Private We Are What Were And Shall Be Again [The Worm Emperor]

[Darth Carnifex]

Bursting from hyperspace, the sleek black shuttle banked hard to the right to narrowly avoid smashing into the surface of an asteroid. All around the ship were similarly sized objects, the wreckage of a ruined world slowly being consumed by a gravitational anomaly. The planet's death was slow and agonizing, portions being torn away century by century. It would take many more thousands of years before the process had been complete, all the while the field of asteroids and other debris growing larger and larger before disappearing into the anomaly's gaping maw.​

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Bobbing and weaving through the tumultuous chaos, the shuttle approached one of the larger asteroids. Its surface was a patchwork of dig sites and mineshafts, having once been used by both legitimate and illegitimate organizations to mine for precious minerals. Any worth it might once have possessed had long since been chiseled away, leaving behind a hollow shell to float towards its inevitable oblivion.​

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Passing through the largest shaft, the shuttle slowed to an idle over a neglected landing pad. Pressurized air hissing as it lowered itself down, the pad wobbled and shook from the newly applied weight, but held. A boarding ramp lowered from the belly of the fuselage, a hiss of cloudy white air obscuring the figure which descended it.​

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He was tall, well-structured in physique, and was brimming with the power of the Dark Side of the Force. ​

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Walking through the abandoned facility, the only sound which accompanied him was the sound of his boots clanging against the metal grating laid on top of the cold lifeless stone. He continued to wander through the facility, seemingly at random, before he reached a wide platform suspended above a large basin filled with a coolant mixture.​

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There he reached up and pulled back the hem of his hood, revealing his scarred and grizzled face. Glowing eyes swept from side to side, analyzing the empty room with cold meticulous precision.​

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Then he spoke.​

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"Here I am," his voice was monotone, bereft of strong emotion. "Let me look upon you."​

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Aspect of Passion ​

 

[Aspect of Passion]

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Sith Space...
864ABY

The asteroid was a complex labrynthian construction leftover from a planet destroyed; in itself a powerful Dark Side anomaly, with ghosts behind every door. Among them were those trapped, those who had yet to know they died, and others who simply refused to go quietly into the dying of the light. Yet each would cower as a shadow seemed to shift through the asteroid - beckoned by the call of a Sith Lord.​

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Strung up high above the coolant reservoir, the platform shifted ever so slightly from the gravity waves formed in the anomaly. The sound of creaking metal, strained to its limits patterned with the rushing of fluid and gas through pipes; yet all of it would quiet in a single instant. Where once there was the subtle backdrop of a base lost - now stood nothing, as though time itself froze for all outside that place.​

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Between blinks, when sight was gone, black smoke would snap into existence as the Worm Emperor made himself known - three meters in height, five golden masks etched with the code of the Sith, and broad unseen shoulders that black cloaks fell off of like falls. For a moment, there was no attention, no eyes to be seen behind the masks - only the void as any would look upon him.​

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But it would become obvious when his attention was directed at Carnifex - heavy and glaring.​

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"Kaine Zambrano.", a male voice offered - regal and deep.​

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"The Black Iron Tyrant.", a woman, waif like and delicate.​

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"The Heretic.", a child said with scorn and anger driving the words deep.​

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The room filled with distant whispers of a thousand voices before the original voice would speak again;​

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"What does the shamed Emperor call upon me for?"​

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Darth Carnifex​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Eyes, glowing bright with the power of the hungering Dark Side, probed the golden masks of the Worm Emperor. It was rare for one so towering as the once-Emperor to cast his gaze up at another, but the Worm Emperor loomed over even him. ​

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Twin monoliths of darkness.​

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His gaze swept over each mask, reading the inscriptions etched upon the smooth metal. The color of the masks was lost upon Carnifex, the serum he had concocted in his desperate search for eternal life had claimed many things, least of all his ability to perceive color. The world around him was comprised of shadows and shades of monochrome gray, the tapestry of life forever discarded in pursuit of ultimate power. Touch, taste, smell, all sensation, save for the most intense emotions and desires, were abandoned.​

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Only hate burned bright in his core, the hatred for all things, for all life, and a deep yearning desire for power and control.​

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"I have called upon you so that I may witness you, for you are the ones the dregs speak about in their dreams. The thoughts which blossom forth from their nightmares, I was intrigued to learn that such a creature existed in the far reaches of space. I had to see it with my own eyes." Carnifex drank in the visage of the creature who others called the Worm Emperor, probing with his perception in the Force to find that the Worm Emperor was just as bit as powerful as those who had met him before believed.​

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Aspect of Passion ​

 

[Aspect of Passion]

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Sith Space...
864ABY

"And what does the thrice shamed see?", the Worm Emperor asked flatly.​

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"Shamed twice for a throne.", a woman intoned.​

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"Shamed once for the Code.", a child mused.​

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The Emperor floated closer to the Carnifex - one of the few beings in the galaxy to truly tower over him, though the difference was relatively minimal. It did not seem to make a difference, however, as none of the masks turned to face him - as though they were built to be static, statues to represent faces rather than actually house them.​

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"My children have suffered from your rule, Darth Carnifex - and we are remiss to ignore it. You who castrated the Sith with your Rule of Order, you who crippled the growth of the Darkness in vain attempts at power; a man who walks shrouded in the myth of a god with nothing but ash to show for it.", the Worm offered as a single mask began to turn towards him.​

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"For the sanctity of the Sith, I will see your Empire crumble. Everything the Sith have built turned to brimstone - until another rises to surpass me. As the code dictates, as it will be."​

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"And the cycle will begin anew."​

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"Strength garners strength."​

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"It is not too late to atone for your sins, Darth Carnifex. Not too late to bend the knee, sacrifice, and struggle as Sith must."​

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Darth Carnifex​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"A pity," Carnifex clucked, monotonously neutral. ​

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"All those masks, all those voices, yet still incapable of comprehending the truth." He extended his right hand, fingers outstretched and palm facing upwards, and generated a small amount of scarlet electricity that danced between his fingers and pooled in his palm. In it, he formed an image of a non-descript Sith warrior in flowing garments with lightsaber ignited and held aloft in a battle pose. The figure stood strong; proud and able of body and mind. ​

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"The Sith are strongest when we are united for a common purpose, our collected power pooled to combat those that would see us cast down again and again." The Sith figure then split into two, and then into four, and finally into six. Each replication was smaller than the last and thusly weaker and less capable. "Weakest when we allow our baser instincts to dictate our actions." All six figures now crumbled to ash, victims of their own greed, before a solitary figure, smaller than all others before it, emerged from the ashes. "Doomed to destruction only to resurface again, the knowledge and wisdom of the previous generation squandered."​

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Carnifex closed his fingers, forming a fist, shattering the illusion that he had created. "Once, I had believed that the Sith simply needed a strong guiding hand to set them on the path I knew that they could, and should, walk. But I was mistaken, the Sith will never reach such heights in their current state, riven by individuality and personal ambition." His baleful eyes stared directly up at the Worm Emperor, devoid of emotion and consumed by hatred.​

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"So I shall remake the Sith," his eyes glimmered with those words, the true scope of the once-Emperor's megalomania hidden beneath the surface. "And as fortune turns, you shall play a part in such a grand design. So I encourage you to go out and continue on your path of destruction, rend the lesser Sith so that I can replace them with a stronger generation devoid of the weakness which plagues us."​

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Aspect of Passion ​

 

[Aspect of Passion]

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Sith Space...
864ABY

"Oh, Carnifex my child.", the voice tsked, as though it were talking to its own son - sick and weak before him.​

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"Sweet son...", a woman chimed in sadly from a distance.​

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"You speak as though it is individuality that has forsaken the Sith, that isolated ambition her bane - and yet I hear no issue with your own. Is Sith ambition dangerous to the Order so long as it is not your will? Your creed, your colors?", the regal voice chided.​

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A thousand voices chimed in, yet none could be understood. Some spoke broken high sith, many others the mumblings none but the Worm could understand - and yet they would die the moment the worm spoke once more, unmoving in his place as electrum mask by electrum mask began to turn to eye the Ex-Emperor;​

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"You castrated a generation, lulled them into your power fantasy, and when it failed you - you abandoned them. Now you declare yourself the only true Sith, but it is you who have run from what you've done, you press towards a goal you know unattainable.", the Emperor said, his voice slowly overlapping until five spoke in one.​

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"A coward who lost his throne, and in his anguish made a new one, without so much as the respect to let your kin fight for what you were given. You let them be weak, you know what you have done, and it is for nothing but baseless self-indulgence.", he scorned - a deeper voice taking the lead as it grew angrier before fading.​

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"Do not mistake the Dark Side, Carnifex. You are not the chosen son, but you are a stepping stone in what must come. The children you hope to make will be nothing, hold no strength compared to those with something to strive for; and you will die in obscurity, remembered only for your failures."​

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"Death comes for us all, Carnifex, I only wish you'd take yours in stride."​

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Darth Carnifex​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Death is not the end, it is the beginning. The galaxy must experience the rapture of death as I have, and only then can I bring them enlightenment."​

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Over the years, Carnifex had come to regard death as an evolutionary step that one must inevitably take to ascend beyond their limitations. When he died during the height of the Akala Crisis, the trauma initially frightened him into desperately hunting down the secret to immortality. It led him to shed his emotions to rid himself of what he perceived to be his mortal failing, the last vestiges of an existence that shackled him to the ebbs and flows of the material.​

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In time, death began to no longer frighten him. With the power that he had accrued in such a short span of time and in such a rapid fashion, the thought that he was the only true entity in the galaxy quickly took root in his mind. Detached from reality as he had become through his rituals, Carnifex lost sight of what had once galvanized him to the Sith cause, the betterment of his fellow Sith for a collective vision where the Sith would rule all the galaxy as enlightened beings.​

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Now there was only room for one enlightened being.​

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One Sith'ari.​

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Him and him alone.​

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"All of history has culminated in me," he spoke with such certainty that it might've frightened even the most hardened of killers. "I have delved through the mysteries of those who came before, those who have reincarnated in me. The legacies of King Adas, of Ajunta Pall, Naga Sadow, Exar Kun, Revan, Vitiate, Bane, Palpatine, Krayt. A lineage stretching back beyond understanding. Even you are a mere extension of my will, destined to ultimately further the dreams I have for this galaxy. A galaxy that will soon be remade in my image, reshaped by the power once wielded by the Mortis Gods."​

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"If you submit yourself now, then you will be elevated among the highest of my servants. If you refuse, it will not matter. You are not the only cog in the machine of my grand design."​

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Aspect of Passion ​

 

[Aspect of Passion]

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Sith Space...
864ABY

For a moment, the Worm Emperor was silent - even the whispers in the dark corners were quiet. Long and silent, the Worm and his Council seemed to stand in awe of Carnifex; but the illusion was broken as the regal main voice began to laugh. Low and alone for a moment, but slowly cresendoing as the unseen voices joined within them. Before it was done, a thousand voice laughed in unison - falling into a single chant as the laugh slowed to match the regal tone he was used to;​

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"Ha. Ha. Ha.", the Worm spread out on purpose.​

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"Corrupted.", the Woman said with disgust.​

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"Weaker that the weapons he wields.", the deepest intoned.​

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"Broken.", the man spoke with a quiet sadness.​

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"Those that came before do not know you, as I have asked. Nor do the Sith yet born hear your name in their souls, for again I have pleaded with them for their secrets. Even yet, Carnifex, those that hearts beat still know you for what you are - archaic, antediluvian, passé.", the voice chided, stated with a flat conviction as though it were simply known to everyone.​

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"An Emperor dethroned, left to his own madness. A shameful death, even for a heretic.", the man and the woman's mixed into a deep sadness.​

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"Simply ask me, Carnifex. Ask me to correct what is broken, and I shall do so without hesitation. Set you on the path to greatness once more. All I ask for is your faith."​

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As he spoke, a hand lifted from beneath the robes. Long and slender, it looked unnatural as it jerked and prodded before offering an open palm to Carnifex - and within it he would feel an abyss unlike any which he had seen. Infinite and unavoidable, it felt both like the nothingness of the edge of the galaxy, and staring into the sun all at once; but within it carried salvation, pain, a future the Worm Emperor offered the once Emperor.​

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All he had to do was accept.​

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Darth Carnifex​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"There was once a time when another self-proclaimed Dark Lord of the Sith offered me a pathway to greatness." Carnifex stalked back and forth, from left to right, his hands clasped behind his back as he spoke. "It was almost thirty years ago, wherewith all the headiness of youthful exuberance I had gambled against the combined strength of the Jedi Council and lost. Shackled and unarmed, the Jedi were in the process of transporting me to Coruscant to face trial for my crimes as Emperor of the Sith. En route, a group of Sith assaulted my prison ship and set me free. They brought me to Prakith in the Deep Core, where I met a Voss who called himself Darth Sortis. He offered me path and purpose, a place within the One Sith to exact my vengeance against the Jedi who had humiliated me."​

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"I accepted his offer, and he named me Darth Vornskr. I was the wolf of the One Sith, charged with seeking out our enemies and destroying them. I was elevated to among the greatest of the One Sith, named one of the five Voices of this Sortis, this Dark Lord of the One Sith. I had been given the duty of navigating and charting the Unknown Regions for the One Sith, to uncover its secrets." He stopped pacing, staring directly at the Worm Emperor's offered hand. "And those secrets allowed me to understand the folly I had eagerly accepted, that the path and purpose I had been given was a lie."​

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"So I killed Sortis in the depths of Coruscant, I struck him down and shredded his spirit so that he could never arise again. I took his knowledge, all that he had learned and perfected over the centuries. I unchained myself from the persona of Vornskr, and I named myself Carnifex."​

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His eyes swept up towards the five masks of the Worm Emperor.​

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"So I reject your offer of greatness, for I know firsthand that it is a lie. You, like Voyance, are a false prophet. A charlatan who will ensorcell the weaker-minded Sith into catastrophe, one that will set us back centuries and force us to rebuild from scratch again and again. I do not only reject your offer, but I also reject you, Worm Emperor. A name you wear emulating the lowest wretch of the dirt. Lead your people on their fool's crusade, but know that I will outlast you and your drivel. Your sole purpose will be as the catalyst for a grand rebirth, where the Sith will be remade in my image."​

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Carnifex then turned, turning his back towards the Worm Emperor. But for a moment, he swiveled his head to cast a side-long glance at the towering Sith. "But you will not live to see it, I imagine. Your death will come at the hands of those you seek to guide. Remember my words when that moment dawns." ​

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Carnifex then looked back towards the way he came and began to walk.​

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Aspect of Passion ​

 

[Aspect of Passion]

"Of these crimes you speak, of those that I may do, how many have you done yourself?", the Worm asked, hand still out stretched.

The platform rumbled slightly on his chain hoists as the asteroid base slammed into another latent remain of the planet. Dust fell from the ceiling, but neither Sith moved from their balanced position - and the Worm seemed more illusion, as he did not even so much as sway.

"The Rule of Order, to claim the ultimate strength as you undermine the youth - then lose everything you've built to the New Imperial Order. To the one they know as Irveric Tavlar . Once more the Jedi rise, unfettered by the fear we once held over them - a sin of your own making, showing your neck to them, where your kin attempted to make peace. Despite all your crusading, your rhetoric, you are a man broken Carnifex.", the Worm seemed to growl.

"A man lost in the lies he tells himself to stay sane."

The hand retreated in a jerking, staccato like motion before it was not to be seen beneath the cloak.

"You led the Sith into the dirt. It is in the dirt that they found me, Carnifex. It is the dirt to which I will return."

"Leave if you must. Hide if you can, I have no doubt you will survive me - for unlike you, I do not fear death, I will not cower and wait for my chance to create the mindless and weak to follow. I embrace death, know it to be the purpose of my very existence so that my corpse's blood may give nutrients to a new generation."

"A shame there is nothing left in you but rot."

With that, the Worm too snapped from existence, lost to the echelons of time as the base began to twist and move once more - giving just enough time for Carnifex to leave with little issue.

Darth Carnifex