Private Ascension Protocol

[Mercy]

Site of the Siegemother
(Image by Milla , thank you!)
​

CORUSCANT
AFTER THE EVENTS OF SYSTEM SHOCK
Lysander von Ascania

Mercy walked the streets of Coruscant, passing by carnage, destruction and mayhem. It was lovely. More importantly it was exactly how Mercy had envisioned things, if they managed to win and kick the Imperials off of the planet.

She stepped over bodies. She moved around fires. Once or twice she had to break up a crowd, when they attempted to jump her, not realizing who or what she was. Somehow her steps took her right to the deep gaping maw rend through the environment by the crash of her ship, the Siegemother. She didn't mind. You couldn't get too attached to these things, it would only hurt you in the end.

Somehow that didn't help as she stepped up towards the wreckage, her hand gently placing on the hull.

For now, it was still intact, but she knew that sooner rather than latter scavengers would come. They'd pick her clean, her flagship, until there was nothing but a carcass. Eventually even that would be absorbed by Coruscant.

Mercy sighed and turned away, beginning to walk along the hull's length. Fingers, golden and terrible, running along the metal.

It didn't take long... for her to spot a familiar figure. Her apprentice, Lysander, surrounded by blood and corpses. He had been part of the ISB strike team, but apparently he too had started on a walk after it. Somehow he also found his way to the Siegemother, perhaps having witnessed its peak poking out from the horizon from the headquarters. Or perhaps it was the Force drawing them here.

She wouldn't be surprised to find others in the vicinity too, each drawn to this magnificent and monstrous beast for their own reasons.

"Kid, I hear you made me proud today." Mercy drawled as she pulled her pipe out. Stuffing it with herbs was a thing she did automatically now, didn't have to think about it. "Tell me, how many have you killed today?"

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Mercy​

Lysander detected the Siegemother the same way he recognized incoming fire.. as a fracture in the world. He halted mere meters from the hull, stance loose and alert, weight shifting in a rather cautious balance. Crimson stains marred him in places he no longer recalled being wounded. But.. he didn’t care. Pain had a way of arriving late these days.

The Covenant had been running hot since Tapani. Months of forward motion. One vector bleeding into the next. He’d grown used to never seeing the same horizon twice. Desevro felt like a misremembered dream now.

When a voice reached him, he angled his head just enough to bring her into his periphery. His expression didn’t change much aside from the emerald gaze sharpening.

And at Mercy’s question, Lysander's focus drifted back toward the street behind him. Bodies lay where panic and training had failed them. Well, some of them. Many civilians had fallen, too. He didn't bother to look at their faces.

A pivot brought him to face her fully, and so his head inclined in a single nod. The compliment was not lost on him.

“I stopped counting, Master. You’d call it many.”

In the presence of Mercy, silence always had a way of sharpening.

“Some tried to flank me. Others charged straight in. A few froze when they realized they’d misread our distance. Different choices.. same ending. Always.”

A pulse of adrenaline still thudded in his chest.

“I was only clearing the path you pointed me toward.”

That being the ISB HQ.

“I trust the matter with the Core’s usurper was handled.. as intended?”

 

[Mercy]

Lysander von Ascania

“I trust the matter with the Core’s usurper was handled.. as intended?”

"Somewhat." Mercy said calmly, but thinking back to the throne room and all that had transpired there. "We took the throne. But an ally has turned into an enemy. Don't ask. Arris Windrun will inform you."

It was the best she could do while the rage still coursed skin-deep inside of her.

Another reason why Mercy had decided to take a stroll through recently conquered territories. It was no coincidence her fists were stained with fresh blood, versus the more caked and dried up quality. She had taken the scenic route towards the Siegemother's wreckage, because she had hoped to find some fights in between.

It pleased her they hadn't disappointed her in their foolishness.

“I was only clearing the path you pointed me toward.”

"You have done well, lad." Mercy stepped forward, over one corpse and then another, until she loomed over him. Hand settling lightly on his shoulder, but the weight of it would pull at him regardless.

"Any task I have given you, you fulfilled. Genarius, the Wheel, Atrisia, Tapani, now Coruscant. No bitching, no moaning. Just excellence." Her heavy hand squeezed there, meant to be encouraging, but it would be painful. That was life being Mercy's student. Pain, but finding purpose in the pain, meaning... and always a listening ear.

Mercy had never been like the other Sith Lords and teachers.

Her head tilted there as she gazed down at him.

"Do you know, I have met your sister. No, not that one. The other one." She murmured softly. "I bit a chunk out of Corazona von Ascania and she repaid me by cutting my arm off. Then she smashed me over the head with a bottle later. I believe I threw her out of the bar's window in conclusion."

Funny how these things could intersect.

"Tell me, Von Ascania... do you still love your Jedi sister? Are you loyal to your family?"

Or are you loyal to the Dark Side.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Mercy​

Lysander could smell the iron on her hands, mixed with the herbal smoke from her pipe. She’d taken the long way here.. that much was obvious. From his time under the Sith Lord, he’d learned she wasn’t the type to hide anger well, only the reasons behind it. And reaching into the mouth of something still chewing was a good way to lose a hand.

“If Arris is the one to speak on it, I’ll hear it from her,” offered simply.

When she stepped forward, it was like a silhouette stretching over him.. a moving eclipse. So, he lifted his gaze to her slowly in acknowledgment. Mercy always had a way of making the world feel smaller around her.

The hand upon his shoulder might’ve made old wounds become familiar, but the question asked hollowed something out behind Lysander’s sternum.

He attuned himself to the fires as one might to a song. The wind wove their crackles and pops along the streets. They were sounds that usually spoke of endings, left to burn. Somehow ,they settled into him, becoming one with the blonde's thoughts.

Strange how the places she listed such as the Wheel, and the Tapani Sector, piled up so quickly.

“If she crossed your path, then I imagine it was because Cora did what she believed was right. She’s always been like that. Even when it puts her in the way of things she cannot win. We’re alike in that regard, we never do anything halfway.”

A shadow crossed his face. His attentino remained locked on the Sith Lord. Beneath that exterior, a mind drifted inward.. probing the fracture he'd long concealed. Unfortunately.. he remembered it all with clarity. Every attempt at connection always started with him. Every message. Every bridge across the galaxy. Always his hand first, always his effort. She never reached for him first. Not without him taking the initiative.. again and again. The pattern itself was humiliating.

Perhaps those in the Mid Rim never learned to respect themselves; he reached that conclusion years ago. But he did, and the truth always hurt.

The skyline drew his focus for a breath's length before he looked back to her.

For a time, he spoke nothing more.

Lysander told himself that he could watch his family from a distance, ensuring they were safe without ever stepping into the Light beside them. They didn’t need to know it was him. He would never ask for their gratitude, and he long since stopped expecting their love. If anything, he was convinced he could become a guardian in the shadows.. unseen.

“I remember her. But remembering someone is not the same as being remembered by them.”

He wouldn’t betray the Dark; it was the only thing he had known for three years, the only constant that never turned away from him. Not like the others. Corazona. Fatine. Sibylla. Roman. So many..

But.. he didn’t want his family to die either.

Maybe the banner he raised before the palace wasn’t love, but obligation. Maybe he could carry the name without ever letting the people behind it touch him again.

The truth slipped from his heart, well aware it cast him as the fool he’d been his entire life.

“I’ve reached a point where those outside the Covenant no longer live anywhere in my thoughts. Whatever they once were has become impossible to reclaim. I don’t expect anything else from her. Not anymore. Or anyone else..”

A hush descended. The green that once lived in his eyes melted into a molten gold.

“They’re all dead to me.”

 

[Mercy]

Lysander von Ascania

Lysander was watched carefully by the mountain.

There was no triumph in her expression, but no hidden doubt in the fires of the mountain either. Mercy was simply... Mercy, implacable, unmovable, watching as he revealed his inner workings to her.

A good Sith Lord may have pounced on this moment of vulnerability. Tried to solidify his connection to the Dark Side. Or perhaps given an ultimatum: kill her and prove your allegiance once and for all. But Mercy was not a good Sith and she never would be. She believed in the philosophy of their metaphysical order to the bone.

Not as a platitude to reel people in. Not as a way to rationalize her sins.

Break your chains.

That was the mandate that ran through her fiber at every moment of the day. She was not here to make slaves out of Sith. She did not break acolytes to make them into followers. In the truest essence Mercy hungered to see them become Lords. To watch them break their chains and self-actualize into creatures that could go out into the Galaxy, grasp for the mantle of Lordship and do as they pleased.

Whatever they pleased.

To whoever they desired.

That would further the chaos in the Galaxy. The passion. It would challenge even more people to rise up against her little Lords. Until the only ones in chains were those so weak they belonged in them.

"It is never easy to break with your family, Lysander." Mercy said quietly as she finally spoke, the silence stretched towards the uncomfortable to anyone who wasn't a contemplative mountain. "But when they hold us back, we must." We. Another hint that Mercy was more than she ever showed to those around her.

"It will not be as easy as this, my boy. There will temptation, if you think otherwise you lie to yourself. There will be moments where you feel weak. Where you will stumble." Mercy leaned in there, the fires in her skull practically exerting heat. "Remember in those moments... you are not alone. You are furthest from weak. And I will never punish you for your doubts. Come to me, at any time, if you feel you need my support."

Her hand squeezed his shoulder harder, knowing that pain grounded them all, and forced them to stay in the moment of now.

"I believe you are ready..."

That would come out of nowhere marked by a bloody grin, showcasing sharp teeth.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Mercy​

More screams carried strangely through the ruins. Some were sharp, others more distant that stretched thinned. A chorus of pure agony. The planet continued to burn in every direction. But it was worth it to Lysander, to eradicate the faithless.

Beneath the physical pain, another, more insidious ache stirred.. one that settled deep within his core as her words wove their way into the shadowy recesses of his heart. Despite his resistance, a quiet truth took root in that dimming place inside him: she was right. The Dark had always been there, a constant presence in every moment when everyone else vanished.. a comfort in the solitude that no light could ever fully reach.

At last, the blonde broke the silence. “Ending things with them wasn’t what truly tore me apart. No.. the real pain came from facing the truth that I was the only one invested.. still making an effort to keep whatever was left from completely falling apart. I found myself constantly reaching out, grasping for something that was already dead and gone.”

The wind swept around him, bearing the burden of his sins from the day. It was unlike any campaign before.

“It’s impossible to resist the temptation of the things I once adored,” came the next confession. “Some days I wish I were nothing but stone so they could not touch me. But.. they do not shape my path. I want to break my chains.. even if the last links look like blood.”

A lift of his chin drew his gaze upward. the heat emanating from Mercy reached him before anything else. “You have never asked for my allegiance, which is why you have it. If the Dark is the only thing that has never abandoned me, you’re one of the very few who never lied to me.”

Standing there amidst the ruins, Lysander found himself unencumbered by the ghosts of his pasts.

"Whatever challenges lie ahead, whatever path you choose for me to walk.. I am ready, Master."

 

[Mercy]

Lysander von Ascania

Mercy smiled her terrible smile.

Blood still staining her teeth where she had torn into flesh, a midnight snack, so to speak. But her eyes were joyous, she was incredibly pleased and perhaps just a little bit proud of her little Ascania. She could not reach through to Corazona von Ascania , who seemed destined to a path of following after men and taking care of them.

Ironic then that Mercy had chosen to teach another Ascania, a man himself.

"I never asked for your allegiance..." Mercy confirmed what he said there. "...because it is not asked for, my boy, instead it is earned in blood."

Something that Lysander had proven time and time again.

And yes, he was ready.

Mercy had come to that realization all of a sudden out of nowhere. Then Lysander himself confirmed it a moment later. She had no use for humble creatures, who demurred and weren't interested in grasping for power. That was not the behavior of a Lord, but Lys... yes. He was close to it, ready for it, the hunger in him reflected the hunger of all those that Mercy had drawn to the Covenant along with Arris Windrun and Vestra Tane .

"It is customary to make an Apprentice kneel when this happens." Mercy said almost casually, plucking a set of aviators from her pocket, smaller than her own, which would have dwarfed Lysander's face.

"But a Lord does not kneel... and I have been teaching you above all else to be a Lord. One who understands when to kill, when to fight, when to wage war... and when to use your words."

Mercy nodded there and then? Gently placed the aviators on his face, pushing it up his nose with gentleness foul of hands shaped for war.

"Lysander von Ascania... by my judgement, power and authority. You are a Knight of the Covenant." Then that terrible smile deepened. "Let the Galaxy tremble under the shadow you cast."