Location: Desevro
One week after the Battle of Genarius
High in the jagged mountains of Desevro, Acier Moonbound moved alone through the snow-thin air. Each punch cracked against the cold like a breaking branch. Each breath rose in sharp clouds before the wind tore them apart. His footwork carved shallow crescents into stone, shadowboxing with an opponent only he could feel. Physical training was important here at the Academy, especially to Lysander von Ascania .
Right now? The isolation suited him. Desevro's peaks were quiet, and the silence had a way of stripping him down to his most honest thoughts.
His travels over the last month or so hadn't healed him. It had peeled him back layer by layer until the truth stood in the open with him. Uneven, unfriendly, but unavoidably real And Ace had learned that truth, even the ugly kind, was something he could actually work with. As he moved, his body steady but his mind far away, the real reasons for where he now stood threaded themselves through him.
It hadn't started on Genarius. It started on Kattada. Months ago, the assault on the Jedi Enclave there had carried a wrongness he couldn't name. The Force had rippled sideways, like something enormous shifting out of sight. Too focused. Too prepared. Too intentional. Ace had tried to shake the feeling afterward, but it clung to him like dust on wet boots.
Then came Genarius. The way the dark side around the Covenant didn't feel feral or chaotic... it felt orchestrated. Controlled. Directed.
Together, they drew a line he could no longer ignore. That was the real reason he returned with Vestra Tane under the guise of allegiance. Not ambition. Not curiosity. Not some reckless test of his own resistance. He was following a pattern. Hunting a sickness.
And the only way to understand a wound that deep… was to stand inside it.
Ace threw another combination into the mountain air.. He wasn't angry. Not anymore. He wasn't afraid, either. The dark side no longer stalked him like a beast. It hovered around him like a storm, one he believed he could navigate without drowning. Whether that confidence was growth or just arrogance dressed in clarity remained to be seen.
There was one ache he couldn't dodge, though. One he felt in the stillness between movements. Tic.
The little BD-unit had been a constant at his side, a pulse of warmth in the dark corners of his life. Ace felt his absence everywhere: no soft servos adjusting to mirror his stance, no flicker of the faint kyber glow from Tic's cracked core, no nervous chirps filling the gaps between Ace's thoughts. He missed him in a way most people wouldn't understand. But Tic was safer with Isobel Serraris for the time being.
The current phase of his life had ended, not with a triumph, but with a revelation. Ace knew himself more now: his shadows, his strength, his scars, his limits. He knew what had shaped him, what anchored him, and what he could no longer afford to lose.
Ahead lay darker halls, deeper secrets, and enemies who believed they owned him. Ace stepped into their den certain he could not fall - blind to the truth that such certainty was the oldest trap the dark ever laid.
High in the jagged mountains of Desevro, Acier Moonbound moved alone through the snow-thin air. Each punch cracked against the cold like a breaking branch. Each breath rose in sharp clouds before the wind tore them apart. His footwork carved shallow crescents into stone, shadowboxing with an opponent only he could feel. Physical training was important here at the Academy, especially to Lysander von Ascania .
Right now? The isolation suited him. Desevro's peaks were quiet, and the silence had a way of stripping him down to his most honest thoughts.
His travels over the last month or so hadn't healed him. It had peeled him back layer by layer until the truth stood in the open with him. Uneven, unfriendly, but unavoidably real And Ace had learned that truth, even the ugly kind, was something he could actually work with. As he moved, his body steady but his mind far away, the real reasons for where he now stood threaded themselves through him.
It hadn't started on Genarius. It started on Kattada. Months ago, the assault on the Jedi Enclave there had carried a wrongness he couldn't name. The Force had rippled sideways, like something enormous shifting out of sight. Too focused. Too prepared. Too intentional. Ace had tried to shake the feeling afterward, but it clung to him like dust on wet boots.
Then came Genarius. The way the dark side around the Covenant didn't feel feral or chaotic... it felt orchestrated. Controlled. Directed.
Together, they drew a line he could no longer ignore. That was the real reason he returned with Vestra Tane under the guise of allegiance. Not ambition. Not curiosity. Not some reckless test of his own resistance. He was following a pattern. Hunting a sickness.
And the only way to understand a wound that deep… was to stand inside it.
Ace threw another combination into the mountain air.. He wasn't angry. Not anymore. He wasn't afraid, either. The dark side no longer stalked him like a beast. It hovered around him like a storm, one he believed he could navigate without drowning. Whether that confidence was growth or just arrogance dressed in clarity remained to be seen.
There was one ache he couldn't dodge, though. One he felt in the stillness between movements. Tic.
The little BD-unit had been a constant at his side, a pulse of warmth in the dark corners of his life. Ace felt his absence everywhere: no soft servos adjusting to mirror his stance, no flicker of the faint kyber glow from Tic's cracked core, no nervous chirps filling the gaps between Ace's thoughts. He missed him in a way most people wouldn't understand. But Tic was safer with Isobel Serraris for the time being.
The current phase of his life had ended, not with a triumph, but with a revelation. Ace knew himself more now: his shadows, his strength, his scars, his limits. He knew what had shaped him, what anchored him, and what he could no longer afford to lose.
Ahead lay darker halls, deeper secrets, and enemies who believed they owned him. Ace stepped into their den certain he could not fall - blind to the truth that such certainty was the oldest trap the dark ever laid.
