what her identity was beforehand. "Your name is… Bryn." He said. "Yes, Bryn." She said. "Don't worry about your clothes. This is a far more useful garment, after all." She smiled, thinking for a moment as she continued to ooze into the woman's mind.

"You will be the first of a new breed, Bryn."

 

[Bryn Celli Ddu]

There was defiance in her eyes when she was told that wasn't her name.

"It is who I am! Aaahhh!"

Squinting her eyes and trying to clutch at her head, even though her arms were bound, Celeste ended up just banging her head back down on the table and giving herself a headache. Shaking that to try and clear the stars from her vision, her eyes remained narrowed and she tried to keep the pain at bay.

Speaking through slightly clenched teeth, "my name is Celeste."

What the blond meant about the gown, she didn't understand. Sudden fear came into her stubborn eyes though.

"New breed of what?"

Without her knowing it, bits and pieces of her memory were falling away. Vanessa had gone back to the beginning of her life and was working her way forward. Right now, she still knew her name to be Celeste, who her parents were and where she was from. Those first happy memories were slipping into the nether and lost though.

[member="Vanessa Vantai"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Bryn Celli Ddu"]

"It is not who you will be, Bryn." She said, as more of her essence pervaded into Celeste - no, into Bryn's mind. She would begin the process of losing herself, of losing her identity as Vanessa continued onwards. "What you are going to be is a new breed of warrior." She said. "You see, a lot of the soldiers under my command are in absolutely poor shape. Some of them have injuries I haven't been able to heal. Others are missing fingers and toes. Others still have unfortunately lost arms or legs, requiring me to augment them with cybernetics the best I can. I am going to be testing a procedure on you that will allow me to help them have a better quality of life. To be the soldiers again that they once were." She replied.

"And you will be a tool of immense usefulness to me, my sweet, sweet, Bryn."

 

[Bryn Celli Ddu]

Celeste had been physically trained to fight and defend herself, but that had not and could not have prepaired her for the mental assault she was being subjected to. What might have been just a few minutes or hours, her memory of who she had been faded and her mind was now an almost blank slate.

The muscle memory of her training remained along with the loyalty that she had been raised on. Celeste Heable ceased to be and the new person only known as Bryn emerged. She was ready to be primed by Vanessa and stared at the blond with a stupid look. Until she reprogrammed Bryn with whatever she wanted to her know, anything Bryn had previously known was pretty much gone.

Next to nothing remained of Celeste.

"What use will be?"

Her tone was flat, unemotional. No defiance remained in her eyes or expression. They did take in the others in the room and thought nothing of what pain or suffering the might have. When Vanessa spoke again, she brown eyes searched her for anything.

[member="Vanessa Vantai"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Bryn Celli Ddu"]

"Experiment." Vanessa said, now that Bryn had been suitably purged of her past. "You will be coming with me to the laboratory where surgery will begin." Once she had motioned for Bryn to follow her, she would get her to lay down on a table as she would soon be injected with a heavy dose of anesthetic, enough to almost immediately render her unconscious. The last words she would hear would be "sleep tight" from Vanessa. While the woman was unconscious, she would remove her limbs and provide her with the biofiber implants, along with cybernetic augments across the rest of her body. She would be the perfect soldier, the perfect warrior - someone that could be trained into the best.

And yet there was a twinge of guilt.

 

[Bryn Celli Ddu]

One word was given as an answer and the girl gave little to know reaction to it. Just a simple nod of understanding. She did not know what was wrong with her to require surgery but she didn't really care to know either. The restraints were removed from her and a motion was given for Bryn to follow the nice blond woman.

Hopping off the table and not caring that she was only dressed in a hospital gown. Any sense of right or wrong had been purged from her with everything else that had once been Celeste. She laid down on another table as she been helped to do. A brief sensation of pain came to her and she looked at the needle with no fascination at all.

As her eyes closed, she could have sworn the blond told her to sleep well.

There were no dreams or any sense of time. When next Bryn opened her eyes, one of them felt odd and her vision was off. However, the teen was calm. She gave no voice to anything and listened to what was going on around her.

[member="Vanessa Vantai"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Bryn Celli Ddu"]

"There we go." Vanessa said, smiling. The droids had performed their surgery well, and with it a new construct was born - Bryn was a proper cyborg, augmented far beyond whatever her future soldiers would be. She would help Bryn off the table, and would smile. "Alright... Are you feeling alright? Answer honestly. If you don't feel alright after the surgery, please tell me and I'll do whatever it is I can to correct it." It was very nice, all things considered.

"How do you feel?"

 

[Bryn Celli Ddu]

Her recovery was being observed and as soon as she opened her eyes, the blond was there to greet her with a smile and helping hand. Though she was calm, she felt a lump in her throat form and she swallowed it down before accepting the hand and standing up. Without any sense of her own strength, she might have squeezed the hand a bit too hard and accidentally bruised it.

"I feel fine, but my vision is funny."

Letting go of the hand finally, she held her own up in a motion that would become a habit for her. Opening and closing her hand a few times, she started to try and walk. Her body felt heavy and she moved slowly.

"What is wrong? I can't move well."

[member="Vanessa Vantai"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Bryn Celli Ddu"]

“You’ve been augmented.” Vanessa replied. “It really is the simplest way for me to explain what I’ve had done to you. You’ve been fitted with enhanced biofiber prostheses to allow you to have more strength and endurance than a normal human being. Your skeletal structure has been reinforced with laminanium in order to help you heal from fractures and other terrible injuries. As well, we have made sure you will survive as needed with enhancements to your respiratory and digestive systems. You now utilize all the nutrients within food, as well as can breathe effortlessly in low oxygen and poisoned environments without any sort of respiration. One of your eyes was also enhanced with artificial lenses and a HUD display, which should allow you to have a greater sense of sight in it as needed.”

Vanessa concluded her words. “There’s not much else to say. Take as much time as you need to get back into a shape you feel suits you. There was a lot of surgery done to your body - I’ve managed to eliminate the scars, but you still have significant amounts of tissue damage that you need to let heal. Relax as much as you can for a couple of weeks - or if you want, I can give you a bacta bath as needed.”

 

[Bryn Celli Ddu]

The teen blinked one eye and then the other, once again she blinked them together. Raising and lowering her arms and legs, she did listen to what the blond was telling her. Looking at her when she finished stretching, she appeared confused.

"Who are you? Who am I? What am I?"

All of this was going to take time for her to adjust to, but first she wanted these questions answered.

"Will there be further surgeries? Why were they done?"

More and more questions came and all Bryn could do at the moment was stand there and ask them.

[member="Vanessa Vantai"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Bryn Celli Ddu"]

“I am Vanessa Vantai, a Sith Lord within the Sith Empire.” She said. It seemed she would need to add a bit of basic information to her conditioning. “You are Bryn, a woman who had a dead end life, and who is now a cyborg beyond all compare.” She said. “There will be no further surgeries. They - that is, the augmentations performed on your body - were done in order to test certain procedures intended for helping wounded Imperial veterans, whose lives have been otherwise destroyed by their wounds. You have already by being a test subject helped a dozen of the first batch.”

Vanessa smiled, patting Bryn on the head. “I’ve known many of these people for decades. Thank you for helping me help them.”

 

[Bryn Celli Ddu]

Bryn knew nothing of Jedi or Sith and accepted what Vanessa said with a stoic face. This expression would be something the teen would almost always have. She was relieved when she learned there would not be any further surgeries. The thing was she didn't understand why that should be a relief. Nor did Bryn fully comprehend why Vanessa was thanking her.

"I don't feel like I helped with anything."

Whatever had happened to her to get her here, she didn't know either and looked at Vanessa. Her real eye saw her just fine and her cybernetic eye saw almost somebody totally different. She could almost see the make up of what made Vanessa. Like she was looking at her with a high powered microscope, she could see everything inside of her.

Shaking her head and raising a hand to cover that eye, that would be something to practice with along with the rest of her body.

"Why and how did I come to be here? I know nothing of before going to sleep."

[member="Vanessa Vantai"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Bryn Celli Ddu"]

"You have." She said. "I know it doesn't seem it, but you have. As for the why and how... I needed you, simply put. What you were before means nothing - you were indeed a different person once, far different from what you are now, certainly. But the fact remains that it is not important. What you are now is Bryn. A loyal, trusted, and devoted servant of myself, Vanessa Vantai." She smiled.

"Would you like a hug?"

 

[Bryn Celli Ddu]

Her mind was still pliable and the soothing words of Vanessa helped put Bryn at ease. Turning around a few more times, she stopped and brought her brows together.

"You have two names. I only have one. Am I only Bryn?"

Some memories of her past did remain and she nodded at the offer of a hug. She knew what they were and how a hug made her feel. Opening her arms, she indicated more of her want for one.

[member="Vanessa Vantai"]

 

[Onrai]

“What name sounds suitable to you?” She hugged the disciple she had created, a perfect blank slate to forge, alter, and remake as she needed. “Brynhilda? Bryncelli? Bryntonic?” She was completely throwing out words at this point, having given admittedly little thought as to the naming of her newest minion. Perhaps it was a lack of care, or perhaps she was merely pondering over the future capabilities she would be able to showcase.

She paused for a moment, then looked at Bryn. “I believe you may need socialization classes in order to better help you interact with people.” She concluded. As it was, the fact that she was a blank slate was also not beneficial - she was also free of personality, which was rather frustrating given Vanessa was attempting to forge a relationship with her.

[member="Bryn Celli Ddu"]

 

[Bryn Celli Ddu]

Resting her head on the shoulder of Vanessa, the girl listened to the suggested names and liked the sound of one. Wanting to add her own touch to it as well, she picked on Bryn Celli and added Ddu to the end. The way it rolled off her tongue made it sound a little exotic to her young ears.

"Bryn Celli Ddu. I like the sound of that, thank you."

There was one aspect of Bryn that clung to her. She was polite even if she was socially awkward. Most teens were and just came with the territory. That might not have been something Vanessa realized, but the classes would certainly help her in the long run with life.

"What am I doing wrong?"

[member="Vanessa Vantai"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Bryn Celli Ddu"]

"Bryn Celli Ddu?" She said. "Rolls off the tongue a bit weird, but if you like it, that's what matters." she said. She pondered over how polite Bryn had been when it came to selecting the remaining portions of her new name, but shrugged it off. It was the name she wanted, and who was Vanessa to say she couldn't have it? Especially after she had personally been responsible for destroying the person Bryn had been beforehand.

"Well, you aren't doing anything wrong. That said, you - as in, what you are now - are new. You haven't really interacted with people, socialized or otherwise learned how to typically involved yourself in society. So we'll need to get you those classes in order to best help you out." She answered.