Three skeletal droids level their blasters at Rhea. Each is in the rapid fire configuration and set on stun with the pain setting amped up. Each unleashes a furious salvoe of blaster bolts. Each droid is in contact with the other, sharing data to coordinate their attacks.
And Rhea leaps into motion. She hurls her blunted sword through the air towards the skull of one of the droids and sprints. In all fairness, to say she sprints does not do it justice. Even I have trouble perceiving her through the Force. She seems to be dropping in and out of it.
She is a blur of motion. A whirlwind. The things she could have done if she had not been a cog in the machinery of a monstrous system.
She is running along the wall as it gets peppered with blaster fire. Then she is on the ceiling. I have never been one for fancy acrobatics. Or any sort of acrobatics, to be honest. She pulls it off though. She's the type who, as cliched as it sounds, makes it look like a dance. It must be draining long-term though.
When she ceases to be a blur, she is behind the droid whose foot is planted on her Force Imbued Sword. The machine has the presence of mind to turn and she blasts its power core with scalding lightning. The droid is pushed back and the Sword leaps into her grasp, glowing with the power of the Force.
I watch as she clashes with the machines. The Force surges through her as she dodges blaster fire or blows from electrostaffs, slashes at limbs and joints. The droids try to surround her and bombard her with a fusillade of fire and here and there a bolt burns her, but they cannot pin her down.
The machines switch gears. One fires a hard sound gun embedded inside its gauntlet. Sonic weapons are a poor man's ysalamiri - and they work. Feels like being hammered in the skull. She is down on the ground, in pain. An electrostaff strikes her, easily knocking aside a clumsy parry.
I can feel her pain. It triggers her fury. A furious roar emanates from her throat. Powerful enough to produce a shockwave. Then she charges. Stun bolts strike her, but she presses on. The last droid smashed into the wall and burnt with lightning before she cuts it down with her blade.
In the end she, she stands atop a heap of broken machines. The air is filled with the scent of burnt metal, electronics and, here and there, flesh. Her aura is red with rage.
She turns to me and yells some sort of war cry I do not understand. Then she charges me. The leg wound has not fully healed yet. Her roar pains my ears. For a moment all I hear is white noise.
She gets in a cut across my face as I dodge. Then she runs into an invisible wall and I knock her across the room. This must have been very bad for one of her ribs. She manages to kick herself off the wall rather than being slammed into it.
Snarling like a beast, she tries to launch herself at me again, but I pin her against the wall. She struggles, but the more she pushes, the more she drains herself and the tighter the chains become.
I push into her mind. She screams loudly, in a mixture of dread, terror and anger. She pushes back hard enough for me to consider backing off. I can see the damage that monster did to her mind. The scars he left when he invaded it without a care for her.
It sickens me - and makes me consider backing off. I resist the urge. Coddling does not help anyone. It is necessary. I will not enslave her like he did. Instead of bring her pain, I incapacitate her. My touch is not a gentle one. She gets dizzy and her head spins.
"I am not your enemy, Rhea." I let go and she collapses onto the floor. Her sword falls to the ground. I take a step forward to her. Then another. "Do you understand now?"
She looks up to me. Her aura shows...acceptance. I stretch out my hand and she takes it. "Yes...Master."
I'll admit there is a part of that does like the way that sounds. I clamp down on it. I am not Mother. I do not need people to throw titles at me. "Just Elpsis."
xxx
We call it quits after a couple more practice sessions. She gulps down a bottle of water, pouring some of its contents on her head and shoulders. "What do you believe in?" she asks out of the blue.
"You mean Force-wise?"
"The Dominion drilled it into my head that there is Light and Dark. That one stands for good, the other for evil. That there is no salvation outside the Light. The Sith are evil - monsters. But the Dominion is no better."
"No, they are not. Your master was a Sith in all but name." Father would have liked him.
"The Jedi taught me anger is unnatural. That all emotions are. But that monster made me feel nothing but anger," she spits his name.
"Nothing is more natural than feeling anger at someone who hurt you. At being furious about oppression. Light, Dark, those are words. Anyone who goes on about how the Dark Side is an evil demon ready to pounce on naughty Jedi is just trying to control you or a fool. Don't get m wrong: there are vile, evil people who deserve nothing but death, but they chose to be that way. The only darkness we have to fear is the one inside us."
Sometimes I really hate it that I cannot see facial expressions. She is quiet for a moment. "Then love is not unnatural either. My love for my family was not wrong."
"Love for family can never be wrong."
"I am done with their lies. The shackles they put on me. But what do you believe?"
"You want to forge your own path. Do you just want to hear about out of a sense of obligation?"
"No. I want to know. The Jedi pushed their beliefs on me without any regard for me and broke their own code at every step of the way. The Sith murdered my kind just because of what we are. You haven't lied to me. What is this Lifeweb you speak of?"
"The Lifeweb is...the cycle of life. The web that connects us all. Imagine it as a fractal design where each leaf reaches to a different destination, but the end result is the same for everyone. It's the divine power that governs the universe - to me. The Force is the energy we all share. The Lifeweb reclaims us all one day."
"Like the Jedi say we all become one with the Force?"
"See, I don't think that's the end. I don't believe everything ends and we just lose our identity and that just a couple people get to live on as Force ghosts. That's elitist. Energy cannot be destroyed. Way I see it, death is another stage on the journey."
I pause for a moment, concerned I might be losing her. But she seems attentive. "We move to a different stage on the web and are reborn. Different body, different species, different realm of existence. Some may go to a lower or higher plane. But no matter how high we rise, we're all small before the Lifeweb. Life, death, rebirth."
She looks up to me. "Then nothing is ever truly gone. I could see them again one day."
It is not rocket science to figure out who she means. "Yes. Maybe not in the same shape as you know them, but yes."
"And the Grand Inquisitor?"
"Many years ago, there was a strange event. People started disappearing by the trillions."
"Oh, so it happened everywhere?" she interrupts. "I sppose that makes sense. It caused great panic in the Dominion. We thought it was the end of days. A machination of the Dark Side."
"It was a mad goddess - Akala. Anyone who disappeared woke up in a cold, dark realm. Filled with tortured ghosts and horrors. I was one of them. I think he's being punished there."
"What makes you sure?"
"Because my father is there and he's a monster. He was so how and mighty in life. Thought he was a god and everyone else was his plaything. So full of cruelty and malice. The when I met him in the Nether he was nothing - and I broke him." The smile does not reach my eyes, but it is there. When we met in hell, I was but the learner. He should meet the new me. I would throw his black soul into the deepest pit of hell.
And Rhea leaps into motion. She hurls her blunted sword through the air towards the skull of one of the droids and sprints. In all fairness, to say she sprints does not do it justice. Even I have trouble perceiving her through the Force. She seems to be dropping in and out of it.
She is a blur of motion. A whirlwind. The things she could have done if she had not been a cog in the machinery of a monstrous system.
She is running along the wall as it gets peppered with blaster fire. Then she is on the ceiling. I have never been one for fancy acrobatics. Or any sort of acrobatics, to be honest. She pulls it off though. She's the type who, as cliched as it sounds, makes it look like a dance. It must be draining long-term though.
When she ceases to be a blur, she is behind the droid whose foot is planted on her Force Imbued Sword. The machine has the presence of mind to turn and she blasts its power core with scalding lightning. The droid is pushed back and the Sword leaps into her grasp, glowing with the power of the Force.
I watch as she clashes with the machines. The Force surges through her as she dodges blaster fire or blows from electrostaffs, slashes at limbs and joints. The droids try to surround her and bombard her with a fusillade of fire and here and there a bolt burns her, but they cannot pin her down.
The machines switch gears. One fires a hard sound gun embedded inside its gauntlet. Sonic weapons are a poor man's ysalamiri - and they work. Feels like being hammered in the skull. She is down on the ground, in pain. An electrostaff strikes her, easily knocking aside a clumsy parry.
I can feel her pain. It triggers her fury. A furious roar emanates from her throat. Powerful enough to produce a shockwave. Then she charges. Stun bolts strike her, but she presses on. The last droid smashed into the wall and burnt with lightning before she cuts it down with her blade.
In the end she, she stands atop a heap of broken machines. The air is filled with the scent of burnt metal, electronics and, here and there, flesh. Her aura is red with rage.
She turns to me and yells some sort of war cry I do not understand. Then she charges me. The leg wound has not fully healed yet. Her roar pains my ears. For a moment all I hear is white noise.
She gets in a cut across my face as I dodge. Then she runs into an invisible wall and I knock her across the room. This must have been very bad for one of her ribs. She manages to kick herself off the wall rather than being slammed into it.
Snarling like a beast, she tries to launch herself at me again, but I pin her against the wall. She struggles, but the more she pushes, the more she drains herself and the tighter the chains become.
I push into her mind. She screams loudly, in a mixture of dread, terror and anger. She pushes back hard enough for me to consider backing off. I can see the damage that monster did to her mind. The scars he left when he invaded it without a care for her.
It sickens me - and makes me consider backing off. I resist the urge. Coddling does not help anyone. It is necessary. I will not enslave her like he did. Instead of bring her pain, I incapacitate her. My touch is not a gentle one. She gets dizzy and her head spins.
"I am not your enemy, Rhea." I let go and she collapses onto the floor. Her sword falls to the ground. I take a step forward to her. Then another. "Do you understand now?"
She looks up to me. Her aura shows...acceptance. I stretch out my hand and she takes it. "Yes...Master."
I'll admit there is a part of that does like the way that sounds. I clamp down on it. I am not Mother. I do not need people to throw titles at me. "Just Elpsis."
xxx
We call it quits after a couple more practice sessions. She gulps down a bottle of water, pouring some of its contents on her head and shoulders. "What do you believe in?" she asks out of the blue.
"You mean Force-wise?"
"The Dominion drilled it into my head that there is Light and Dark. That one stands for good, the other for evil. That there is no salvation outside the Light. The Sith are evil - monsters. But the Dominion is no better."
"No, they are not. Your master was a Sith in all but name." Father would have liked him.
"The Jedi taught me anger is unnatural. That all emotions are. But that monster made me feel nothing but anger," she spits his name.
"Nothing is more natural than feeling anger at someone who hurt you. At being furious about oppression. Light, Dark, those are words. Anyone who goes on about how the Dark Side is an evil demon ready to pounce on naughty Jedi is just trying to control you or a fool. Don't get m wrong: there are vile, evil people who deserve nothing but death, but they chose to be that way. The only darkness we have to fear is the one inside us."
Sometimes I really hate it that I cannot see facial expressions. She is quiet for a moment. "Then love is not unnatural either. My love for my family was not wrong."
"Love for family can never be wrong."
"I am done with their lies. The shackles they put on me. But what do you believe?"
"You want to forge your own path. Do you just want to hear about out of a sense of obligation?"
"No. I want to know. The Jedi pushed their beliefs on me without any regard for me and broke their own code at every step of the way. The Sith murdered my kind just because of what we are. You haven't lied to me. What is this Lifeweb you speak of?"
"The Lifeweb is...the cycle of life. The web that connects us all. Imagine it as a fractal design where each leaf reaches to a different destination, but the end result is the same for everyone. It's the divine power that governs the universe - to me. The Force is the energy we all share. The Lifeweb reclaims us all one day."
"Like the Jedi say we all become one with the Force?"
"See, I don't think that's the end. I don't believe everything ends and we just lose our identity and that just a couple people get to live on as Force ghosts. That's elitist. Energy cannot be destroyed. Way I see it, death is another stage on the journey."
I pause for a moment, concerned I might be losing her. But she seems attentive. "We move to a different stage on the web and are reborn. Different body, different species, different realm of existence. Some may go to a lower or higher plane. But no matter how high we rise, we're all small before the Lifeweb. Life, death, rebirth."
She looks up to me. "Then nothing is ever truly gone. I could see them again one day."
It is not rocket science to figure out who she means. "Yes. Maybe not in the same shape as you know them, but yes."
"And the Grand Inquisitor?"
"Many years ago, there was a strange event. People started disappearing by the trillions."
"Oh, so it happened everywhere?" she interrupts. "I sppose that makes sense. It caused great panic in the Dominion. We thought it was the end of days. A machination of the Dark Side."
"It was a mad goddess - Akala. Anyone who disappeared woke up in a cold, dark realm. Filled with tortured ghosts and horrors. I was one of them. I think he's being punished there."
"What makes you sure?"
"Because my father is there and he's a monster. He was so how and mighty in life. Thought he was a god and everyone else was his plaything. So full of cruelty and malice. The when I met him in the Nether he was nothing - and I broke him." The smile does not reach my eyes, but it is there. When we met in hell, I was but the learner. He should meet the new me. I would throw his black soul into the deepest pit of hell.
