[member="Wren"]
Venris tried to block out the voices that descended from all around, a thousand accusations, pleas and condemnations all focused solely on him. He heard Sedita's mockery, his master's hushed words, Serena's screams.
You must choose...you or her...you or here...
"It is you or her, brother, you must decide." Sedita cooed into his ear.
"I won't play your game." Venris insisted, lashing out with one arm to swat away the spectre that haunted his foot steps. "You're not real! I've done this before!"
"Stop," He whispered, one hand on his head as he struggled to remain standing, a sudden pounding in his skull overcoming his senses and driving him to his knees. "Stop it!"
When he opened his eyes again Venris was no longer in the darkness, but on the muddy floor of a jungle on some alien world far from Mustafar. He looked down and saw his fully matured form had shrunk into that of what he had been as a mere sixteen year old, clad in his old Jedi robes kept from his time at the temple. He climbed to an upright position and looked around before a familiar cry of pain drew his attention along with the hiss of a lightsaber.
"Master." Venris whispered, taking off through the jungle with his own weapon in hand, only instead of the intricately designed lightsaber he had built on Ilum he wielded his original weapon, all circular mechanical pieces clipped together. He burst through the brush and into a clearing to see two figures, one of them a green skinned twi'lek man on his knees, nursing the stump of an arm while the other was the familiar form of Sedita Helion, holding his red lightsaber and the fallen Jedi Master's green blade across the man's throat like a pair of scissors blades waiting to be closed together.
"Venris, you've finally arrived." Sedita said without turning his head, a smirk crossing his face. "And just in time, it seems impeccable arrival runs in our family, does it not?"
Venris ignited his blade, but Sedita closed the blades together just a bit and Venris' master gave a pained groan...and became Serena in that moment.
"S...Serena?" Venris shook his head, a wave of nausea washing over him. "But...this isn't how-"
"How this happens is fully dependent on you, brother." Sedita declared, turning partway to face him. "Surrender to me, take your place by my side and allow me to show you what lies beyond the limits of the shackles your master bound you with. All you need to do is just...let her die. All the power you need to eventually best me, power against the Jedi Order that abandoned you and your master to die, against the corrupt republic you despise so much that you force yourself to crawl around outer rim worlds. It can all be yours in exchange for one measily life."
Venris found himself truly...interested in what his brother was offering. He had sought great knowledge and power, and Sedita clearly had that in spades...but...Serena was one of his few true friends. Where she was an intelligent and beautiful young woman with many loved ones he was some washed up renegade with a few associates who would soon forget him. Was his life really worth hers?
"Choose," Sedita hissed. "Or do what you did before: fight a battle you cannot win."
"...I will never join you, brother." Venris shook his head and extinguished his lightsaber as he walked towards the Sith. "Serena is worth a thousand of me, and I won't trade her away for power of any kind." He tossed his weapon aside. "Nor will you kill her."
Sedita frowned. "So very unwise." He turned his blades away from Serena and slowly walked towards Venris, meeting him in the center of the clearing. "You would really give your life and the chance at becoming more powerful than ever before...for some woman you barely even know?"
"I'd gladly give it for her," Venris affirmed, defiantly glaring up at the Sith. "We may only know a little of each other, but that doesn't matter. Serena is...an amazing woman, one who spends her time seeking answers and discovering lost knowledge, one who sees past my obvious shortfalls and...makes me feel like I'm actually worth something." As he spoke Venris' form began to return to his present state: fully grown and matured, Sedita's equal in height and meeting the yellow eyed gaze with a hawk like glare. "You took my master from me...you took my courage and self worth...you even took ten years of my life but by the Force you will not make me give away a treasured friend."
Sedita rolled his eyes. "Jedi. Always so dramatic." He slowly raised the blades. "Final chance, brother...care to reconsider?"
Venris folded his hands behind his back. "Sith." He answered curtly. "Always all talk and no action."
Sedita growled and crossed his arms across his chest before lashing out with both lightsabers,ms licking through Venris...only to leave no wound as the world faded away along with the false image of Serena, leaving Venris a few feet away from the real deal and in a new chamber entirely. From her perspective he would have simply appeared as if from thin air.
After a moment he exhaled and turned to look at Serena. "...that was...certainly more intense than all of the tasks we faced at the first temple." He said, cracking a smile.
