Lost in the Dark

[Darth Abyss]

A lightsaber lock against someone with two lightsabers was nothing less than suicide, and Abyss knew that he would not win this fight by overpowering her. Again he moves back, trying to keep the distance between them as long as possible, by using the basic steps of from two and using his lightsaber to randomly stab in her direction. He knew that for every meter they would go deeper in the cave, the dark side would grow stronger, would make him stronger, while her abilities to use the force of the cave was limited by her lack of passion. It was only a matter of time...

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

In any other situation, Mara would be growing more confident now that her opponent was backing up, except this time around he was backing further into the darkness that Sith were trained to harness. She had never fought a Sith before, but even if he was fully immersed in the Darkness he was still only an apprentice like herself, and Witches, she knew, were more powerful than Sith on average. Otherwise she would be a Sith.

As she followed him further into blackness, Mara opened herself to the Dark Side, letting it reside more fully in her without ever dominating, coming dangerously close to the line between neutral and full darkness but never crossing, absorbing as much of the cave's power as she could without letting it take over. Sometimes you had no option but to fight fire with fire.

As each graceless lunge came at her, she blocked them off swiftly and countered the attacks, but neutralising an attack was not the same thing as eliminating it and so in a single, fluid movement she clicked her blades back together into a saberstaff again, holding it in one hand, and with the free hand she put all of the power she could muster, both Light and Dark, evil and good, into a blast of Force energy that would begin to choke her attacker.

[member="Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

His old lightsaber hits the ground after the sith feels the grip around his throat. Both of his hands on his neck, a reaction of his body even tough he knew that there was nothing his hands could do. He could feel the lack of air inside his body, he could feel pain slowly building up inside him. He tried to make the pain into anger, but he was stopped by another emotion: Fear. The fear of death, the fear of failing the sith, fear of failing himself. Like a burst of fire the fear starts to from into hate, hate that was filling his body burning away any tought of death. He was completly acting on instinct by now, unleashing a blast of telekinetic energy aimed at her.

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

Mara could feel his life Force begin to drain away beneath her grip and was in the middle of an intense debate with herself over whether to let him live when suddenly a huge blast of telekinetic energy smashed through her grip. Instinctively she brought her lightsaber up to shield herself as the wave of energy pushed her backwards but immediately she leapt to her feet before the Sith could take advantage of her position, steadying herself as she spoke, readying herself for she knew that her need to have the last word would provoke an intense and deadly duel:

"There you have it. You fear death above all else. And that, Sith, is why you will never be stronger than me."

[member="Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

He was breathing heavily, his body trying to balance out the lack of air from being choked. The words felt let daggers inside Abyss mind. Fear was useful sometimes, but in the end it was a weakness he was ashamed to have. With a gesture of his hand the lightsaber was pulled back into his hand, the red blade once again igniting out of its hilt. In his eyes was a fire, but not the mad aimless inferno from before. It was replaced by hate, still burning like a thousand suns, but now compeltly focused on her. Guided by the dark side, his answer presented itself in from of a order of fast lightsaber swings and stabs, almost randomly switching angles between each of them.

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

Now this, Mara thought to herself, was pure, untamed anger. The Sith would surely make his master proud...assuming Mara allowed him to live. Although to be fair, now that she had given him a little nudge, he was no longer an angry child and had turned almost instantaneously into a rage-fuelled weapon. True Sith power against true Witchcraft - the victor would win based on skill alone.

Twisting and turning like a dancer, Mara let her arm become the saber and let the saber strike wherever he was weak, defend wherever she was. While teaching herself to fight Mara had looked at birds, dancers, anything that moves with grace and skill and subtlety so that she could be a skilled and graceful fighter too. Wherever he attacked she blocked, wherever he didn't defend she attacked, never pausing to let her opponent catch his breath. Finally she decided that she was bored and brought her lightsaber to his head so that the Sith would be defending up there when she sent a hard, powerful kick at his chest.

[member="Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

The kick sends the Abyss back a good bit, he struggels but manages to stay on his feet. One of his rips was broken but the pain was nothing more than a note in the back of his mind, simple fuel to keep the fire inside him alive. The effects on his body on the other hand were less trivial. His already heavy breath took on a unregular pattern, the rip pressing on his lungs. The young sith realized that he could not keep up in this shape, as his endurance would be inferior in his compromised state. Time to even the field a little bit. His sword raised over his head, he jumps into the air towards her, in what looked like an desperate attack. Instead of swinging his blade down on her, he instead crashes into her with the full weight of his body.

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

Mara only managed a small moment of satisfaction as she saw the Sith begin to flail before he leapt up in the air, raising his lightsaber. Switching one blade of her saberstaff off so as not to impale herself, she held the saber up waiting to be able to push back as he landed. The lightsaber never came, but gravity had not stopped its course, leaving only one option -

Before Mara could finish the thought she was crushed under the Sith's body weight, gasping for breath as the wind was knocked out of her lungs. Trying to think through the sudden, painful disappearance of oxygen, she brought her knees up to her chest. The pointy toes of her boots hopefully would cause him enough pain that he would retract enough to let her push herself out from underneath the Sith and wriggle free and to her feet. Hoping that the impact of the blow would have him winded enough to give her a second, she pushed one foot down on his back and held her lightsaber to come within milimetres of the back of his neck. With any luck, he wouldn't notice that she was still struggling for air.

[member="Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

Abyss could hear her struggling to catch a breath even over the loud noise the lightsaber that slightly hoovered over his neck. Its was not over yet. The immense pain he was experiencing allowed him to tap deep into the dark side and was the only thing keeping him conscience. He had hold back one last trick, it was a gamble at this point but he would rather die than surrounder to his faith. Bending the light around him, he attempted to cloak himself, making him hard to see in the darkness of the cave. It would not save him from the lightsaber but he hoped it would surprise his opponent enough to remove her feet from his back and roll into safety.
[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

Mara blinked in confusion. The Sith had gone, and yet he couldn't have. She could still feel him beneath her heel - no, she could no longer feel him, as though he was slipping away...
Slipping away. Mara's frown turned to a smirk as she realised that the Sith had tried to trick her. Wheeling around, she kept one foot on his back and the other right in the direction he was going. Then she touched the tip of her lightsaber to the ground beside her, letting it scorch a small hole through the dirt.

"You fought well, I'll give you that. Yield, apologize, and I shall forget this ever happened." Mara brought her lightsaber slightly closer to his crumpled form to explain what would happen if he did not do as she said.

[member="Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

For a moment the young acolyte tought of just letting her end him, so he would not have to live with this failure. It would just be a moment, a quick cut trough his throat or a stab in the back ... by far not the worst way to die ... No, he would not die today, not like this. As the fire inside him starts to slowly fade and once again become a small light in complete darkness, he could feel the pain creeping trough his body. His teeth pressed together in pain, the sith forces an answer out of his mouth.

"The dead have no use for honor."

He had paraphrased Revan to justify to himself what he was about to say:

"I surrender. I apologise."

Both words felt way more painful than any injury he had taken in the fight.

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

With a small smile of satisfaction Mara switched off her lightsaber and moved aside. She waited for a few long moments after he had stood up to see if he was going to attack her now that her guard was down, knowing full well that hate and vengeance were core components in Sith motives but also wondering whether fear would get in the way. Still, if he attacked again she could hold her own, and if not she could simply continue as she was - basking in the deadly beauty of still darkness.

[member="Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

The sith slowly rises from the ground, his breathing getting back to a more regular pattern. Every part of him screams for revenge, screams for him to cut her into small pieces in a storm of wild swings. He knew that he would not win. In a uncompromised state he would maybe be able to take her down but not like this. Revenge would have to wait until his hate for her would emerge powerful flame, strong enough to rip her into pieces. They would meet again when he gained the full potential of the dark side, even when it would take years to hunt her down. The acolyte slowly walks trough the cave, picking up his lightsaber that he dropped when he crashed into her. In an rather inelegant move he drops down to ground once again trying to fall into a meditative trance. Every time he could feel his mind connecting to the cave the sharp pain in his chest gained his focus. After a few minutes he gives up, looking at the witch. Reluctantly he asks her:

"Is there a chance that you know how to perform healing trough the force?"

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

It was hard not to feel a small sense of victory as the Sith asked Mara to heal her. The spiteful side of her said to leave him as he was, on his knees and in pain, but Mara had too much control over herself to let it take over. He wanted to kill her enough as it was, and as a Sith that hatred would fester the longer it took for him to find revenge. The more hatred she gave him cause to feel, the likelier it became that he would actually win the fight when it eventually came.

She regarded him with a mixture of amusement and pity for a moment, then spoke. "Stay still. You might want to observe in case your next defeater isn't as nice as I am."

She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, intertwining her Force abilities with the ones that the cave was generating, before directing the Force energy towards the defeated Sith and weaving the power through his injuries, healing them as fast as she could - the immense darkness of his Force signature made her feel uneasy.

After a few moments the Sith would begin to feel the pain lessen gradually until he was almost fully healed, and when he did Mara would draw in her powers, opening her eyes.

[member="Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

Under the surface his hate for the witch and his wish for revenge was still burning inside him, but on the outside he was calm. He watched her healing his injuries both with his eyes and in the force, the expression in his face looking more like that of a scholar reading a book, than like a that of a deeply corrupted sith acolyte. The fact the she could draw power from the cave and use it to heal him fascinated and unsettled him at the same time. Could she use the dark side to heal him or could she draw the light out of the dark power of the cave. Both options would suggest that she could use the force in a way he had never heard about. Once again he ask her a question this time less reluctant:

"You can use the dark side to heal someone?"

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

As she completed her healing, Mara observed the Sith's reaction with interest. It seemed that the notion of using the Dark Side to heal had not yet been introduced to him. Well, she had always hoped to one day make use of the wisdom she had gained and intended to keep on gaining.

"The Force is the Force," she explained calmly, "and the Force can heal. In time you may learn to use the Dark Side to bring back those who are on the brink of death, but until that day you would meditate, connecting with both sides of the Force and with it. Here, try it."

Without warning, Mara pushed her connection with the Sith back into an injury that she had left not fully healed and opened it, leaving a gash on his arm that would be painful but small enough that an amateur could heal it.

[member="Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

The pain in his arm was sharp but bearable especially for someone who followed the path of the sith. He reflected on her words. It was true that in theory the force was the force, but from what he could extract from the books and texts he read since he discovered his connection to the force the reality was not that simple. His understanding of the subject suggested that the natural form of the force was the light, and the dark side was a corruption, a manipulation of the light by these who have a connection to the force. Still he had seen her using the dark side to heal him, and if she was able to do it he should be able to do it to. The sith focuses on the wound, letting the force flow trough it. After a few seconds he makes a pained noise, the color of the wound transformed into a sick and rotten grey, even more than the rest of his skin. With an angered glare he looks at the witch.

"Tell me your secret. Now."

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

"I have plenty of secrets, Sith. Now heal your wound. Go on, believe you can do it. Desire it, want it desperately."

Mara sat down on a rock, regarding him with amused intrigue as she thought over the many secrets that she held. Some were her own, some weren't - she prided herself on having discovered secrets held by ancient beings, secrets nobody had known in eons. Some she withheld because they were embarassing, some because they were deadly, some because she had sworn on her life never to spill them. But secrets were secrets, and she shared her secrets with noone, let alone the strange Sith who had attacked her moments after meeting her. Mara still had her principles.

[member="Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

Once again he focuses on the wound on his arm, letting the force flow through it, but this time he instead of using mainly his anger, he used the his desperate need to heal his wound. Within a few seconds the wound slowly starts to heal, but the process was creating immense pain for Abyss. After he almost completely closed the wound he looks at the witch with a hint of satisfaction. The hate for her was pushed back in a corner of his mind, waiting to emerge one day, but for now she was not his enemy.

"I tell you what witch. I might not be a man of honor but you showed me a new way to use the force. I can return that favor ... of you are interested."

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

Mara smiled, neither warmly nor coldly but completely apathetic, and raised her eyebrows.

"Well done. That was good. But tell me, Sith, what is it that you can show me?"

She stood up, eyeing the man opposite her from head to toe, keeping her expression impassive but underneath, trying to decide what it was that the Sith could teach her, what it was that he would want to teach her. After all, even if she hadn't just humiliated and defeated and nearly killed him, Mara was hardly a likeable character.

[member="Abyss"]