Private (SOLO Story) Jiaasjen - "Integrating the Shadow"

[Lord Dvasius]

Asleep in a chair again, Lord Dvasius was awakened by the sound of booming thunder echoing through his mind. He jerked awake, his head flying forward. His breath was quick and ragged as if more tired than when he went to sleep. He couldn’t remember his dream, but he remembered the horror that came with it. His hair hung in front of his face as he tried and failed to catch his breath, as if he’d run a marathon all night. Only in his head and with his thoughts. The horrors persisted as they did every night, but these felt different, though he couldn’t remember them. Something was wrong.

As he came back to himself, leaning back in the chair quickly and moving his hair from his eyes to get ahold of himself, Dvasius realized his comm was ringing. He pressed the glowing button of the device on his desk, expecting a holographic greeting or recorded message, but it was just a code. His eyes widened. It was the code he and his siblings used when they were in trouble. Really in trouble, Sith level emergencies only. He quickly stood up from his chair, practically jumping out of it, put his cloak on and made his way out to his ship. Wasting no time he started the engine and took off into the black of space, then to hyperspace.

He had a bad feeling. More terrible than usually even the emergency frequency warranted. He’d begin to remember part of his dream. It was a vision. His siblings, an older Sister and a younger brother, in a trap fighting for their lives, Jedi everywhere. Sometimes visions were just visions, but his terrible feeling of its reality wouldn’t go away no matter how he tried to change his thoughts by telling himself he “didn’t know that it was real until it came to pass and saw it with his own eyes”, but that was the fear itself. That he would see it come to pass and the S.O.S. hadn’t abated his fears any. It made it much worse. It felt like the Force itself was telling him, “They’re going to die if you don’t hurry!”

Hopefully the Sith was hurrying enough because he couldn’t go any faster. Tears began to fill his eyes as the feeling of its passing got stronger with every second. He’d summoned his assassins to follow him into hyperspace after him and some were already on his ship with them as they “lived in every shadow”. That’s why they had their name Dvasia ai Hadzuska: “Dvasius’ Shadows”. If it was as bad as it seemed they’d provide good backup to cull the Jedi down, but would it be on time?

 

[Lord Dvasius]

Now Dvasius was sensing impressions, feelings from the Dark Side, encouraging him to the outcome of lethal finality he’d already planned. He did his best to ignore them and focus, waiting for the moment the ship came back to real space again. A mix of fear and endless rage were drawn into the fire of his eyes, brighter flames than they usually ever were today. He was in a trance of pain and hate, typical for Dark Siders, but more personal this time.

At the other side of the hyperspace tunnel there was a mine built into an asteroid, dressed in durasteel infrastructure and inside that a fight between the Galactic Alliance’s Jedi and the Sith forces of Dvasius’ siblings. Almost all the Forceless troopers and soldiers were already dead. Only a handful of Sith and their two white-haired leaders were left on that side to fight the Jedi who were close to claim victory and reclaim ownership of the valuable resources inside the mine.

Dvasius’ siblings… the siblings of the “God of Shadows” looked somewhat like him, but mostly like their shared mother. They all had white hair, but for them it was genetic, not a traumatic effect of the dark Side of the Force, like his was. They must have had some Echani in their blood somewhere, as it seemed to be a family trait. And elf or something: their hair was so long and neat down their backs. Almost what the Lord of Shadows would call prissy. He would call it that. They were Sith by their mother’s blood… and their father’s, unlike Dvasius, but they were not as hardened as he was. They hadn’t suffered like he had. They lacked hatred from a proper and strong source. Their brother was overflowing with it. Drowning himself and any he made contact with in it.

The two white haired Sith in red fought off the jedi as best they could. They wanted to prove themselves, that they were just nobility, but it seemed it was true. They were no warriors and they’d bitten off more than they could chew today, thinking this place was an easy target to conquer and take for Sith hands. It was not, evidently. The forces of Light were all in this place like angry hornets. Except they weren’t allowed to feel anger, though some did. Always did. It was inevitable. Came with being a mortal, sentient being… for most, even Jedi. Especially Jedi and the Jedi of the day were incredibly loose with the code anyway. Just followed the rules of mercy and war, not much else of the old traditions or regarding emotional suppression.

​

Mercy. Mercy spawns revenge.

Finally Dvasius’ ship exited hyperspace, followed by a small “fleet” of smaller assassin ships. They docked and poured into the station as quickly as possible.

“Secure this place. Cut off all avenues of entrance or escape. No one crosses the perimeter alive! Spread out! MOVE!”

The head of the Shadows ran for his siblings as fast as he possibly could, slashing through one Jedi that stood in his way and stabbing another through the heart on the way to them, but it was already too late before he even got there.

 

[Lord Dvasius]

The Jedi believed killing a defeated or unarmed enemy was cowardice and cruelty. That it was murder. Revenge and murder were not the Jedi way so often enemies were brought into Jedi custody or left wounded, believing they’d find a way to survive or find peace in the time they gave them… To die, to bleed out. That was how Dvasius found his siblings. Dying on the floor. He ran down the rest of the darkened hallway to the large open room they were in, where they’d fought for their lives and failed. The station was so damaged in the prior fight that most of it had no power, at least in the form of lights, but the life support systems were still online. Oxygen and gravity still held. Fire was burning everywhere, broken or cut metal and beams everywhere.

​

The Jedi who butchered them appeared to have fled too, afraid to stain their hands and their souls with the deaths of defeated Sith, as if they weren’t murderers already regardless. They called this “mercy”? As his blood died slowly, kneeling on the floor, next to each other, heads down, staring at the floor as the light of their eyes steadily faded with their lives. Dvasius came to a stop right in front of them and they looked up in response to him. The Sith assassin looked down at them in horror. His vision was coming true, he couldn’t save them. Their wounds were too severe and they would die here, all of them having wished he’d arrived sooner, but he couldn’t and their fate was sealed.

His younger brother coughed and some blood came up, which he spat on the ground next to himself. It stained his teeth red. “Haha. They were ready.”

“We were not.”, said their elder sister next to him.

Dvasius was considered a lowborn Sith. His father wasn’t Sith, just some man. A long dead man and an abusive drunk in life. He’d been born with less strength in the Force than most of his family, didn’t have their genetic white hair. Their mother treated him like she hated him and yet she was always there, watching him. His siblings were protected in their lives and luxury. She seemed to love them more for being pureblooded Force sensitives and fathered by her actual husband. Also a Sith and also dead.

His siblings were marked as Sith, had Sith blood, but they were not truly Sith. Not in mentality, which was the most important part of it. They were born in luxury, hardly knew pain, had no reasons to hate or chase ambition when they had it all. The sister was strongest in the Force and the most like Sith in her brand of cruelty, but it was shallow as her hate. Not there. Dvasius however had everything. Everything a real Sith: hate, pain, cruelty, a traumatic childhood and life that never seemed to stop with the pain. He’d even seemed to have died more than once and survived. “A true Sith never dies” and so he had proven himself in her eyes. He was the one she was most proud of. Proof she could make a great Sith, ensuring the direction of his life would lead him to what he was becoming. A vessel of darkness.

Even his abduction and indoctrination into the Jedi as a child, while unplanned, unforeseen, and unwanted, seemed to have been an essential step in his path on the Dark Side. Teaching him -

 

[Lord Dvasius]

- he could trust no one, giving him infinite paranoia of all around him and hatred. So much hatred. He was perfect. Had become perfect in her eyes over the years. A perfect weapon, a perfect Sith. Powerful, ambitious and without mercy to his enemies. No one could doubt she could train great Sith, as she was his master for most of his Sith training after Darth Ophidia.

His mother had completed his training and knighted him Lord in the far reaches of space, away from all eyes and trained him to make his body and mind as strong as his suffering had made him. He was a great Sith. Might even become the greatest Sith there was, the Sith’ari. So she had raised him to be and she never failed. The perfect Sith had to have had the perfect master and such she was, as she viewed herself, thanks to him and her plans. She had grown to love him and more than her other children, even if she saw him more as a weapon than a son. Not even her weapon, just a weapon that knows only hate and only war. Shows no mercy, follows the Code to a T and survived much to come out the other side stronger, meaner and deadlier every time. He couldn’t be held down. He was proud and that had made him powerful. It had also nearly got him killed, but it didn’t.

Even now he’d worked with his allies to create a new body, a new form that was much harder to kill and incredibly long lived, learned techniques to pass on his spirit into it and other forms should he die, needed to or just felt like it. He was all but immortal. Even when he did he wouldn’t stay that way for long if he willed it and he never did, even through the pain. His ambition was too strong, his pride wouldn’t let him admit defeat. He always got revenge every time and now even beyond the grave.

The grave couldn’t even hold him anymore. He was “becoming a god” at last and the whole universe would suffer for it as his ambition stood. Infinite extinction. An empire of endless death. A universe absent of any more pain for him. The only peace a Sith could believe was real. Anything else was a die. Only one could be the strongest being of all and it could only be proven by the defeat and final death of all others. Even the Sith code hinted at this, but most didn’t want to accept this and especially that they were the weak to die with the others, forgotten and gone forever.

But his siblings weren’t gods and they weren’t like him. They were dying on their knees before him. Something he never wanted to see and he could do nothing about. He couldn’t save them. It was too late and their fate was certain. It was just a matter of how long. How long and how much they could take. Tears began to fall down the Sith’s face more and more the longer he stared at the fates of his little brother and older sister. A fate the Force had shown him as if to mock the fact that even a “god” couldn’t save the ones he cared about from dying.

Now he fell to his knees and his white hair went crimson red as a sign of his sadness, like he was bleeding on the inside.

“I thought this would be easy. It would’ve been easy for you. Ha.” The little brother almost choked on his own blood as he spoke, but spit it out to his side, “But I’m not you. We’re not like you.”

 

[Lord Dvasius]

“You wouldn’t have followed this fool here to your death. You don’t follow anyone.” His older she meant it as a compliment, though it sounded like an insult. To herself and their younger brother more than to him. She coughed as well, spitting blood to her side, away from both brothers. She sharply sucked in air, in pain, through her blood soaked teeth, she smiled as she turned her head back to Dvasius, “Sith. The strongest of us. Mom can’t doubt you now.” she said with a pained laugh, coughing up blood again before she leaned against the youngest brother to support her dying body somewhat. He leaned back against her too. Partially to support himself and partially out of love. The two were inseparable, bonded like twins though they were not. They only looked that way, but had a three year difference between them.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t fast enough.”

“Hahaha! This is my fault.”, the little brother coughed again and spat up yet more blood. He grabbed his lightsaber and brought his hand before Dvasius, opening it for him to take. “But you-” more blood coughed out, but this time he caught it with his hand, before dropping it limp, “You will make it right. Hahahaha!!” The boy wheezed as he took the deepest breath he could through blood, “Kill them all!”

​

More coughing from the both of them and a suck in of last, bloody breaths from the youngest brother, “I’m strong, but not that strong. Haha.” The young, dying man’s face got more serious, “I can’t take the pain. Take it. End it. Please.”

“Please.” the sister echoed through her pain, “Please.” as tears welled in her eyes and streamed. All their eyes now. They began to stream down her face, then Dvasius’ tears followed her’s, as he gripped her dying hand, growing ever colder with the passing seconds. It was unbearable even to watch.

“AAHH-HAHA!!! WHY?!! NO! GOD, PLEASE.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We’re sorry. Please, hurry. It hurts.”

“The only way to save us is to end us now. I’m…,” the woman coughed hard multiple times through blood that was choking, more and more as it weleld up inside, “So sorry, little brother. I’m sorry it had…,” she coughed again, tearing apart her own lungs, “to be you. Why does it always have to be you? Huh?” She said, trying to smile, showing pity, love for him. “Never…” she gasped in pain, struggling more to breathe, “... let go.”

Tears streamed down his face as Lord Dvasius took the lightsaber from his brother’s hand. He sniffled and dried his face with his sleeve before he stood in front of them with his eyes closed, unable to look at what he was about to do, unable to look them in the eyes. No matter what they said this was his failure. As the strongest he should have protected them. He should have seen this. He did see this and he did nothing. He couldn’t do anything and now it was too late. He couldn’t watch them die slowly anymore as much as they couldn’t take the pain of it anymore.

 

[Lord Dvasius]

“I’m afraid…”

“Don’t be, little man.” Dvasius said, trying to be brave for his little brother. He still saw his face as the little boy he kept from discovery by Jedi hands all those years ago by sacrificing his own life, sparing both of these two the fate he’d suffer for them instead. But…he couldn’t save them now. There was only one option: to set them free.

The younger brother hacks up more blood in coughing a fit, “You didn’t do this… I- I did. They did. Jedi…”

Dvasius stood in front of the two, closer to his brother, but facing his side to them, looking towards the wall and flames. He took a step back to be more in between the two of them. Then he raised his arm and the crimson lightsaber of his little brother above his head.

“Goodbye, Dvas. I… love you” the young man coughed up blood another time with tears of fear and sadness coming down his face, which was made pale by blood loss. He smiled and laughed through the blood in his teeth, “No mercy, brother. Kill them all!”

“No mercy.”

“We love you, Jacste.”

“Jacstie… Heheh.”, the little brother said, joking between his last bleeding coughs. Normally “Jacstie” would have tried to resist the urge to hit him and fail, for that, but he’d let him get away with it one last time… One last time. The last time… he’d ever hear that nickname and the last time he’d ever hear his little brother’s voice at all. No one else would ever be allowed to call him that nickname ever again, after him… or her.

“Goodbye. I’m proud of you. Him too.” his sister looked up at him and gave the kindest smile she could through her bloody teeth and she chuckled, followed by a wet choking sound, somehow it sounded fearful. And that was the last time he’d hear his sister’s voice. Jacste’s tears were thick now as the yellow light flickered in her eyes.

He shivered. “I love you too… Goodbye.”, The only Sith Lord standing, the last in the family said. His voice broke and rampant tears fell down his face. He couldn’t even stand to say their names with the guilt of what he was about to do looming and he definitely couldn’t look them in the eyes.

The lightsaber came down quick. Back and forth, carving a slash through both of their hearts. It felt as if Dvasius was the one who’s heart was cut in two, both pieces dying with each of them. Tears again streamed down his face, more now than ever. More than he felt he’d ever cried as his sister and kid brother finally died. At peace by his feet. The lightsaber extinguished. He wanted to drop it, but the Sith instead attached it to his belt on his hip.

As his siblings began to collapse in death he blinked behind them and caught them in his arms. Holding them one last time as the light went out in their eyes. The Sith sat there with them and cried as a Sith was never supposed to do and screamed in pain and rage as a Sith was supposed to do. He put a hand over each of their eyes and closed them for them. They were looking into nothingness. And their brother felt nothingness. He was completely hollow now. Except for his rage and his pain.

The thought, “This is all I am. A killer. All I’ll ever be is a weapon.”, passed through his brain as he held them tighter. He solemnly accepted it.

His screams got louder as his breath got faster and faster. “RRRRRAAAAAAAHHHH!!! AHHAAA!!!” The whole station could feel his pain. A full on panic attack, but not one of a past event, but of a horror he was currently in, that really would never end. His family was dead in his arms. His mother still lived, but she was hardly family in any traditional sense. His siblings actually cared for him, loved him. They never treated him like a half-blood or a family outcast that deserved only suffering with only the power he gained to comfort him and keep his company. A hollow prize, but now all he had left. He loved them for that. They saw him. As a brother where their mother saw a weapon or an apprentice at best. A pet project to prove her own superiority through his. He was a “result of her greatness” and his greatness was because of her. His achievements were hers. A tool to feed her ego.

His screaming cries suddenly stopped and his hair went jet black to show focused determination… and anger, “I have a gift for the Jedi.” He said looking up at one of his Shadows. When they saw the two dead in his arms they knelt on one knee in reverence of all three of the siblings. Honor to the dead and to the master. “My little brother and my sister died choking on their own blood.” The assassin before him looked up and Dvasius made sure he met their eyes, deep intensity in his own. Redder, brighter than before. His skin paled and the white of his eyes turned black. Power rose even more in him as he absorbed what of it surrounded, hanging in the air around him.

“Make sure they meet the same fate. Kill them all. GO!”

The subordinate Sith fled as much to obey his orders as from Dvasius himself. His rage was legendary and he’d been known to kill even with no provocation of anger. For fun. There was no fun, only hate left in him fueled by endless pain.

“Get my family out of here so they can have a proper funeral.”, Lord Dvasius ordered as he rose, gently placing their heads on the ground, laying them there in peace. He returned to himself as the assassin, as the Lord and the “God” of Shadows. He pulled his sister’s lightsaber to his off-hand as he held his brother’s in his main hand. His voice and demeanor were calm as if he hadn’t just been crying and screaming his lungs out, though the tears were still on his face and coming out of his reddened eyes.

 

[Lord Dvasius]

He ignited the red lightsabers and held the blades down at his side. His neck cracked as he rolled it and then he flashed his mouth full of fangs, extending them out longer, then retracting them back. One might have forgotten he wasn’t entirely human anymore, he only looked like it. The Assassin still standing in front of him, who wished he had left already definitely, didn’t know and their eyes showed that surprise. They felt like they were working for a demon. Once again a Sith traded their humanity for power and had become a monster.

“RRAAAHHH!” One last sound of pain fueled rage before going completely silent and teleporting to the nearest Jedi. Jedi Shadows everywhere, surrounding. They’d been watching. His Shadows were better. Because he trained them. They fought like him. Well, not as well, but close enough these Jedi wouldn’t stand against them for long. In the flaming rafters he found one, unsuspecting, though they’d been rather worried and wondering where he’d be when they saw him disappear below them. Wonder no more. Their severed head fell far to the floor below followed shortly after by the rest of the body. A small thud and loud crack followed by a big thud and crack.

All Jedi were moving now to fight for their lives as Dvasius’ Shadows hunted them down like the dogs they were to him. Murderers of his own kin. No one had ever made such a deep mistake, no deeper sin against him than today. They’d see wrath quiet and swift, but not painless. They’d feel the brutality of the new Sith Assassins. With his power the fires grew larger and hungrier, but they were still safe from the Tibanna the station was mining igniting. There were safety procedures still keeping the open gas from entering here. For now.

Sith assassins were planting bombs in and out of the station and on the enemy’s means of escape, their ships. Dvasius walked along the steel rafters towards a Jedi wielding one lightsaber against his two. Normally he would have laughed and had fun with them, but that Dvasius was gone. Dead with his kin. He killed them, like he killed his father, but he was Jacste’s abuser, they were his family. Well, soon all Jedi in this place would follow for forcing his hand to that, like they changed his memories and trained him to kill his own kind when he was indoctrinated by them as a small child. They’d pay in spades. They’d pay forever.

Wrestling with the fact of who really killed them spurned on his rage deeper and deeper, but he knew he wouldn’t be here, his brother and sister would still be alive if not for these Jedi so he at least knew which direction to send it. He ran now at the Jedi before him. Their lightsabers clashed as Dvasius leapt over, pinning their lightsaber and their arm back. His other lightsaber came across their hip, cutting them in half. The Sith took the purple lightsaber from their hand and let both halves of the body smash to the floor 40 feet below, at least, then he chucked at downwards, without spinning, at the upper half of its owner. Normally lightsabers had a pressure mechanism so they extinguished when out of hand, but they could be kept lit by use of the Force. Dvasius made sure it stayed on as it came down and stabbed the half Jedi in the heart as if he wasn’t already dead. In insult and to repay the suffering of his own heart and his family’s.

 

[Lord Dvasius]

One last Jedi “Shadow” in the rafters, he clashed sabers with, but he just kicked them off to the ground while they left their gut open to attack. They would have made it if it wasn’t for the lightning he shot at them. The Sith jumped off the rafters after them and shot the blast of electricity at them and another, more powerful, when they put up their saber to absorb it. So much lightning it couldn’t be blocked. It crackled loud, echoing rage. His new body was more powerful. More powerful than the Jedi or himself knew.

The Jedi spasmed as it sent them falling into fire. They might have been able to avoid it otherwise, but now they danced in the flames and screamed in agony as Dvasius landed nearby, some ways away from the fire, completely unmoved by their torment. It was nothing compared to the pain he felt and too much less than they deserved. The Sith Lord walked to the main hallway leading from the big open room he was in to the docking ports.

He stood at the opening near the far end of the hallway, holding just one lightsaber, his own, the flames behind him consuming the whole room he’d come from, highlighting his silhouette and mirroring the glowing embers in his hate filled eyes. To the surprise of all Jedi in the dark hallway the Sith that each of them was fighting disappeared as if to allow their leader to fight all of them alone, like they were his playthings soon to break.

Suddenly he was gone, one with the murky darkness of the hallway. A Jedi felt a warm hand in the dark grab him by the face. There was a loud crack in the darkness. When another Jedi lit their blue lightsaber up where they’d heard the sound come from, all they saw was their dead compatriot, motionless on the floor, his bleeding head leaned against the wall it had just shattered against. They backed up as their heart beat out of their chest and took a defensive stance.

The Sith Lord reappeared with the emergent glow of his crimson lightsaber in the blind spots of that Jedi and two of his friends. Their defensive stances wouldn’t save them if they were pointing the wrong direction. The red saber cut into the back of the first, then again to another one, holding a green blade, but this time it went all the way through, separating the head and a shoulder from the rest of the body. Both bodies fell with thuds, but not before the first Jedi let out a scream of pain. At least he could scream, his friend wasn’t so lucky and his death was instant. A mercy they couldn’t seem to give his own kid brother and his sister. Scum!

The third suffered a rising slash up their own back. It cut deep and through a lung, they couldn’t scream either, at most they gathered the air for a simple gasp. Their blue lightsaber fell quickly from their hands, they practically threw it, and extinguished as it fell to the floor. Dvasius would have laughed if he wasn’t so pissed. When they fell to their knees his lightsaber stabbed down into their left shoulder and went all the way down into their abdomen, making sharp searing sounds as it did. Then the lightsaber was jerked down by the hilt so it was horizontal and most of the blade was freed from his body, by cutting up out of the front. What was left of the blade inside him was freed when his Sith assassin kicked the Jedi in the back to the ground and onto their face.

 

[Lord Dvasius]

All three of them were killed from behind in typical assassin style. Dvasius teleported down the hall and when he came back his saber was extinguished. Then it lit for just a second to cut the face of a young Jedi Knight, with a blue lightsaber, in half. He didn’t scream either, almost, but he wasn’t as fast as Dvasius’ swing. He collapsed to the floor as the Sith’s lightsaber extinguished, leaving the hall dark again. The Jedi left began panicking and shuffling themselves around trying to find where he was and where he’d come from. Even if the light of their sabers reached his direction they wouldn’t see him as he could cloak his form with the Force, rendering himself invisible to most eyes.

This time the red saber didn’t come back on. A Jedi seemed to fall to the floor dead from nothing, but there was a kunai knife buried in his chest that none could see in the dark. The Sith pulled the throwing knife back to his hand with the Force and moved on in shadow. Sith eyes lit up behind them as another Jedi felt a hand on their face, covering their mouth, then a sharp, stinging pain that led to an infinite feeling of nothing at all: death, as the Sith’s knife dug itself deep under his chin and into his throat. With a yank back of the hand it was out of him and he fell to the floor with some gurgling sounds, choking on his own blood and making a growing pool of it on the floor, like his two siblings did, but just a little bit worse.

If only Dvasius could smile right now, but all he felt was quiet hate. Cold and endless. Familiar, but new and darker than ever before. It would be eternal as his life was set to be. As he had assured with his Sith scientist friend’s help. What a good friend, hm? Now he could kill Jedi in infinite revenge forever. That did make him want to laugh, but it never escaped him, like these jedi never would. Let their families mourn as he had to. Let them cry and scream, cry out for revenge and die the same way to him.

“Pieces of shit!”, he thought as he killed another one of them. They needed extinction more than most. This one had both hands holding their blue saber removed by his red so fast it was barely seen then extinguished. Before they could scream or cry they found two kunai in their, under the chin, like their friend before them. They both cut sideways, one side then the other, like scissors opening and closing, then the Sith assassin pulled both hands away fulling slitting their throat open and removing his blades from them as they collapsed to their knees and face, unable to even grab their new neck smile as they gurgled and even spasmed on the floor at his feet. In the dark, but his Tarimra Ntima eyes could still see them writhe for short seconds before going limp and spilling their viscera into the floor.

If the other Jedi could see that they’d probably have thrown up. Weak pigs and dogs with weak stomachs. Dvasius slid two lightsabers down each sleeve and into his hands. He swung both up, making two parallel, burning lines across an unsuspecting Jedi’s stomach and chest. The Sith raised the saber in his off-hand up to slash down on a different jedi’s shoulder and they moved to react, then he ducked down instead and cut off a leg with the saber in his right hand. Then the other saber cut halfway through the back of the knee on the other leg. Dvasius swept his own leg under theirs and tightened it around their lower leg as he extinguished and twirled both saber hilts before activating them into the Jedi’s chest, only then letting them drop to the ground, freeing the lightsabers from the Jedi’s chest as he practically fell off them. There was an empty look in their eyes while their mouth was open as if even they were completely shocked by what just happened, though it was really just the look of a last breath.

 

[Lord Dvasius]

Lightsabers went out again. This time the Tarimra Ntima extended his sharp, fanged teeth and bit a Jedi’s arm clean off to keep their green lightsaber from reaching him. The Sith in a lab-born demon’s body even took their limb in his own hand and beat them in the face with it, then he swept under one of the their legs with his and swung his forearm back at their throat and over, after he dropped their arm of course, to make them fall on their back, but in a different way than the last. Then red lightsabers came back on again and again, both drove into the Jedi’s chest, side by side, exactly like before, but he waited for them to hit the floor this time. How nice. And the lightsabers went out again. Before he moved on the Sith gathered the blood in his mouth from the Jedi's arm he bit off and spit it on their corpse, though it still stained his teeth with red.

Towards the end of the hall they both came back on again. Dvasius jumped up in the air and they both came through a Jedi, who looked about in his forties and bald, shoulder to hip, before he even had time to bring up his blue lightsaber. Another Jedi behind that one rushed in from beyond the side hall, fast. He thought he was smart and sneaky. He caught a lightsaber in the exact center of his chest, even trying to grab it as if he could pull it out while he was dying. He failed, obviously, and the blade pinned him to the wall behind him, well blast door, it was a blast door, before he slid down and let it cut his top section in half. The fool slumped over, blood leaking from his mouth, so familiar. Like someone the assassin knew… once. Hey! They were behind him, LEANING ON THEIR OTHER SIBLING, COVERED IN EACH OTHER’S BLOOD! Blood that was on his hands too. But the Jedi, they had done this! One death wasn’t enough for them. Because they couldn’t finish the damn job!... And he had to… He could never forgive them…, or himself, for this. Ever.

All Jedi must burn. Time to start the burning.

Dvasius called the lightsaber he threw back into his hand with the Force then another Jedi Shadow, young, 18 or 19, tried to sneak out again and caught a thrown kunai in the chest. His kunai were poisoned and so were all his other solid blades (not lightsabers). That wound wasn’t deep enough to be lethal, but the venom on it would make it so. It also paralyzed them, so they lay on the ground, on their side, unable to move or cry out as the burning pain of the venom slowly killed them. Dvasius wondered how that felt. It was justice. For his younger brother, for his sister. If they couldn’t have clean deaths and rest in peace then neither would any Jedi, not if Dvasius could help it.

 

[Lord Dvasius]

Another Jedi Shadow tried the same thing, running for the door to escape outside and board a ship out of there. Dvasius let them as he put on a rebreather. The jedi made it through the second set of doors and outside where he ran to a small Jedi ship. Looked like a drop ship from out the horizontal, rectangular window Dvasius was watching them from. They climbed inside and grabbed the pilot by the shoulder, frantically telling them to “Get this ship moving!”, but their hand went through the shoulder and suddenly the pilot was shown to be a holographic image, that went staticy at their touch. Then the pilot suddenly wasn’t wearing a helmet anymore and they had white hair. They turned around. It was the same Sith they’d just run from!

The hologram of Lord Dvasius laughed manically at them. “HAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHA!!! Die.”

Just then the young Jedi turned to look at the window where they saw Dvasius giving them the finger, but this one’s hair was black. And so it would stay. They looked down at the hologram again as it began to speak some more, “Tick… Tick…, Schutta.”

A fiery explosion lit up the launch platform, killing the Jedi and ripping the ship apart with him. It set off a cascade effect where all the other Jedi ships exploded in their own fiery balls of death from the bombs the Hadzuska had set earlier, shaking the platform even more. The inside of the place shook from it as well. Now Dvasius was laughing. The real Dvasius, not the hologram.

His fun was cut short when a blue beam of plasma flew at him. He dodged it right before it would have killed him and it planted itself in the same blast door his lightsaber went in earlier. The Sith made a “Tsk.” sound with his lips as he looked over with disdain and disappointment at the jedi who ruined his fun. “Really?” Quickly he had to move out of the way as they using the Force to pull it back to hand out of the door. He spun and dropped to the floor, holding himself up with his hands, like doing a push up. Then he turned his back to the floor and kicked off the blast door, landing in a backflip of his hands some feet back down the hall.

The Jedi stepped out from behind the wall he was using as cover into the main hallway from a side one. Their lightsaber met its way back into their hand as they moved to stand in front of him. Then another Jedi stepped out too. Much bigger, taller, with four arms. Dvasius’ eyes widened… and with two saberstaffs. A Besalisk. Great. The smaller Jedi crossed his arms in front of him, all smug and as if chiding Dvasius for being so stupid. The Sith narrowed his eyes, coming back to himself and remembering something. He connected his cybernetics to his shoes and turned on the magnets at the bottoms of them, activating them with the whirring sound they made, so he could stick to the floor when he wasn’t walking around, should the gravity go off for some reason.

 

[Lord Dvasius]

Dvasius did his little sniffle, bored. The big Jedi ignited and swung one of his saberstaffs at the Sith, feeling disrespected by him. Dvasius didn’t even bother to ignite his own as he did a couple other backflips off his hands, easily using his greater agility to avoid the giant’s clumsy movements. Then he stood straight and looked at them again, rebreather on his face and feet magnetized to the floor. He did another snort with his arms crossed, mocking the smaller jedi. Then he faked a cough, “Ahem!” and half extended his left arm, still crossed with the other one, and sent purple tendrils of searing, hot plasma down the hall at the blast door behind the two of them. It thundered, then a secondary boom as the explosive on the door it hit went off with its touch, and all the little bombs it was connected to with it.

Dvasius brought his hand back in, to cross with the other as the Jedi blew apart and their pieces rushed out into the vacuum of space. “Jackass cunt.”, he said before pushing a button on his wrist gauntlet, unlocking his feet from the floor and he flew out of the hole in the station after them. He flew out incredibly fast into the nothing for what could have been forever, had a hand not reached out to his and grabbed him, pulling him into their ship. It was another Sith, one his Shadows, joined by many more in the dropship they were all in now.

Dvasius began laughing with his men, excited that worked and that they’d won the fight, seemingly taking the station. Seemingly. Then he stopped laughing when he saw the corpses of his siblings floating on repulsar-stretchers, covered I white sheets across from him. At what cost. Their lives? This place wasn’t worth shit at the cost of the two of them. Never would be. And it was too far from any space they controlled to keep or maintain in any way. Best thing to do was make sure the Jedi couldn’t have it either. No more Republic blaster cartridges would come out of that place. Dvasius thought he would break down at the sight of his dead siblings, his hair even went blood red again in sorrow before his face hardened into unstable rage and his hair went black again.

The Sith took a detonator switch out of his pocket and flipped the switch. The entire Tibanna mining station went up in flames and blasted apart into smaller meteors that scattered in different directions across nearby space. He didn’t even laugh or smile at the carnage or the thought that the rest of the Jedi inside just died in an awesome, fiery shockwave. He wasn’t even looking, he was staring at his siblings' blanketed bodies. The ship pulled away and blinked into hyperspace as he kept staring. He wanted to ball his eyes out, but he couldn’t here and he didn’t feel sadness anyway, but rage. Boiling, about to go over.

He didn’t remember the rest of the ride, but suddenly, like it had been only a minute, they were breaking hyperspace and settling on approach to Nar Shaddaa and entering its atmosphere. Then he looked around the ship and saw the bloody, broken bodies of all his men splattered all over the place. Their blood was everywhere, except anywhere near his siblings’ bodies, their white blankets were pristine and clean, like snow. The Sith vaguely remembered now as he sat there, leaning with his arms on his knees and gazed around. He’d killed them. Ripped them apart, tore them to shreds and thrown them around with the Force until they were all dead in the mess they are now. He’d been in some kind of trance state. Of traumatic rage and barely remembered. How long was he just staring, not even a part of the waking world around him. Where had he been then? He couldn’t recall.

Just then the pilot chimed in to announce they were landing outside his old house. Where’d he’d once “lived” with his father. If you could call daily abuse from your drunk father living. The small ship touched down and Dvasius stepped out of the opening doors. He pushed the bloody carcasses out of the way with the Force, extending both arms in the air to do so. Then he pulled the repulser-stretchers his dead brother and sister were on out from inside the ship with the same Force. Their names were Cinii and Umbriia, Lord and Lady. Or just Caio and Samantha, as they were born- Selden.

 

[Lord Dvasius]

He walked toward the inside of the manse, but not before he popped the pilot’s head with a closed fist he held up. Then with the other fist he turned around and closed with a down motion then the ship caught flame and exploded. A last act of anger and grief, not wanting anything else to survive this day if his siblings couldn’t. No one else deserved to live as much in this moment that they couldn’t be.

The old house was still blown apart with rubble in the front, like all those years ago when his mother destroyed it for him. Untouched. They did still permanently and legally own it, the family. Or his mother did. Likely people had heard a “witch” lived there and were too scared to go near, believing it to be haunted. It was in a way, but not by ghosts or witches. By memories of a painful past, of a boy beaten and broken of all mercy and innocence by his father, by his mother’s design. What a family.

Cinii and Samantha were never like that, not to him. They cared about him. Welcomed him and accepted him as family, half-blood Sith or not. He remembered the times he’d run off on stupid missions with them, just getting into trouble and always pulling them out of it… but not this time. This time he didn’t save them. Because he wasn’t there. He was too busy being a leader, dealing with Sith politics, like he promised he never would. He’d betrayed his convictions and his family. At the time he didn’t care what they were doing, what they were up to. Until it was too late to wonder, to decide to care. They were dead now and he was walking them inside a literal broken home.

They approached what would have been the door all those years ago. Dvasius lifted a hand to the sky and lifted the rubble away with the Force then pushed it away. He sniffled, trying not to cry as he looked up to the sky then back inside, into the unlit shadows of the old house. He shook his head to the left and tried to keep the tears back as he wiped mucus that was already leaking out of his nose. Then he sat down on the floof and let himself break. “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry. I should have been there. I should have protected you. I saw and I did nothing. I’m so sorry, Cinii… Caio. Samantha. Forgive me. I failed you both!” Dvasius grabbed his head, put it to his knees and he cried until the chauffeur his mother sent to take the bodies home had arrived. He knew she’d send them, that she knew the moment they died, sensed it like he did… and the cold after, left in the Force around them. The emptiness. Almost equal to what he felt now.

The Sith wiped his tears and got up on his feet to walk, to meet them and hand over his siblings. They floated softly behind him as he walked them over on their white covered stretchers. The destroyed ship he came in on was gone, cleaned up and moved by droids that were apparently still here, while he’d been inside. Dvasius approached the slave his mother sent and handed them over with a gentle forward sweeping motion of his arm; they floated into the man’s care. An old man in a black and white tuxedo, shorter than Dvasius and a lot more wrinkly. Bald too. He turned to Dvasius and said, “I’m so sorry, my Lord. They were good people."

“I know.” The Sith Lord seemed unmoved by his words and even gave the poor man the finger.

“They will be missed.”

“I know.” he said again, lowering his head in sadness and moving his hands behind his back to clasp them together.

Dvasius watched as the man gently moved his sibling’s bodies into the vehicle. Then he caught him before he flew off, “Hey!... Thank you.”

The servant smiled as much as he thought was appropriate, “Of course, sir… Oh! And your mother said she wanted to speak with you… Uh… inside the kitchen. Hmm...” He looked around and tried to imagine where the kitchen would be underneath the rubble or if it was humorous.

It was not humorous, not in this situation. Dvasius looked down again in worry about speaking to his mother, let alone about this. The ship pulled up and away. As it flew off he waved and said it one last time, weakly, “Goodbye, guys. Remember, I love you.”

 

[Lord Dvasius]

With that he turned away and walked back inside the ruined house. It was large enough that the destroyed front entrance was barely any of it. Destroying it was more a symbolic gesture for him on the part of his mother. The rest of it was still very much intact. The Sith moved his way through the house to the dark kitchen. A small window with thin drapes as blinds barely let in enough light to see the small wooden, circular dining room table, wood chairs and a sink, right in front of it, full of dirty dishes that his father would have screamed at him or worse about if he was still here… oh, he was. His skeleton is right where his corpse was when he’d left. That’s what that smell was. Well he couldn’t say anything now… or do anything, not that Dvasius wasn’t beyond powerful enough by lightyears to destroy him for trying anything, even words.

He found a can of air freshener that still worked to spray around the room to at least try getting rid of the death and rot smell. It didn’t help much, but it was slightly better. He walked to a chair in front of the sink cabinets, barely in the light and took a knee. Suddenly his mother was in the room, in the chair. Dvasius stood and backed up, pushing the chair behind him that he’d always sat in, away with the back on his knee.

​

“Mother.”, he said to break the silence.

“Jay.”, she said back, sounding unhappy, but she always did.

A full grown man, he rolled his eyes at that nickname, she always loved to call him. Genuinely in endearment, believe it or not. His mother was a tall, fit woman with, of course, long, white hair. She was incredibly pale, ash white. Many had called her beautiful or even “sexy”, though if they said that to Dvasius they wouldn’t get away without being hit really hard or killed brutally was more likely. He obviously didn't think so and especially since she was so obviously and physically corrupted by her use of the Dark Side of the Force. The most similar traits they shared was their red, glowing eyes and their white hair, but that wasn’t the case anymore. Her son’s hair was no longer white, unless he wanted it to be.

“You look different,... son. Did you get… younger? How’d you manage that?” the ashy woman said, looking him up and down.

“Mhmm, yes. Cloning. The Force. Is this really what you want to talk about right now?” the young man said, frustrated at her lack of seriousness, which is usually how other Sith felt about him.

“Mm. Of course not. And you don’t need the attitude. You think I feel good about this either?!”

The younger Sith rolled his eyes again and pushed his tongue into his cheek as he tapped his foot impatiently.

She pointed back at him, silently scolding him to stop. “Alright, listen.”

He almost wanted to laugh at her frustration, but obviously, he wouldn’t right now.

“I loved them too, probably more than you did. I knew them better than you did. I raised them.”

“You didn’t raise me! Fuck you! Who protected them? Hid them when the Jedi came? Hmm? I sacrificed myself so you could have them! You're fucking welcome!”

“I did raise you! You just didn’t know it.”

“That’s not how parenting works! The fuck!?”

“And I know you protected them. You tried your best… we both did, but we couldn’t be there. They wouldn’t listen to us. Those two shared a brain cell and all it thought about was adventure and trouble. So smart and so stupid… What… What was the last thing they said to you? Their last words.”, The woman said, head down, genuinely sad for the first time Jacste had ever seen it.

The younger Sith Lord stepped back and leaned on one foot, sniffling and wiping his face as the thought of them brought him close to tears again. He pulled the chair from behind him and put it between them both, to the side a little. He threw a small holoprojector down upon it and it began to play the scene again for her, recorded on his own optic implants as he’d witnessed it. By the end of it they had tears all over both of their faces.

His mother stood up, wiping tears and even snot from her face too now. She sniffed before looking to her son and opening her arms.

“Come here. It’s okay… Just, come on.” she encouraged him softly, the first motherly act she’d ever done. It couldn’t be real.

 

[Lord Dvasius]

He leaned closer and stepped in to accept it, hesitating, but he wrapped his arms back around her as she wrapped him into her’s. Dvasius wasn’t a short man, but his mother made him look like he was. She was tall, almost unnaturally so. It was always frightening as a child and in many ways he still found her very frightening and this behavior was very weird and extremely unlike her.

“You know, I do love you kids. Did... kid. But you’re still here, they’re not. My only living son, my only child. The survivor. The strongest.”

She gently took him by the shoulders and pushed him away slightly, only to bring both hands to his cheeks and hold him there. She looked him in the eyes and she was crying. This was the first time he felt like her son and not her student or just a weapon she made. His eyes darted around confused and he couldn’t make return the eye-contact, he was frightened by this unexpected kindness. His hair changed color back to white again as he looked at her.

“You’re a True Sith. Worthy to be called my son, worthy to carry my blood. The greatest thing I ever created… H- how did you just do that?”, she asked about the white hair, suddenly changing the subject out of curiosity. She’d undoubtedly go back.

Dvasius just shrugged, mumbling, “I ‘unno.”, very unclearly, not really sure how he did it and not willing to tell her how he got this way or what he even was.

She also shrugged it off, “Whatever. Anyway.” She even talked like him, Dvasius just noticed. So that’s where he got his legendary attitude from. “Listen, you didn’t fail, you did your best. You can’t be there, see everything, know everything all the time.”

“I should.”

“But you can’t. Not yet.” she smirked and he did the same while rolling his eyes.

“I- I know I hurt you, mistreated you. I’m sorry. I- just wanted you to be strong, stronger than they could be, stronger than I could be. You always had such potential, Dvasius, ambition. Even as a child you took the initiative and sacrificed yourself to face Jedi to keep your siblings from being discovered by them. You were four! And showed the consciousness of at least a teenager. A genius and a leader. When they took you and I got you back I had to undo the poison they put in you. Even though it hurt, me too, though it’s no consolation, what you suffered, but you survived. You always survive, son. You are great… and you fuckin’ scare me kid. Your conviction is insane. You’re a far better Sith than me and far more worthy.”

She paused for a moment to analyze his extremely confused face, not even able to process if he was really hearing what he was hearing. Was he? It was so strange.

“You’re the man of the house now, Jacste… Dvasius. Lord of the estates and head of the family, leader of the clan. The last son and future father of the Seldens, who’s children will carry the name. Our line must never end. Not with you, not with anyone. We are an eternal family.” She touched her thumb, with its long, sharp nail, to the center of his forehead. “I pass my power, authority and lands to you, which were previously going to your sister then your brother, my heir. She is dead, so is he, you’re alive, by our ways you are called the strongest and most worthy by your acts and merit. ‘A true Sith never dies!’ Let this be true with you. Make it so.”

“Yes, mother. Thank you.”, he couldn’t think of anything to say, he was stunned. Not by the passing of his birthright, but by the fact she was actually serious and that it was him receiving it.

She let out a little amused, “Hmph.”, just like he would have. They really were family after all.

“You know our family- us, we’re so secretive I don’t even know your name.”

“Not yet.”

 

[Lord Dvasius]

Dvasius scoffed and turned away. She looked amused at his “pouting”, she would have called it. “Mother Sith” quickly moved to change the subject.

“They’re dead. Though we loved them, they are proven weak. To be honest they always were, I coddled them too much. Mwintuska hâskûjontû (‘Pain-coddled’). So did their father, also weak. Use the anger of their loss as a weapon but otherwise forget them. Do you want to be the strongest of all Sith, of all beings, the Sith’ari, or just another Sith dead and forgotten?”

“I want my family back! ALIVE! So fast, how you switched back from mother to Sith master again like that! You know you’re crazy, right?”

“You know, so are you, drida (‘boy’)? They’re dead. They’re never coming back. Accept it or fall behind where they lie. Be strong or be dead. There is nothing else.”

“YOU DON'T GET TO DEFINE WHAT STRONG IS! I’m in charge of this family now, like you said, and I’m in charge of my life! I decide what I am! I decide who I am! So scream in the void!”

Dvasius took his lightsaber in his hand and ignited it to strike at his mother, but she just vanished like smoke, leaving him alone in the room again.

“HAHAHA!!! Good. Good. You are my son and you always will be, drida. Define what it means! Make it mean power, over death, over all of life. Make them all kneel before you and die! They live and die by your will!”

 

[Lord Dvasius]

As he felt the presence of her projection truly leave he kept standing there for a few seconds, panting with his lightsaber in hand. He blew his hair away from his eye, then moved it more forcefully with his hand when it came back. The young Sith was about to lose it again. Time to break everything else before he broke. Or at the same time. Dvasius Force pushed the chair out of his way so he didn’t break it and started screaming while swinging his lightsaber. At the dishes, at the sing, at the cabinets. He tilted his head up and screamed while he clenched his fists at his sides. Everything made of glass in the room shattered into even smaller pieces than he’d just made them. The Sith Lord was in pain, more than he’d ever been before. He felt such grief and rage… and such power. He lowered his head and just screamed at the ground for minutes as the power of the Force literally echoed out of him through the room. He tore off cabinet door and tossed them across the room, kicked hold in them and in walls, utterly destroyed the kitchen. All but the chairs and the table.

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCKK!!!!!!”

He marched angrily to the fridge, which was still working somehow, and grabbed a bottle of his father’s old vodka out of the freezer. He sat in the chair his “mother”, or her illusion, had been sitting in and drank and smoked cigarettes until he blacked out in it.

​

(Dreamt thoughts):

“What have I done? Who have I become?” “AH-HAHAHAHAAA!! You’re me, drida!”

He even heard her in his thoughts and in his dreams. His mother was everywhere and fully in his head. She always would be. At least she would never leave. Her and the pain. With him forever and ever, till one of them finally died.

​

Hours later he woke up in it only to realize it was all real and always would be. Forever. They were dead, gone forever. Over half of the bottle was still close to full. He sat with it, drinking it more slowly, but still, became quickly, wasted. His life was wasted, he thought, done. He took another cigarette in his hand and lit it with fire from his finger as he sat and drank. Periodically he cried or laughed or screamed until eventually he was drunk enough to pass out again. This would likely be the only way he’d get any sleep, if he could, for a long time, though it wouldn’t be peaceful sleep. He’d wake up in terrors, like he always did, but worse now, more terrors and any sleep would only be all too short. So would his life be without a family to call his own.

Might as well kill the rest of the universe and see if that makes him happy. It probably wouldn’t, but it would be incredibly fun at the very least. Force willing it would be so. No, with his will and the Force would succumb to it or suffer too if it resisted, broken like the carnivorous animal it was. If he could see all of their faces in terror before death, all at once, every sentient, everyone, then, maybe he could be complete. Whole. Maybe. One day. For now he would hope to die in a chair, in the kitchen of his childhood family home.


(Another dreamt thought):

“Peace is a lie.”