The Sith are eternal (solo thread)

[Darth Zilti]

Maja pondered for a few moments, her brow furrowed as she thought. Because, deep down, she wasn't sure what she wanted. Or rather what she needed.

"I'm intrigued to know what the cipher unlocks. That I have to admit, but that's not enough for me telling you the information." She quickly held up a hand to show she hadn't finished speaking. "So, I can give you the codes - but better, I can show you where they point to and what you'll have to overcome - and help you get them. I suspect my involvement will help initially."

"So my price is firstly to be in on whatever the cipher unlocks. My second is for you to teach me to control the Force. Say to use Force Lightning. I can use the Force, but without any conscious effort. I sense things and can see events in my dreams and I can even kill with it, but I need to learn to use it practically. Do we have a deal?"

[member="Darth Arcanix"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Maja Vern"]

"I believe we have a deal," Taeli replied. "If anything, I suspect it will be an interesting experience for the both of us, and I assure you I can help with that forming of control."

Yet another person who wanted to learn from her, but she suspected the girl before was trying to gain the eye of another Sith. Perhaps someone higher up the pecking order in the Sith. Oh well, Taeli would be cotnent in teaching her for awhile or longer if the girl wanted.

"Shall we then? My ship is not docked too far away and we can get away from . . . these annoyances," she said, eyeing those watching the pair. The dark side users that were here were only useful for a few things, and none of them promised a long life. It also might be a good idea to leave before the Jedi was able to move again as he probably was not going to be a happy camper.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

The fabric on his back was sticking to his skin. His greatcoat was torn, smoking slightly and charred. His hands were sore, his head throbbing and his back felt like it was on fire. Legs wobbled and his muscles spasmed erratically with each lumbering step forward.

Teeth gritted, brow furrowed, Connor's eyes had lost their natural blue and faded to become a dull grey. He pulled the Force from everything he could to fuel his body and heal his charred skin, but also empower him because he knew he was walking into something that would change him forever.

He had to walk the path placed before him - he couldn't let the Sith walk over anything they wanted with dirty tricks. The Jedi could be just as dirty if pushed. Moving forward to the entrance of the club, he pushd past a couple of onlookers and shoulder barged through the door way into a place just as trashy as where he had come from. He pushed out with the Force to follow the evident trail of the Sith - and there she was, playing best friends with the brat. Yet again, he had been manipulated and set-up.

Pushing a dancing girl out of his line of vision, he tore the lightsaber from his belt, wincing in pain with each movement that pulled at the burning flesh stuck to his clothing, and ignited the blade with venom, a sharp blue snap-hiss.

"Arcanix - you want me gone, you KILL ME."

He thrust down the blade and cut a table in half that was in his way and he stepped over the charred remains and pointed his blade out to the table ahead where the two were. If the girl died, she died. She wasn't important.

[member="Darth Arcanix"] | [member="Maja Vern"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Connor Harrison"] [member="Maja Vern"]

Taeli sighed as the Jedi arrived, but apparently he wasn't in the best of moods as he yelled towards her.

"If I had wanted you gone, I would have killed you," she replied, getting to her feet and uncliping her lightsaber from her belt. "The fact I didn't should show I see a use for you in the future as a possible ally or contact. You're barely standing Jedi Harrison, and only your emotions and anger are keeping you on your feet."

His entire state of being right now reminded her of an old story from ancient times about a Sith Lord known as Sion. How interesting, she thought, even as she ignited her lightsaber and smiled coldly as the red blade illuminated the room. The room full of dark side Force users . . . a room a Jedi had stumbled into without thought.

"Head to the spaceport, and wait at my ship," she said to the girl, gesturing for her to leave. "I'll handle our angry Jedi friend here . . . again."

Addressing the Jedi again, she said, "You really have no idea what you're getting into. Again, I'm going to offer you the chance to just walk away and deal with that identity thief."

 

[Darth Zilti]

Maja edged out of the room. She wasn't proud - she used the other patrons as a shield as she moved behind them to make her way past the Jedi and out of the bar.

Once in the open air, she moved quickly to the space-port. She made arrangeemnts for her own ship to be held here and grabbed a bag of clothes - including a couple of glistaweb dresses her sister had given her - before heading back into the main hangar and await her lift. For she had no doubt the Sith would prevail, given the Jedi's current condition.

[member="Darth Arcanix"] | [member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor didn’t say anything, he just built up a wall around him with the Force to keep his senses alert; his hearing was impaired, his sight was shaken. Arcanix spoke, but he refrained from replying.

He stepped through the smoking table debris , his blue blade dragging on the ground and spitting up small molten flame from the ground it sparked through with a hiss and flash. Connor looked past her to see the young crystal thief - obviously a Sith contact – moving away to the rear of the building. He exhaled and threw his left hand out and pulled it back hard, kicking up a section of the wall beside her as she ran to buckle the brickwork and implode the frosted window. Glass and brick spat into the club as a dusty hole appeared from his burst of energy.

Snapping his head to Arcanix, he prepared himself.

"I’ve faced down stronger Sith than you, so don’t underestimate me. You may have this day, but I will track you down. I will find you, and I will kill you and your little friend."

His back muscles contorted and he let out a small gasp as the skin started to tighten with the burning fabric sticking to the flesh.

"Remember this face, because I will not forget yours."

Connor stalked towards her, saber gripped in hand, ready to act on whatever dirty trick or manoeuver she threw at him, even though the second he stopped feeding from the Force around them, he would probably pass out.

[member="Maja Vern"] | [member="Darth Arcanix"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Connor Harrison"] [member="Maja Vern"]

"Well I would hope you don't forget my face, you're a rather interesting person after all," Taeli said, actually laughing even as she could feel the murderous intent pouring off the Jedi in front of her. She wondered what had prompted such rage and confusion in him . . . something to ponder during the shuttle ride to wherever the girl led her to.

"As for facing stronger Sith than me . . . good for you," Taeli said, smiling at Connor even as she ignited the second blade of her lightsaber. "But then, stronger doesn't necessarily mean anything if one is smart. For instance. . ."

Twisting the handle of her lightsaber, the second half to the half circle hand guard slide out and formed a ring. The magnetic locks on the blade emitters disengaged and the lightsaber blades began to spin as she started to move towards the Jedi. She could kill him . . . but she really didn't want to. This Jedi was very interesting to her.

"Now one last time, just walk away, go to a hospital, track down that slicer and leave the girl and I to our own devices," she implored from behind the whirling blades of her lightsaber.

 

[Connor Harrison]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik9VK_jkgjI

A compliment from the Sith – he seemed to attract them, which made him wonder just how broken inside he really was to warrant the interest of those he hated so much. He lurched forward, stabbing out his free hand on a table to stop himself as Arcanix become unbeatable; a double bladed lightsaber was something he’d never taken on before, and to do so now in his state would be suicide.

He moved to his right, the screams of the other patrons chaotic around them as the club soon turned darker in his eyesight.

”One not good enough – well that’s just showing off."

The Force was seeping from him and the pain was starting to subside, which meant his body was weakening. He backed away, as she advanced with a deadly confidence and a glaring amber burn in her eyes which he lost himself in – seeing what, exactly?

”Stand down, Arcanix." He raised the blade before him, now becoming carefree with the feeling of weightlessness in his body.

”You’re nothing to me…"

Then his arm dropped, the blade fell out of his grip and deactivated as it hit the dirty floor. Seething through his teeth, he learnt forward on the table and jolted with the pain now ravaging his back. Bringing himself to look upon the Sith, he accepted the fate he had brought on himself – whatever that would now be.

[member="Darth Arcanix"] | [member="Maja Vern"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Connor Harrison"] [member="Maja Vern"]

"Oh, you poor thing, I must have been a bit harsher than intended," Taeli replied, deactivating her lightsaber and walking over to the Jedi, who seemed to be trying very hard to stay conscious. His lightsaber hitting the floor certainly told her he was in no fit state to take her on, as much as he wanted to.

Her eyes turned back from their yellow to her normal purple as she stopped right in front of him. Tiling her head to look upon him, part of her wanted to teach him a lesson for his stubbornness, but the majority of her was feeling much more merciful. Well . . . maybe not merciful as what she was going to do was going to be more confusing and challenge just about everything he assumed or knew what a Sith was.

"I'm not going to do anything to you," she said quietly, placing a hand on top of his and making sure he was making eye contact with her. "I have other things to do, and I have no intention of killing you or hurting you further. I doubt you expected mercy from a Sith . . . but I'm not like the others at all. I'm not a monster or evil."

To demonstrate, she reached into her satchel, placing her lightsaber back inside it, and placed a bacta paste on the table in front of him.

"For you, to treat that back of yours," she said, giving him a kiss on a cheek. "Call me sometime, you've got my number."

Patting his pocket, she turned and left the bar to a probably very confused and possibly even more enraged Jedi. Oh, it was going to be interesting playing with him and causing him to fall. She felt sort of bad thinking of that plan, it felt like a betrayal of her sister, but she needed to do what she needed to so she could gain allies.

Now though, it was time to finish the puzzle she had started so long ago, and thinking that, she made ehr way to the spaceport where the girl would be waiting.

 

[Connor Harrison]

Letting the table take his weight, Connor kept his face devoid of emotion and used his strength to stay conscious as Arcanix came towards him – either to gloat, or to finish him. It was neither, surprisingly.

Connor wanted to react, but didn’t know how; feeling her hand on his, he felt a wave across his body and reverberating in his head; the touch of a Sith connected to the Sith Magic and reminded him how in touch he was always going to be to the Dark Side, even if it killed him.

Cold, blue eyes watched her remove a glimmer of hope in the shape of a bacta strip. And with a final invitation and a kiss both warm and cold on his skin, which seemed to linger like acid, Arcanix blurred as she span and walked out - Arcanix and Corvus, the polar opposite of the path he walked on.

Waiting a moment, Connor let go and collapsed to his knees with a low cry. He quickly fumbled to shake off the greatcoat, now pocketed with sing marks and torn fabric. Groaning in agony and frustration at the situation, he pulled up his jumper which caused even more pain as it pulled away some of the raw flesh that had faced the brunt of the attack.

He didn’t have time to pull his vest off, quickly pulling apart the bacta and desperately applying it as best he could to his back, stretching around and placing the strip where it would work best.

With his free hand, Connor pulled up his com from his belt and sent out a signal – to who, he didn’t know – he just activated it as he lost conscious and gave in to the pain and slumped over.

"Help me."

[member="Darth Arcanix"] | [member="Maja Vern"]

 

[Darth Zilti]

Maja stood and waited. She wandered over to a vending machine and fed it credits until she had every bar of her favourite candy bar it had to offer. Putting them in her bag, she realised she'd only just bought some from the street-vendor. Shrugging, she stuffed them in and kept one back.

Tearing the wrapper with her teeth, she started to eat it, savouring the combined sweet and salty taste as she glanced around the hangar. Her control of the Force was presently minimal but she could sense a Dark-aura approaching and knew enough to recognise it as the woman from the bar. She'd clearly dealt with the Jedi. Maja wondered if she'd killed him - and if it would bother her if she had? He had nice eyes and cheekbones, so it would have been a waste perhaps. But he was a Jedi and that was complicated to say the least.

So she sighed and waited patiently for the Sith to get here. She had been promised some actual training for once and Kashyyk might be even more fun, second time around.

[member="Connor Harrison"] | [member="Darth Arcanix"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Maja Vern"]

"Well, he won't be bothering us again anytime soon," Taeli said as she approached the girl standing near her ship. "Excellent specimen, I have to admit, and those cheekbones . . . oh you could cut yourself on those. I digress though, we have something to go retrieve and I owe you some lessons as my end of the deal. Let's be off."

Lowering the ramp of her shuttle, she led the young girl into her shuttle and showed her where she could set her stuff. Taeli moved to the cockpit and began launch procedures while the girl would be getting situated, and as the shuttle left the landing pad and Nar Shaddaa behind them, Taeli wondered if [member="Connor Harrison"] would do.

"So where are we off to?" Taeli called back to the young girl as she pulled up the navicomputer. "And I have to ask, what's your name?"

 

[Darth Zilti]

Maja allowed herself to be shepherded by the Sith. She knew little about her, except her power, so decided to simply play along until things either panned out as she wanted or went so bad she needed to act. For the present, the woman had helped her secure the crystal and had given her the promise of something to do with Zannah. It was all sounding promising – but she wondered if it were too good to be true.

As they sat in the cockpit, Maja smiled. “Somewhere you’ll have to be wary of your presence – at least initially. Kashyyk. And the Dead Forest in particular. And my name? You can call me Maja. And that’s not me being clever, I don’t know my actual name – so Maja does me well enough. It’s what I grew up knowing. But one day, like Zannah before me, I’ll be known by my rightful name. Once I find a way of finding it out.”

She looked the Sith in the eyes and remembered something. A vision of her sister on Prakith, fighting a Jedi. But that was a Jedi, so she shook the image off. “And you are?”

[member="Darth Arcanix"] | [member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor drifted in and out of consciousness on the shuttle as it broke out of the atmosphere, leaving behind the Smuggler’s Moon. The two young Silver Sages, under orders from Master Whitelight, had honed in on Connor’s signal, found his body and now were heading home for Voss and the Silver Jedi Temple.

With two medical droids over him making temporary repairs, Connor could only see Darth Arcanix in his mind’s eye and the words she had burnt into his conscious;

I'm not like the others at all. I'm not a monster or evil…

His objective to find the source of the identity theft was only partially complete, but he had let a powerful relic and a Dark Side fanatic slip through his fingers with the Sith Lord. In other words, he had failed again.

Maybe it was his lot in life to fall at every hurdle when he tried to destroy the darkness from spreading.

[member="Darth Arcanix"] | [member="Maja Vern"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Connor Harrison"] [member="Maja Vern"]

"Arcanix, Darth Arcanix," Taeli said with a smile. "It is a pleasure to have you along, Maja. Kashyyyk . . . hmm, I'm guessing this Dead Forest is involved in some way with the Wookiee Shadowlands. That should be fun, but off we go."

Punching in the coordinates for Kashyyyk, the shuttle slipped into hyperspace, while Taeli allowed her thoughts to wander for a moment. She was curious how the experience of meeting her would affect this Connor Harrison, and what this girl Maja was really up to. She seemed fairly ambitious, which was very good, but very guarded. That was good too, but one could always be too paranoid.

"Forgive me for asking, but that crystal you retrieved, it wouldn't happen to be related to Darths Bane and Zannah would it?" she asked, getting up to move into the large compartment area of the shuttle. "I'm only guessing because you seem to know a lot about them and have a certain drive, like me, to connect with those powerful and intelligent Sith."

Hidden in that comment was a slight reprimand of some of the current Sith, but that was by the by.

"Anywho, I promised you some lessons, so what shall we focus on first?" she also asked.

 

[Darth Zilti]

Maja nodded - there was no point in lying. "For some reason, Rain or Zannah has been a draw to me. We have a lot in common. Going by a false name, how we were discovered as having Force-sensitivity, lots really. And as Zannah was charged with a task to prove herself, I dictated mine was to track down her crystal - but also to follow in her footsteps. I've been to a few planets along the way and Kashyyk was one of them." She put her hand to where the tattoo had first appeared - although it had disappeared now - and reflected. "And I was captured by those giant spider things and rescued by..." She smiled in a friendly way, "But I can tell you all that when we arrive."

"Training. I seem to be able to tap into the Force voluntarily now, but have no real Abilities - except for Farseeing which was natural to me it seems. I'm a Vahla apparently, like my sister. My mother apparently said I was blessed by the goddess to have red hair. I'm sure it's not true but it's a nice notion. Anyway, I was thinking something along the lines of Force Lightning - unless you had a better idea."

[member="Darth Arcanix"] | [member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Maja Vern"]

"I could indeed teach you Force Lightning," Taeli said nodding along to what Maja said. Kinrath were what she was thinking had been what captured the girl, but maybe something else lived in that area. She could certainly respect Maja's quest to follow in Zannah's footsteps, it was a worthy to prove herself as powerful and a legacy of the dark side.

"I must tell you, the best way to learn Force Lightning is to be subjected to it," she explained. "The pain and memory of that pain, and how the energy feels coursing through you allows a person to remember how to conjure it."

Thinking about that for a moment, she had to laugh and add, "And with how many Jedi have felt its touch, I would imagine many of them if turned to the dark side would be able to use it rather well, including our friend we left behind. So, shall we begin or would you prefer a different technique be taught?"

 

[Darth Zilti]

Maja cocked her head to one side. The concept of enduring pain wasn't one she relished but it felt as though she had limited choice in the matter if she wanted to add the ability to her repertoire.

So she shrugged, "Force Lightning it is then. Can we do it on the ship or do we have to wait until we get there?" Was this a delaying tactic or simply a concern for the ship? It was hard to read Maja's face.

[member="Darth Arcanix"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Maja Vern"]

"Oh, we can do it on the ship," Taeli said, smiling pleasantly. She recognized the ever so slight hesitation from Maja, and she could understand why completely. Getting blasted by Force Lightning was never a good feeling at all, but then it had to be that way if she learned, and better from her than from someone who would take pleasure in inflicting pain on their apprentice or student.

"Brace yourself, this might hurt a little," Taeli sad kindly, leveling her hand at the girl and immediately, forks of lightning raced from her fingers towards the girl, but nowhere near as strong as the blasts she gave the Jedi to make sure he wouldn't be in any condition to intervene again.

 

[Darth Zilti]

It was a bit like being plunged into a freezing cold shower. OK, that was probably a bad analogy, but with her brain not working properly it was the best she could do. There was the unexpected nature of the effort - she had no time to prepare herself, although with hindsight, she'd probably consider this to be a good thing.

But the physical effects were crippling. It was as if she were suffering micro-seizures all over her body and she felt her muscles were aching and her vision was blurred. But it was over in a matter of seconds and she gripped the arms of the seat she was in and felt the pain endure for a while longer. She waited for a good minute before risking her voice not to betray how she felt.

Staring at Darth Arcanix she gave her a quizzical look. "Do you have to do it again, or is once enough? And I'm guessing that was low-intensity, right?"

[member="Darth Arcanix"]