Souls at Zero

[Lassiter]

“That’s it then?” The bartender asked as his eyebrow perked. “The deed is done?”

The woman before him never offered a response. She merely withdrew a small parcel from a satchel that was hooked to her belt and slid the envelope across the bar towards the skeptical tender. He picked it up in surprise, thumb stroking the sides of the glossed ball resting between his index finger and his ring finger. The look of surprise shifted into a brief moment of disgust and then back to lighthearted curiosity.

“Never did understand why he wouldn’t go for cybernetics.” He shrugged. “Guess it doesn’t matter much now. Let me get your pay.”

He knelt down to withdraw a small chip from a box underneath the counter. The woman took it with a gleeful smile, nodded her head in a thank you and went on her way. She always had liked this particular contractor. There was rarely ever any questions asked and the few questions that he tended to ask were always on-point and relevant to the job she had performed. He was simple in all the best ways.

Stepping out into the busy city street she pocketed the credits and went on her way, yet before long she felt a presence grow ever stronger around her. The sensation of someone powerful, someone dark. She stopped in her tracks and tried to ever so subtly play it all off as if she was busy sifting through her pockets. In reality she was expanding herself to try and sense where he was. Or she, for that matter. The signature seemed to come from down the road.

Her brow perked. It was growing closer, her eyes darted out towards it and…

That guy.

She couldn’t remember his name or where she had seen him, but she knew that at some point she had been around him. The curiosity got the better of her and she waited for the man to pass her by, if he did. For the first time in a long while, she would follow someone through the city without the express purpose of murdering them.

No, this time it was all curiosity. Who was he? Why did she recognize him?

[member="Vengeance"]

 

[Kenrath]

Vengeance had given up hiding. Too many people recently had tracked him down, too many people knew he was still alive. For the most part it had been rather pleasant encounters. Neutral or friendly Sith looking for a fresh start or a friendly face since everything they new and held dear had come crashing down. He was walking through the market district softly whistling a little tune when he felt it. A familiar presence he had not felt since he was an Acolyte.............someone he had fought during a tournament. Then again he made a point over remembering every Sith and Jedi he had fought.

From Vaildra trying to kill, to the water world acrobat, the trash pile two step, and his personal favorite hacking off a chunk of Mythos' face while another hung back like a coward. He remembered them all. Even this one..................the only female Sith he had fought but not beaten.

It seems as he got closer and saw her that his presence had been felt but not recognized. He watched her little fake fumble around horribly trying to look inconspicuous while doing it. He smiled...................time for a little fun. As he passed by her he turned and looked at her for a brief second with a smirk before moving on. He used a reflective surface outside of another shop to confirm she was following him.

Every few shops completely at random he would suddenly stop and appear to be talking to a shop owner before moving on. He did this for a good half mile before ducking down an alley and leaning against the wall just down the alley waiting for her to walk by. He even went as far as to suppress his presence removing a good portion of the dread feeling most people got around him. To seem just like another morally grey presence........to throw her off.


[member="Lassiter"]

 

[Lassiter]

[member="Vengeance"]

Did… He just smile at her? Sena raised her brow for a second as the thought struck her. Had he seen her? What were the odds of that, right? She was a professional hitman, she knew how to blend into crowds! Even when said crowds would consist mainly of her own little servants. Not that such was the case right now, but it was the thought of it that mattered. She clung to the crowd and kept her eye out to see what he was doing.

Talking to shopkeepers. Was he an entrepreneur perhaps? Investing in small business perhaps? Money laundring scheme. That’s what Sena would have done if she had the power and pull to do it. A hitman emporium masked as a laundromat business. She could envision the conversations, and now that was all she could think about. Enough to forget what it was that she was doing. Tracking someone. Right. Her eyes peeked over at where she had last seen the man. She spotted him leaving the store and continued to tail him.

… “Hi, I have a particularly annoying prick I can’t seem to get off my shoulder…” …

Sena snickered. Maybe one day. Not now.

She got her head back into the game only to find that the man was… Gone?

She looked around her in surprise and confusion trying to think of where he had gone. It was as if he had just upped and disappeared. She took a deep breath and sighed. He must have continued down the road she figured and continued to look for him further along the avenue.

It wasn’t often that the girl let her imagination run wild, but go figure it happened during that one moment in which she really didn’t want it to happen.

Oh well, he couldn’t have gone too far. She’d get the answers she wanted out of him.

As soon as he also thought of the questions she wanted answers.

Today was a strange day.

 

[Kenrath]

Vengeance smiled as his little ruse worked watching her walk right by him and further down the street. Part of him wanted to follow her for a little while and keep the game going. However it risked her giving up and ruining the fun.

Instead he waited until she for a few feet away and then slipped out of the alley and in behind her.

"You're slipping....................been neglecting your training perhaps..................or maybe just over confident."

As soon as he finished speaking he stopped taking a step or two back and melting into the crowd of people walking the same direction she was. After a minute he smiled using a favorite trick he liked to use to mess with people a few doppelgangers of himself littered the crowd popping up in various spots around her. Some obscured by the crowd and some visible to her.

[member="Lassiter"]

 

[Lassiter]

In some regards he wasn’t wrong. The girl had let him into her personal space without having the ability to defend herself. Playful daydreaming was never a valid excuse to getting yourself killed. Daydreaming was an excuse for the lazy to remain idle. She’d make a note to make sure it didn’t happen again. The goddess didn’t accept failures, there had to be a punishment for this but what it was remained to be seen. For now there were more important things to focus on. This was, by all means, a challenge.

Looking through the crowds she tried to spot him only to find herself with a familiar situation, one that she usually placed onto others in her place. Several different men walked the streets, but only one of them was the one. She tried to place herself in his seat. What would Sena do if it was she who was playing a game on someone else?

Murder them came to mind, but this was a wide open area with far too many witnesses for even her to subdue.

But there was an option that was fairly similar to what she wanted.

One after another, for each copy of the man she saw she would take the reigns of a nearby pedestrian, all of which would promptly proceed to swing their fists straight at the man’s face in an effort to find the one man that reacted the most… Organically.

“I will find you.” She muttered under her breath as man, woman and child alike started taking swings at head, shoulder, knees and groins.

[member="Vengeance"]

 

[Kenrath]

Vengeance laughed.............laughed so hard his whole body started to shake...................well each of his bodies. His prey of opportunity and chosen the completely wrong way to try and figure out which was the real him. Violence tended to make the average person run in terror. This left room to simply back away and avoid each individual strike directed at him and his doppelgangers.

It was a plague among Sith. They were easy to anger and when angered they got reckless. It was a lesson he was constantly trying to teach Anya. Control your emotions and you can control the outcome. It would have been smarter for his prey to either recognize the best chance to catch her off guard would be from her blind side or to focus on the Force itself. You can make a doppelganger appear like the real thing but not exactly copy their presence in the Force.

After a few minutes of the little game all of the versions of him would shoot towards her aided by the Force a blink would miss it. From behind her a millimeter from her ear his whispered.

"And now you are dead......................game over"

Just as he finished saying it he would leap back a few feet and wait for her to turn around the doppelgangers vanished from sight.

[member="Lassiter"]

 

[Lassiter]

[member="Vengeance"]

You never really got used to the feeling of being surrounded, much less when all of the people that surrounded you were carbon copies of the same man. Whispers in her ears said she was dead, but had the man wished as such of her she would have already been bleeding out on the floor. She turned around, much like he had predicted. The clones of him disappeared and before her stood the man that she had been far too busy chasing. There was after all a distinct difference between the average man and a Sith or even a Jedi when it came to chasing them down. For one, the average man wasn’t able to literally sense you. The woman didn’t really chastise herself over her mistake as much as she perhaps ought to have.

She continued staring at him in the hopes of remembering where she had seen this man but it all blanked out, he was just another face buried under the heap of others. She had never been one to care for names, or faces, or remembering anyone other than those who were important to her. Her dead Master, Ameli, the higher ups in the Ember of Vahl, those that helped her find purpose. At least to a degree. She remembered those that had use for her. That was it.

“I can’t place you.” She squinted at the man. “I know you from somewhere.”

“... But where?”

 

[Kenrath]

Vengeance smiled giving a little chuckle.

"Do you? Know me?"

His smiled grew wider.

"You see standing in the middle of the road fumbling through pocket isn't very subtle and even less convincing. You should know what's in your pockets............you did after all put it in them. Not too mention it means you will do anything it make it look like you are not watching someone.............including looking away when they stop walking."

Vengeance began to slowly make a wide circle around her.

"It is how I was able to lose you in the crowd..............not the mention of all the ways to track somebody you had to use the most the least accurate one..........your physical sight."

Vengeance chuckled wondering if she would turn as he circled or let him slip behind her again. It was after all a fun little game to play.

"You see people rarely bother remembering people they feel are beneath them."

He paused.

"The problem with Sith is they feel everyone is beneath them."

Vengeance smirked.

"Me I remember everyone................I make it a point to. Especially when it pertains to particular events."

Vengeance stopped circling squaring his shoulders facing her.

"Like when the One Sith decides to test all of their respective force users in a tier tournament of champions. A bit on the nose but then again that is what happens when the victors are already decided before the first fight even begins."

Vengeance took a breath.

"The particular event you can't seem to place was an Acolyte division three way battle in a scrapyard..............it was a long time ago so I am not really surprised you have forgotten it."

[member="Lassiter"]

 

[Lassiter]

[member="Vengeance"]

He was lecturing her. She was quite aware that fumbling is not how you avery attention, being deep in thought was not how you stalked someone. He had a point with the physical sight, but the girl had hardly been in control of her nerves at the time and he wasn’t all that wrong about forgetting people that were beneath her. The girl was full of herself most of the time and this certainly wasn’t an exception.

And then he got to meat of it, the actual reason why she would remember him.

“I lost that.” Sena said as she began following the man with her eyes. “To a drexel.” Then she patted her abdomen. The man went out of her sight and she stopped spinning, kept a more metaphysical eye on him until he re-entered her field of vision again. “He got me in the stomach.”

“Byt you, you were the one guy in that junkyard and then there was the other guy. The pale, white-haired guy.” Sena nodded. “I remember you now.”

And if memory went to serve she had won by… Well, she wasn’t quite sure what she had even done to deserve that win. If anything it was all just a big fuzz and that alone was reason enough not to think of it.

Yet considering which of them had the biggest presence in the force, perhaps in the end it shouldn’t have been her.

“Well, you got me this time at least.” Not that it made her pride any less busted. “What now?”

 

[Kenrath]

Vengeance chuckled

"We all lose..............and it is okay to lose." "I am sure your Masters have told you differently." "What is important is what you learn from that loss."

Vengeance began walking further down the road motioning her to follow.

"We like to consider ourselves the pinnacle or power and ability...........untouchable to all." "As you learned from the Drexel there is always somebody better." "What I like to teach Acolytes is to fight smarter............to not fight based on your strengths but based on your opponent's weakness."

He smiled.

"You think losing to a fellow Acolyte is bad...............trying getting tossed around by a Jedi Grand Master as your Apprentice watches."

He chuckled remembering meeting Corvus.

"What now? Is there a what now? I was simply enjoying a casual stroll.....didn't know you were here until well...........you know. Why are you here?"

[member="Lassiter"]

 

[Lassiter]

[member="Vengeance"]

It wasn’t as much something her masters had told her as it was something Sena had told herself. Failure was dangerous and could more often than not lead to death and losing had been ingrained as a full-fledged failure at this point. Part of her wanted to scoff at the comment about the drexel being better, but that was hardly appropriate at this point. She listened to what the man had to say. Learn from your mistakes, fight smart and not with brute force. It was good advice, she’d grant him that.

As for being thrown around by Jedi…

… She still found herself bruising her ego over her loss at the hands of the armored kid all those past invasions ago. If getting tossed around by the Grand Master was bad, then what was to be said about being played like a fiddle by a teenager in a jacked up suit of armor?

“I was wrapping up a job.” Sena shrugged at the man. “Saw you, figured I’d get a sense of why you were here.”

“... Started with messing up right from the start.” She stared at the ground. “And you haven’t killed me yet, so I am only going assume you don’t find it in your interest to do so.”

“... Yet.”

 

[Kenrath]

Vengeance glanced at her as they walked.

"And what possible benefit would I gain from killing you? Have you harmed or committed some great offense against me? Besides messed up? I guess that would depend on your goal. If it was to indulge on the curiosity of why I am here then I would say you have succeeded."

He smiled.

"I have spent a great deal of time in exile intentionally removing myself from galactic events. With the fall of the One Sith a fair number of former allies and enemies alike have been interrupting my solitude. So I have stopped trying to be invisible."

Vengeance stopped.

[member="Lassiter"]

 

[Lassiter]

[member="Vengeance"]

She tried not to smile, but there it was. The man was oddly charming in a sense, like talking to a father. Not necessarily your own father, Sena would never have the luxury of knowing what that was like, but someone else’s father. There had once been a time when Sena had been ordered to murder the loving father of four at the order of his wife. Her chosen method of performing that particular job had been to infiltrate his circle of friends. Yet in the end she knew that she had to do it.

It had been the one job she regretted the most, his face of shock at her betrayal one that she never forgot.

She listened, she followed. He had nothing to gain from murdering her no matter how odd the mere concept struck her as. She had a wallet on her, most people did, and as long as people had credits you always had a way of earning money by killing them. Even if said money was in a quite literal sense pocket change.

“I tried to move from the One Sith to the Triumvirate. Even had an associate of the new Sith Order come and try to bring me into their ranks, but I refused.” Sena was surprisingly open about it. “Call it a case of being disillusioned, perhaps.”

“The Sith have seen a lot of decline lately.”

“Works just as well for me to be on my own at the moment, I’d think.”

 

[Kenrath]

Vengeance chuckled.

"Disillusionment is a very common thing."

He paused giving a brief smile.

"If you will permit me I would like to share a story with you. I must warn you though I have gotten a little long winded in my old age. It drives my Apprentice crazy I image."

He chuckled a moment before he began the story.

"You know I was never meant to be Sith." "I lived alone with my father who was a soldier.........a calling I mostly likely would have followed him into." "However when I was 12 a hit squad broke into our home in the middle of the night." "Who ever sent them had known his skill set but not my force ability.............feth I didn't even know I was Force sensitive until that night." "Two of them and my father died that night............the third got away."

Vengeance instinctively clasped his hands behind his back as they walked and talked.

"From that night on I devoted my entire purpose in life to getting stronger not in the pursuit or world domination but in a quest for vengeance against the sole surviving murderer and who ever sent him......................."

Vengeance smirked briefly.

"..............hence the moniker." "I never had a Master...........I spent years claws, biting, fighting for every inch or training and respect that I earned." "Fighting more battles than one could ever recite from memory on more worlds than I bothered learning the names of." "Combined with meeting Timoris I had everything I could ever want or need."

"Though one can't be around that many Sith of varying view points and personalities without beginning to see the cracks." "I began to experience the first evidences of Acolytes with famous names still practically children themselves barely able to hold a sword or tap must less control the Force being revered as practically Lords already."

He paused taking in a deep sigh.

"It was not until I fought Corvus Raaf on Contruum that it really began to fall away." "It is amazing how easy it is to off balance an opponent when you know some of their darkest secrets before they even know your name." "I still lost the physical battle though." "What amazed me however was not the ability that Corvus had but her comfort in her lot in life and those around her."

He glanced over at [member="Lassiter"] for a moment.

"She felt so secure in her Order.............so confident it her place among those around her that she willingly and unapologetically sacrificed her own flesh and blood to support code and cause." "I am not afraid to admit while I didn't comprehend it I envied her for it."

 

[Lassiter]

[member="Vengeance"]

Sena was no stranger to seeking vengeance or devoting your life to something. She had always wanted to seek vengeance against the slavers that had harmed her, yet she had forgotten the name of both the planet and those who had kept her. She had devoted her life to the Ember of Vahl and their struggle that just spoke to her. They looked for home, and while Sena had found hers she never really felt as if it was her own. She had nowhere she belonged and it left her wandering cluelessly. Her being on this very planet, as an example, was all because Sena kept on looking and keeping herself busy. Maybe one day she would find solid ground to call home, but she suspected that wouldn’t be for quite a while.

“Masters die.” Sena said and looked at the ground for a second. “People die, it’s the only thing I’ve learned so far.”

And Lassiter seemed to have a vague memory of having heard the name ‘Timoris’ but she couldn’t really place it. And the idea of being comfortable with the people that surrounded you was a concept that felt alien to her. She had no trust in those that surrounded her, not even the one person that was close to her. Even now she kept herself on the edge of her guard to make sure the man didn’t try anything.

“Nobody is ever truly safe in their order. They all come falling down one way or another. My order is wracked with heresy and just about every other Sith group I have stumbled across have fallen over the power of their own egos or clashing aspirations.”

“Comfort means letting your guard down.” Sena repeated her own mantra. “Letting your guard down means you are dead.”

“It’s dangerous more than anything.”

 

[Kenrath]

Vengeance smirked.

"Does it?"

He paused for a brief moment before he continued.

"Of course it was not long after that word got to me about Venefica's little hissy fit in front of a bunch of her fellow Sith Lords. The one that got her and Timoris banished from One Sith space."

He chuckled.

"You know I tried to follow Timoris right then...........being with her meant more to me than anything the One Sith had to offer......she refused to allow me to give up everything I could one day accomplish to be with her. Of course I ignored her and left anyway............ family meant more to me than power, position, and prestige ever could."

Vengeance glanced over at [member="Lassiter"] before he continued.

"I first spent some time on Dagobah................I didn't want to risk leading One Sith assassins directly to her in case I was followed......I never made my feelings for Timoris a secret. When things calmed down I went looking for her. I was unsuccessful in that regard........I even crashed the Jedi Temple of Lothal looking for her. That turned into an adventure."

Vengeance sighed growing quiet for a moment.

"Without Timoris at my side.....with her dead I went to a very dark place. I craved a bloody swath through galaxy doing very evil and immoral things to both Jedi and Sith a like. Life held no meaning for me and I didn't care who or what i hurt or killed. Eventually I got over it.........calmed down a bit."

Vengeance stopped and looked at Lassiter.

"Family........comfort................it is not weakness...............it is focus............it is direction. You see that is the great tragedy of the Sith. The code teaches that passion is strength but the tenets of every Sith order in the history of time teaches to have no attachments, to be cold, heartless, killing machines devoted only to the quest of power."

 

[Lassiter]

[member="Vengeance"]

In that moment Sena would slowly realize what the man meant with him being a talker.

He knew how to talk.

A lot.

And yet she could vaguely understand the idea of being ‘loved’ meaning more than anything else, but even then Sena found little in the way of ‘comfort’ in what he was saying. Ameli, who seemed to be her Timoris, was the one person in her life that Sena didn’t fear. The one that she didn’t let fall victim to her already bloody swath through the galaxy. That was how she had emerged all those years ago, and if Sena was certain of one thing it was that it would be how she went out as well.

“The Sith?” Sena tsked. “You think it was the Sith that ‘taught me’ about family?”

“How about the galaxy itself, huh? How about that?” She shook her head. “Family is nothing but lies and broken promises. Comfort always comes back to bite you in the shins. Comfort is complacency and trust, and they both get you killed.”

“Family deserts you, family gives up on you and family brings you nothing but pain.” Sena continued. “Friends betray you, friends can tell others what you don’t want anyone to know.”

“I don’t want power, or fame. I am a killing machine because that is what the galaxy made me. I am a killing machine because that is what I am good at, and I am a killing machine because that is what I enjoy.”

“I acknowledge that the galaxy will never care for me.”

 

[Kenrath]

Vengeance sighed stopping dead in his tracks turning and looking at her.

"What you describe is not family. Family is love, family is loyalty, family shares in your joy, Family lifts you up in your pain rather than cause it."

He smiled softly.

"It is the great tragedy of Sith. We spend our entire lives trying to manipulate and destroy each other in a quest for the top. Then when we finally die we do so bitter and alone."

He stuck a hand out to her.

"Like me you are much more than just a killing machine and you deserve better. Come with me. Let me show you how much different it can be. Let me show you happiness.......let me show you what family can be. And if you wish................I will even complete your training. Help you reach your full potential."

[member="Lassiter"]

 

[Lassiter]

“It is family. It is my family.” Sena glared. “They let me get taken away as a child and did nothing to find me, they didn’t care about me much and all, afforded my sister with every single luxury that they had while I-”

“I met her, my sister. It was the happiest day in my life, but then she disappeared again without a trace. Leaving nothing but a trail of broken promises and lies.”

“Like a fething fever dream of broken hope.”

“I appreciate your offer, but family life and the idea of someone actually caring is all a bunch of sweet nothings.” The glare turned into a frown. “And I still have the Ember of Vahl helping me where my Master failed with completing my journey before her passing. As far as ‘family’ goes they are what comes the closest to your definition of one.”

“Even if they aren’t the kind to show this appreciation that you talk of.”

“They give me a purpose, and that is good enough for me. Right now that purpose is to cull the lost sheep of our Order and bring them back.”

“I will do so until they have recognized my loyalty and give me a higher purpose.”

[member="Vengeance"]

 

[Kenrath]

Marcus forced a soft smile retracting his hand.

"I fear your quest for validation is a hopeless one. Timoris had a similar goal in her heart and died having never achieved it."

He pulled out a business card and held it towards her.

"Most Sith even in smaller groups operate based on obedience not loyalty. You have to ask yourself...in everything you have done over the years and not felt you have earned their loyalty.........what would it take to do so?"

Whether she took the card or not he would take a step back.

"It was good to see you again. If you ever need a friendly ear.............you know how to reach me."

He would take another step or two back before turning away and disappearing into the crowd.

[member="Lassiter"]