In Vagrante Delicto

[Ashin Varanin]

You're missing it. Pay more attention. Stop jumping around so much.

SHUT UP​

​

​

Fifteen years ago
Battle of Arcanix
Unknown Regions

Ashin clenched her raised left fist and Obscurus' lightning collected around it. The tension of her focus curled her arm, tightened her jaw, neck and back, and set her feet against the broken floor. She fell to one knee and drove her fist into the floor.

Later, in replay, she would see the broken floor stir, when her hand was still inches away though traveling fast. The energized punch drove up a shockwave of broken stone and shattered the bedrock beneath. That shockwave propagated outward, rippling, a wave of blackened granite mixed with Obscurus' own lightning. The sound almost shattered her eardrums. The wave of stone and current filled the room - it reached the ceiling, rebounded and refocused off the walls. Behind her, the short hall between the galleries collapsed, blocking her off from Asemir and Arksis.

She followed it up by leaping forward on the heels of the thunderous shockwave; the Tak sword came down in a sweeping flurry of strikes against the guard of the Sith Master whose focus and power had kept him safe from the shock front. Blade locked and grated against blade as each Master blurred through a multitude of styles - Obscurus the classic Jedi forms, Ashin Shii-Cho, its inverse variant, Jade Empire swordsmanship and hints of others.

And then, as one, breathing hard, they halted. Ashin's eyes were wide from exertion. Shards of crystal and metal, tied into her many long thin braids, tapped against her breastplate with leftover motion. The black fabric of Obscurus' hooded robe swayed and fluttered; was that a glimpse of a cheekbone or nose under the hood?

"You sense it too," said Obscurus. "The Schrai are on their way. Give me what I seek - and fight with me. I recognize you now from the dossiers, Ashin Varanin. We are, after all, allies under the same Empress." His cold voice was rich with sarcasm - and though she still had never met this particular Lord, she knew he almost certainly had to be either a servant of Darius Malakai, or the rumoured and recent return of Darth Obscurus, Kabal's former Master. Either way, he would know of the coup in the works, to be completed as soon as this business with Sivter was over. He would know her importance to the coup, just as she knew his. Curious as she was about the outcome of this contest, there were more important things - surviving the Schrai, looting the Temple.

She nodded, slowly. She pulled out the datachip from Kishkumen's forge and interfaced with it remotely, using her ComTac. She began to copy the data. "They'll come through that door. The one behind me, well - Arksis and Asemir will be busy for a while, but the Schrai may not get to them. Some of the halls collapsed, between the storm and the explosives."

"We need to focus on our defense of this room," said Obscurus in that cold voice. "I sense significant numbers, and more powerful versions of the Schrai than most have seen before."

"That's what I'm saying. They'll all have to come through that door, and we can turn this long gallery into a killing ground. Once the first wave is done, if we're not thoroughly cut off from Asemir - a useful man, one who faced Sivter and lived - we need to press on, or they'll pin us down. There are other things worth stealing here. Holocrons. Bio alchemy research. I know where some of those things are."

The chip finished copying, and she tossed it to Obscurus just as Schrai boiled through the door. Her eyes went wide again - excitement. She raised her hand and chunks of rock began to rip through the oncoming Schrai. These were the things every Cultist had been afraid of, herself included. Now, battered by shattered indestructible blades and high-velocity rocks the size of humanoid skulls, the metal-armoured insects lost limbs and heads. Ashin ran out of broken blades and rocks fairly soon, and re-using them lacked viability as an option - so she ripped the Schrai apart with telekinesis and used their own claws, spikes and jaws as weapons. She impaled Schrai on the tough, metal-clad legs and arms of other Schrai, given sudden velocity by the telekinetic equivalent of a one-inch punch. People tended to tie their telekinesis to the movements and perspectives of their own bodies; it was a habit she'd worked hard to overcome on the RSA's Praxeum Moon and on Coruscant. By the time the bulk of the Order moved to the Ithorian herd ship in the Corellian system temporarily, that laziness of mind had been worked out of her technique entirely. Her telekinesis was a force of deliberate, even ponderous strength, though it would have been easy to fight in a frantic or chaotic way. She chose each sequence of strikes with care and emphasis, and by instinct. Now she gave thanks for the ferocity that Velok and the slums of Trevel'ka had taught her. Ichor sprayed and fountained, sickening rather than satisfying, but at this point easy to ignore. It was not unlike fighting Charon, except the Schrai were even tougher - less killable by lightsabre or the usual Force techniques.

She knew that if the Schrai got past the zone of death she and Darth Obscurus created together, even their significant power wouldn't be enough to keep from being torn apart. She had to control the range, keep them at bay. A couple of the more durable Schrai bull-rushed their way through the zone of death, stepping on the bodies of the dead and dismembered. She took an experimental swing with her Tak sword; the strange alchemical construct channeled the Force around the blade, giving it the cutting power of a lightsabre but in a wholly different way. The blade didn't bite as deep as needed, not against these living tanks...

She traded the sword for Kishkumen's tomahawk as a Schrai claw bashed at her armour; she fell, rolled to her feet on the unevenly excavated floor, and charged again. The axe blade cracked the Schrai's chest, then bit right through its armoured neck; after all, it could break anything.

She caught her breath, regained stable footing, and returned her attention to the zone of telekinetic death.

And then the first wave of the Schrai was gone.

"Do you sense that? Some kind of control web - calling animals, I think. At least, it has a lot in common with Nightsister control webs. It has to be coming from Okdoro's bio alchemy labs. Care to accompany me, Lord Obscurus?"

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Fifteen years ago
Battle of Arcanix
Unknown Regions

They came to a divergence; they knew it instinctively. Each sensed the potential for gain and loss in two directions: towards the bio-alchemy pens, and deeper into the Shadow Temple. Obscurus and Ashin exchanged a brief and measuring look, then split up. Ashin opted against the road to the pens, more out of gut feeling than anything else.

She found herself walking along a gallery that overlooked a wide hall. Down below, a familiar figure - prehensile hair, vestigial wings, black kimono - faced off with a young man that looked familiar as well. And yet to her inner eye, that wasn't the Akain Karna she'd bumped into at the Jedi Temple back in the day. Oh, no. This Karna was old, cold and hard, embracing the Dark Side, and Cortann's equal - at least.

Apparently, Ashin hadn't been the only one to undergo a transformation.

She burned for Cortann's blood, but she could control herself, and did so simply for the sake of exercising self-control. Besides. If she sensed Karna's power correctly, she might not even get a turn if she tried.

Cortann glanced up. Ashin flinched, but thanks to Contempt, Cortann could sense only the unrecognizable signature she'd perceived the previous night in Kishkumen's forge; that much was certain. Ashin's hood was back up, her face in shadow. She left the gallery, knowing that revenge on the entire Cult took a higher priority - knowing, too, that whatever Akain Karna had become, this particular area of the fight was under control.

She walked by instinct, according to the Jukre way. At one point she ducked into a side room. Moments later, a bald man sprinted down the hall, firing bolts of lightning back at a knot of pursuing Schrai. The Schrai were unending and unrelenting, but the complexities of the maze-like Temple meant that they could be divided. Ashin shrugged to herself and stepped out, knowing that with the battle meditation in action, those Schrai would be after her as well. Only after she stepped out behind them, the Force roiling around her hands, did she think to question why they hadn't hit her already.

By then, of course, she had her answer. Kishkumen's presence flared, and Schrai boiled within their armour. He was one of the old ones, Inner Circle for years, easily the equal of heavy hitters like Velok and Teshran Lor. That he'd regained a body made her question his motives and tactics even more. He'd appeared to her on Dac, and convinced her to embrace the Dark Side fully. The resulting power had transformed her and saved her life, as well as that of Garrett Granth. (The Fourth.) Whatever game he played, whatever side he was truly on, these Schrai were instruments of Sivter's will and they wanted him dead.

Also, he'd made her life hell.

As the Schrai carapaces fell, their empty metal armour glowing with excess heat, Ashin grinned and deactivated her armour with a trick of thought. The Force presence of the traitor Ashin Varanin rippled through the Shadow Temple.

The bald man, breathing hard, took a step back, and his eyes grew wide. "Perceptions are different for the dead," he muttered. "I didn't think you'd gotten this strong - not unless this is what happens when you embrace the Dark. In which case, I'm not hugely surprised. If you weren't already under Velok's wing, and Sirena's, I'd consider you as an heir." The bald, goateed Dark Lord worked as he spoke. Schrai limbs, already hot from Kishkumen's exertion of pyrokinesis, joined and flowed together. A portion of one became a double-edged blade; the remainder was a handle easily just as long, broad at the base, with room for some kind of artifact or crystal. He grasped the floating, red-hot swordstaff, and blackness spread from his hands. The swordstaff cooled with unnatural rapidity.

Ashin was silent. After a time she turned Contempt's effect back on, and her baffled Force signature blended with the chaos that dominated the Shadow Temple.

"Allow me to try something," said Kishkumen. He placed the tip of the swordstaff on the floor and leaned on it, eyes caressing her face. "Temap."

She didn't move.

"Ahh...I can sense it in you. You command that surge of hate, rather than letting it control you. The mark of a true, well, whatever it is you are."

"I have no need for titles." Her voice was bland and tight. "I've had too many."

"At your young age? You make me bless the stars for my luck. Sooner or later you identify yourself based on your titles. When that happens, you cease to command fear. Nobody fears a Sith Master, or a Cult Dark Lord...everyone fears Kishkumen. Arksis Nan. Vok Ruvege. Names, not titles, not Darths or Masters or Overlords or Admirals. Darth Damascus? Of course not. He saw titles as tools - Director of Intelligence. Emperor - but those were simple things, necessary things. Beyond that his name sufficed. Delth Ardin. Never claims Mastery, rank, what-have-you. Velok. Ah, Velok."

And then, belatedly, it clicked. She felt her own eyes grow wide. "You can't afford to waste energy like this while you're on the run. You're making speeches that imply a temporary teacher-student relationship. You're testing me - no, you're making it obvious that you're testing me. And that all means you're bragging, showing off, trying to keep me in my place. Exactly how strong have I become, I wonder, that you feel the need?" She clenched her fist. "You always were a good judge of such things."

Kishkumen's face was impassive now, the rigid features of a man trying not to show emotion. "Considering the next wave of Schrai are almost here, perhaps that's a measurement that can wait for another time."

"Then..." She found herself smiling. "...then keep on running."

His lip twisted. "If you keep going this way, you'll hit the chamber of the Crown. Morikune is in there, I believe. Good luck, Varanin."

"Good luck to you too, Kishkumen."

Several minutes later, she entered the chamber of the Crown, Tak-forged sword in her hands and hood down. He couldn't recognize her presence, but he might know her face.

"Morikune."

DAMN YOU​

That's taken care of. And you won't find it here. You missed it, Halla Kitani Kaijus-Terrablade, Last of the Dynasty. You missed it. In fact I think you may have erased it.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

DAMN​

YOU​

ASHIN​

Enough. I've played along, but you'll get no-

Fifteen years ago
Battle of Arcanix
Unknown Regions

Ashin licked her lips, half a nervous tic and half anticipation. The Crown chamber was dark, round, and relatively large; the artifact itself, a misshapen Sith amulet-crown, rested on a pedestal. "You know," she said to Morikune, "that's probably true. A decade's plans and research, treasure trove from a hundred tombs. I've seen some...beautiful things in this gallery of horrors. But look how very shiny and portable it is. And look at you. You're either a notch on my belt or a rather decent recruit. What of it? We in the Centrality are very good at providing for our alchemists." She hefted the Tak-forged sword, the jian-style blade whose kind she'd trained with during her years in the Jade Worlds. She'd established to her satisfaction that its innate Force connection made it the match for the average Sith sword. It wasn't her first choice of weapon, but she'd start with it. A materials alchemist like Morikune had to know ways of breaking things - as Kishkumen's tomahawk proved. That weapon dangled in the small of her back, beside her own lightsabre.

YOU FETHING-​

I SAID ENOUGH.

Ashin ceded the contest over the sword easily - too easily. The nature of Tak Force Swords was that anyone who even touched them, besides the person to whom they were bonded, would be knocked unconscious by a sudden release of the sword's power. Clad in armour, and possessing both a Dark Lord's battle instincts and the ability to remain conscious, Morikune was still jarred back a few steps, shaken within his spiky plate armour. Kishkumen's tomahawk flipped up to Ashin's hand as she paced him and closed the distance. She swung the unlit sabre with all the power of the Force behind it, and Morikune's jagged, bat-winged sword shattered across the Crown chamber.

"That axe..."

"Recognize it, do you? But then, I'm sure you spent most of your alchemy career under Kishkumen. I'm not sure what his name for it was; the runes have more to do with purpose than identity. That Which Sunders All is a decent translation of the heading. I call it Sundering." She brought the tomahawk down; he blocked with her Force Sword, catching the tomahawk under the blade, inches from her hand. He had a serious reach advantage; she powered up the sabre and shifted her grip. The axehead and hammer backhead settled above her hand as a crossguard. She levelled the crimson blade at Morikune and grinned, flicking her eyes at the Crown. "You know, I suspect neither of us care much about this thing. I still want it - it's interesting, and I'd rather keep it out of the hands of fools - but for me, this is a pit stop on my way to kill the rest of your Cult.

"And for the record...you may not know me, but I did my research while I was here. My hair was shorter then, and I kept to myself. My name is Ashin Varanin. It's a pleasure."

She raised her left hand, parallel with her right which held the sabre, and a telekinetic vice began to close around Morikune's neck. As attacks went, it was simple, but effective for two reasons. First, it impeded his movement unless and until he overcame it. Second, she could put her full power into it without complication. Within about half a second, she was exerting enough force that anyone but a Dark Lord would have been headless. Half measures were for when one was not fighting a Dark Lord.


Get out of my memories. I said enough.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO​

BATTLE OF ARCANIX​

UNKNOWN REGIONS​

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO​

BATTLE OF-​

​

You're deranged, and it's my fault. And I'm sorry for that. But you have no idea how close I am to ending you, no matter what I sw-

Fifteen years ago
Battle of Arcanix
UNknown Regions

Ashin circled around the armoured man - a word she applied loosely to the elfish Sephi/Nagai hybrid. He didn't let her get close to the Crown, obviously, but nor would he take it. He knew as well as she did that the spirit within the artifact was of sufficient power and malice that the time needed to deal with it would leave an opening, and she would run him through. "The armour? Darth Sarastro and Darth Kharonos, Kishkumen's students. And a very special holocron. Also, me. It was something of a cooperative effort...ah. That took me a moment too long, Morikune. You're looking for a weakness in the armour, and you won't find one. Not because there are none...but because it can do this."

The ECM effect ramped up, powered by the shards of La-Reia's Crystal. The effect had scrambled and blurred her Force presence; now it filled the air around her with a mottled, tattered, greyish aura, confusion and chaos and inscrutability. It became more difficult for both of them to sense anything with the Force; if not for her connection with the armour through blood-bonded crystals, she wouldn't even have been able to sense the armour's operation. It was a risky play, but it especially prevented him from finding a weakness in the armour. Too well she remembered Siriss Cortann's shatterpoint ability, and what it had cost the Ossus Temple. No, from that she had learned a great fear of giving the enemy time and opportunity to find a weakness. Especially when it involved the enemy's speciality.

"Not to brag, but I suspect I've just neutralized your major strength. If you got your hands on this," she said, hefting the axe, "you'd have a serious chance. Kishkumen really is an artist. I'm tempted to take it out of the equation - armoured Dark Lord against armoured Dark Lord - and see what we could accomplish. I'm rather fair-minded. It's just that people are depending on me to kill you or recruit you, and to do so quickly. My first priority, of course, has to be the Crown. Now, I know your reputation. You want to do your work, and you leave ambition to Arksis. So here's what I propose. I'm not the first to use this weapon, and I don't have a clue how it works, though I've learned things from studying it. If you join me, join the Sith'ari Centrality as a full member of the Dark Council, you will gain access not only to this weapon but to the Skull Holocron, the cooperation of Kharonos and Sarastro, and the alchemy resources of the Sith. Also safe passage off this world. If you've looked out a window recently, you've seen our ships and our troops. Either we win the day, or Sivter blows everything up and tries to take us all with him - you included. Blast radii and such. I'm not asking you to swear allegiance to me or anything so prosaic; I suspect we'd work well together, and I'm remarkably free of prejudice."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

​

I AM NOT FINISHED​

Ashin approached the altar of the Crown as Morikune spoke; and when the alchemist left the room, she picked up the head-worn amulet between thumb and forefinger. It was shaped more or less like a scorpion, flattened and flexible, made of a metal she couldn't identify. It writhed in her hand, and she gripped it tight, forcing her will on the thing to solidify it into a more eponymous shape. There was a spirit within it, she felt - something old and virulent. In fact she'd never felt such age. She let it go, physically and mentally, and it wrapped tight around her armoured left right forearm. Where its head touched her gloved wrist, she felt fire and cold. A presence pressed upon her, and she withstood it - staggered, but whole. The Lord raged in vain, waves crashing against a lighthouse of clear dark radiance. She sneered at it, repressed her pity, and forcibly completed its binding. It was strong, but she knew strong.

She blinked and swayed, the process complete. A new presence was approaching. She clipped Sundering to her belt and procured her own lightsabre. The sky-blue blade lit up the chamber of the Crown and the pale young man who entered the room. She reached out and felt age - age as a sentient lived, not as an artifact waited. Whoever he was, he appeared to be something else entirely.

"You do look familiar," she admitted. "I sense a portion of the Dark Side in you and you're carrying my enemy's blade. I saw you fighting Siriss Cortann, and you have, apparently, prevailed. That makes you a potential friend.

"I'll tell you honestly. I'm not interested in harnessing the power of the Crown. But I feel, as you claim to, that it needs to be contained, and I simply can't trust anyone to do so. You walk a fine and violent line, I feel. I can't take for granted that you're on the side of the angels. Not that I would trust the Jedi with this - they're too prone to falling to the Dark Side over any little thing, and that lack of self-control is an issue when the fate of worlds is at hand. So no, I won't let you take it. I invite you to back down, or to do your worst."

FORGET HIM​

REMEMBER ME​

Ahhhhh. Now I'm starting to understand.


Jedi Council member, female, narrowed it down to - well, when she was a Jedi, two, and every high-level Sith knew who was on the current Council. And Faye Ward had only joined, well, not long before Ashin got poisoned. She had no idea if Ward had history with Sivter - but nobody had more history with Sivter than Kalja Leidias. If this unique individual was truly Kalja Leidias' Padawan, well...

She could theoretically bring this fight to a halt right now. If he was Kalja's Padawan, he might know about the infiltrator team, might even know her name. Technically, Kalja had sent her here - healed her radiation poisoning forty-eight hours ago - had worked closely with her at Mon Cal, melding battle meditation with Jukre tuning. She wouldn't call Kalja a friend, exactly, but she felt like Kalja trusted her. She didn't know Akain was telling the truth, and he wouldn't know the same about her. Not without the kind of mind-to-mind contact that left one vulnerable. Nevertheless, she knew enough of the right details to convince him of the truth, if she wanted to. Amusement curled the corners of her mouth. Teshran and Morikune swayed, the Schrai annihilated, Obscurus bought off - every piece of opposition she'd found so far had left her unsatisfied. She wanted a good fight. A fight to the finish.

The amusement faded. Only now did she admit to herself the depths of her need for revenge against the Cult, and she almost regretted turning Morikune. Sivter himself was likely beyond her, for now, and he might be dead before she learned what she needed to know. Taking the Crown, which had cost so much Cult and Jedi and Brotherhood blood, was all she could do.

"Labels. I hate them. The more of them I get, the less accurate they are. I am who I am - not Darth anything, not Master anything, not Lord or Lady. I respect you for maintaining a similar level of realism." She raised her arm, brandishing the artifact. "I refuse to yield the Crown I can't trust it to a private collection. I'll make no attempt to send you after greater threats; we have both found our niche in this fight." She gauged the chamber once more, evaluating it for what her gut told her would be a far different fight. Morikune had been a specialist. This one might be as well, but instead of impractical, showy armour he wore something much more utilitarian - lightsabre resistant or not, she couldn't say. He moved like a career close-range fighter, and she'd learned in a harsh enough school that she could last against the best blade-to-blade. Survive. But overcome him? Not at close range. The chamber was featureless stone, lacking easy telekinetic weapons. Then she sighed. She was used to thinking like a Knight.

The altar of the Crown ripped itself from the stone floor. She hurled it at him; he got out of the way with simple adroitness, and the altar shattered against the wall. Pieces of stone - altar, wall and floor - battered him from all sides, as Siriss had shown her so long ago. But Siriss was a specialist in telepathy...and Ashin was not only more powerful, but more balanced. The storm of broken stone assaulted Akain.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

THIS WORTHLESS-​

Akain Karna was many things, but worthless doesn't quite sound accurate.

FORGET HIM​

REMEMBER ME​

It came upon Ashin in combat prescience first, by seconds - by the skin of her teeth - a sensation of hot, smoky air fountaining up around her neck, wrists and armpits. The schutta might set her clothes on fire beneath the armour. The padding itself was fireproof, difficult to combust even for a pyrokinetic, but the bodyglove beneath wasn't. She'd assumed that the fuzzing, scrambling aura would prevent anyone getting their mind in that close for the kind of detail work required to rub molecules together and create heat. Obviously she'd been testing it against the wrong people.

But she was still a disciple of Velok, one of the greatest energy manipulators alive.

As she switched her focus from telekinesis to tutaminis, rocks fell to the floor. Hot air spurted out of her armour's joints and up around her face and neck. She pushed the energy away, collected it; as the fringes of her clothing fell in ash through Contempt's gaps, and her hair crisped, her flesh remained unharmed by the heat. But now he was close, too close, with lightsabre and Kusanagi raised, ready for a true fight. She threw the heat at him in a rippling wave, designed not to burn but to radically and briefly alter the air pressure around him. The pressure decreased, then increased again, and she saw him blink as his ears popped (in the non-harmful sense). That was her opening. She sensed his reliance on instinct and peripheral vision; he knew he could defeat her at close range, and he had to suspect she could defeat him at longer range.

She raised her sky-blue lightsabre and stepped into his advance. His copper blade and the legendary kiai'ta'na crackled and hissed against her weapon, snapped and grated off her left bracer which she used to defend. She fought a straight Shii-Cho game, simple but essentially perfect, relying on instincts honed in firefights across the Unknown Regions - and in this very temple. She'd learned Shii-Cho from the Masters of no less than four Jedi Temples, and neglected all other Forms to learn it. Her timing was broken, erratic, unpredictable; her stances at once fluid and solid. Her opponent relied on solid styles like Djem So, Soresu, and even Juyo or Vaapad - she was unclear which. The difference, after all, was supposed to be as much a matter of heart as of technique, and plenty of people tweaked Juyo and claimed to know Vaapad. The matter was academic. Bottom line: while he appeared familiar with her range of moves in terms of Shii-Cho, he didn't seem to want to weave it through his fighting very much. In fact, she suspected he was less familiar with Shii-Cho than with other arts. It was an instinctive realization in the back of her mind; she fought in a state of no-mind, a state of flow, her single blade matching his two. She wasn't good enough to defeat him at this range; that much was now certain. But she could give a good account of herself, sabre and indestructible forearm plate against sabre and sword. Kusanagi shaved lacquer off the bracer in chips and ribbons of blue, red and gold; the copper lightsabre melted the lacquer clean off where it struck. He maneuvered her around the chamber.

And in the meantime, Ashin got the measure of him.

"You trained with Jedi," he said. "And you...fight like one."

"Surprised?"

He batted away her latest riposte with casual ease. "Jedi fall all the time."

"Sometimes it's even by choice," she said, deadpan, and launched into a controlled flurry that actually drove him back briefly. The chamber of the Crown was not large, and rubble cluttered the floor. He set his feet and pressed in, seeking to take this to extreme close range - a risky move, but he was a career martial artist and she simply wasn't. Oh, she'd done her time with Jedi unarmed combat instructors and commando hand-to-hand in the Jade Empire. She'd learned the old ways from Nakamura-sensei, but her strengths lay in other areas.

She kicked him back, taking a glancing lightsabre strike to the shin, and raised her free hand. The domed ceiling shuddered and cracked; rock fell to block the door first, and then the whole thing came down, a rent mass of angular or shattered stone. The entire chamber collapsed, and she stood inviolate in the centre, rock stacked around her. Dust and echoing thunder clotted the air, which so recently had yielded to overpressure that she'd foresee in time to defend her eardrums. Far above her was the ceiling of the next level, a wide-open chamber. Huge chunks of black stone rose from the rubble and formed a crude throne. She sat upon it.

"Your quality will be known among your enemies before you ever meet them, Akain Karna." The name came to her mind - Knowledge by Instinct at its finest. It meant nothing to her. "I'm glad to know I could survive against you blade-to-blade. It's a risk I was glad to take."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

FORGET HIM​

REMEMBER ME​

FORGET HIM​

REMEMBER ME​

Panic gripped Ashin as the inexorable force drew her towards Akain. Kusanagi rose - no, he couldn't deliver the blow. This force had him in its thrall as well. Even as she shunted away the new heat, she drew upon bond-tracking and traced the power back to something embedded in his chest, something broken; from there the bond leaped away, and she caught a glimpse of a spear. The image thudded oddly in her mind.

But it was nothing compared to the sensation of having Shadow Poison drawn from every cell in her body. The spear wasn't getting it all, oh no; as with all Sith Poison, it acted like a bioweapon, propagating out from even the slightest infection. Given enough time, it could purge her of the poison - give her her options back. Give her back her freedom.

She refused to give it that time. Not because she didn't want the poison gone, but because nobody - nobody and nothing - constrained her like this. The Spear was not the only artifact in play. The Crown shivered in her gauntlet, and she drew upon its malevolent, corrupting power in ways its creator had never anticipated. She drained and channelled that power, and applied it to the grip of the Spear. Entropy itself warred against a power that had a stake in preservation; that explained Akain's youthful face and old soul. The overwhelming Spear-grip shattered. Ashin arrested her own fall, touching down lightly; the Crown radiated a cold white light that repelled the Spear's influence. The oozing poison levitated to dance between them. "It's an unusual fate," she said, "getting this in your blood. Having your agency circumscribed. When it happened to your Master, she chose to forsake the Force. Me, well - I tried that. Kalja Leidias doesn't live in the real world. Her friends and family can defend themselves, as you've so amply shown. Mine couldn't. They killed my mother and my Padawan. They went after my friends, and my lover. So I used the Force. I did what needed to be done." The poison floated to her, and she placed it in a small vial. "I won't consign you to my troubles, Akain Karna. I could aerosolize it, oh yes - but that's not me. And I get the feeling you've had your share of hard knocks."

Her face went slack; she half-turned away, walking through the rubble of the Crown chamber, walking in circles around him with her blue blade ignited. A weak Cultist peeked over the collapsed wall from the next level up; he glimpsed the white light and promptly transfigured into a ravening, distorted monster. He leaped or flopped over the edge and she bisected him. "I'm so tired, Karna. I've done so much, tried so hard. I feel like in twenty-seven years I've lived lifetimes. I trained at the very first Jedi Temples, the hidden RSA facility, the Coruscant temple, the herd ship that followed it. I've perpetrated revolutions - the Jade Empire owes at least some of its existence to me. I've taught an entire generation of young Sith the virtues of order, discipline, justice, teamwork. I was a kid with no real Force power to speak of. 'The Force is weak with this one,' they used to say. I worked my tail off, and it did nothing. I got kicked around the gutters of the galaxy, poisoned, abused, chased. Then two or three strange things happened, not of my doing, and I was suddenly strong. Too strong.

"Your...spear...could give me back the Light Side permanently. But I don't believe the Jedi understand it properly, in this day and age. I don't even believe Sivter understands. The Dark Side is selfishness, arrogance, malice. Increasing my focus with anger, passion - those are paths to darkness, but Jedi and Sith alike mistake them for the finished product. The Dark Side isn't a power source, Karna - it's who you are. It's using the Force wrong. Forgive me for waxing extemporaneous," she said with self-mocking humour. "I've wanted to say all that to someone who might understand, for a long while now. I'm surrounded by Sith who see things predictably; before that, I knew Cultists and Jedi who thought the same way. It's such a danger to the Jedi - the idea that if you're using serenity to access the Force, you can't be in the wrong."

The white light faded around the Crown, and the overwhelming sense of entropy and corruption drained away. More Shadow Poison dripped from her tear ducts, marking black tracks down her cheeks. She wiped her forehead tattoo with the back of her hand: it didn't run or weep. This spear's power was taking only the Shadow Poison, not the four or five other varieties of Sith Poison that swam in her blood. The only functional difference was a matter of agency - did this spear care about her freedom of choice? It seemed incredible, but it was the only thing that made sense.

"And now here we are. Two Jedi students old before our time, disdaining title or affiliation but understanding their uses, nursing secret purposes and grudges, bound to ancient artifacts of ridiculous power. If I hadn't so recently taken hard radiation to my ovaries, I'd suggest we make a baby. That, and Garrett Granth has first dibs." Her voice was dry and self-amused. "My name is Ashin Varanin, and your Master sent me here. Now will you try again to take the Crown, or will you go with me to do what must be done?"

 

[Ashin Varanin]

FORGET HIM​

REMEMBER ME​

FORGET HIM​

REMEMBER ME​

"...well."

Ashin drew back a step, hands on her hips. A grin danced. "I've had my share of strange dreams, Karna. That's so convenient I'd take it for an illusion, except - ae - I've been illused by the best, and - bee - I can sense where it's coming from. A spear, elsewhere. Heh. Me with green eyes - never would have thought it. As potential futures go, that's fairly appealing. The green eyes, I mean." She eyed him for a long moment.

"Here's my thought. I may regret this, because it won't be the first time I've said it, but let's put this on hold. We're standing in what's effectively a pit of rock in the middle of the enemy's home. Outside, tens of thousands of soldiers, battle droids, Cultists, CCOs, Schrai and alchemical monsters. We're close enough now that my implant is picking up battle chatter, and I got a status update while I was fighting Morikune. There aren't many serious power players fighting on the ground out there. The two of us could make a...significant impact."

WHY WOULD YOU MAKE COMMON CAUSE WITH SO MANY​

AND BETRAY ME​

AND BETRAY ME​

Because I needed to be hated, Halla -- and I know I'm talking to a shade, a nothing. A memory imprinted in the Force. But I'll talk this through regardless.

I cut you off from the Force as Quintas began. I drained you dry; I nearly killed you. That was my sacrifice; that, and the hate that came from it. My reputation. I want to be loved; I want to be liked; I want to be respected more than anything, Halla, and I hate myself for it. When I hurt you, everyone I'd ever served with despised me instantly. It was the sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice -- and I reaped the reward. The ability to see every piece of the puzzle. I am a disciple of Lumiya. I gave until it hurt, and I used that ability to reshape the galaxy. I have done more with what I took from you than you'll ever know, because you're dead. You're gone. There is nothing left of you.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Ashin Cardé Varanin opened her eyes in the Gallofree transport, with New Cov's filtered light coming down through the open hatch. She'd half expected to be naked, not in a sexual sense; the experience had exposed her, embarrassed her. There were no hostages, there was no trap. There was only the faint outline of a woman she'd once known well. Her first apprentice, the Empress she'd destroyed. But in the end...

"I made you strong, Halla. You were a better ruler as my enemy, without the Force. That, too, was part of the sacrifice. You had to hate me to grow up. And now you're gone."

The less-than-spirit's mouth moved without words.

"Now you're gone," said Ashin, and closed her fist on reality.

Then true silence fell.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

And there it sat, on the dusty, overgrown chair from which Engel had governed this ship. Conveyed there by the spirit, maybe, if echoes like that had any power, or perhaps what remained of Halla Terrablade had found a mortal vessel. There it sat, one final indictment: the Crown. It needed no other designator. Alchemized metal bore the dull sheen of well-polished iron. Heavy. Kyber crystal shards, cut and polished, ornamented it. As the disjointed, jarring memories faded into normalcy, Ashin picked up the ancient Sith amulet.

She'd burned the spirit out of it, forced the segmented amulet to settle in this shape, and subjugated every element of what resulted. She'd let it be imbued with the experience she'd faced at Quintas and Arcanix, the accretion disc, the storm tearing apart the Cult of Shadow's temple. She'd reinforced that imbuement as a way of shelving the knowledge that threatened to tear her mind apart -- and as a way of giving the amulet something to use as a capstone, once she'd stripped out everything to do with the rakghoul plague. The Crown had been a weapon of unparalleled terror in its day. Fifteen years ago, fresh from her coronation as a Sith Lord, she'd remade it into something that she could now admit she hadn't understood.

Force Storm. Such a simple, straightforward name, so ambiguous, so often used to describe lesser things. The power to rend space and hyperspace in a controllable way, turning the laws of physics and the strength of aperion against the things that one hated most. Force Storm had many rules, but that was the greatest, at least of the variant she'd learned: only hate could target it, and to lose contact with one's hate -- or be severed from it -- was to lose control of the Storm. Spencer had a different connection with that particular power, but that was neither here nor there. And in the end Ashin could admit there weren't many things she hated enough to destroy like that. Not anymore.

In a very real way, she suspected her old hate had been Halla's anchor, spirit or just echo, if there was any difference. But ultimately, Ashin had made the Crown what it was, and everything else she'd made had changed with her, changed to be more like her. Colder, harder, defensive.

With the Crown under her arm, she climbed out of the hatch and stood on the hulltop of the old Gallofree transport. She looked out over the city, looked up at the dome that covered it and her, squinted at the jungle beyond the glasteel, and put on the Crown.

And nothing happened. No knowledge poured into her; she'd long since incorporated all of that, come to terms with it, and if access had been that easy then Halla could just have learned storm-making from the Crown. No Force Storm erupted; she felt no overriding hate, certainly not here in the city where she'd spent her childhood. No Sith spirit attempted to take over her body; she'd annihilated the Crown's creator fifteen years ago in the aftershocks of a Force Storm not of her own making. No surge of power imposed itself on her; she felt the contained strength of the Crown, quiescent and patient. She touched the Force through it and felt only an echo of herself as she'd once been, an echo that had changed of its own accord with the intervening years.