Changing Sides

[Haytham Kaze]

Orcus's Mansion on Cloud Nine.
Bespin.

After what had happened... wherever they had been on that Underworld space station, Haytham had been brought with [member="Hion the Herglic"] to his home on Cloud Nine. He remembered the events of that day vaguely. Only days ago he had been far out towards the edge of the Galaxy.

Ilum to be exact. He had connected with [member="Vassara Raxis"]. She was a ghost no less. He could say that he was glad she didn't appear to hi as a headless being. That would make for awkward conversation.

Anyway, he meant to find out one thing from speaking with Orcus today. An explanation of why he wasn't killed along with his fallen Master, why did he shoot him, and why did he actually bring him to his home of all places? Shaking his head from side to side, he expanded his presence in the room he had been given, a guest chamber he supposed.

Stepping out of the room and finding himself in the well kept corridor, he set out to find the behemoth that was Darth Orcus, the Force his guiding hand.

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

Finding Orcus was not at all difficult. The corridor would lead [member="Haytham Kaze"] into a large room, filled with oceanic decor. Paintings of storms lined one side, calm seas on the other. Rare shells seemed a common theme throughout. These, however, did not draw the eye. The wall facing away from Cloud Nine was not really a wall at all, but a solid slab of transparisteel that looked out on Bespin's pink and orange nimbuses.

The Herglic himself sat in a reclining chair facing the window-wall, a glass of Corellian liquor in one flipper, a book in the other. He lowered the book as the dark-faced acolyte entered the room, no doubt sensing his presence.

"Ah, Soranus. What brings you to my humble abode? Care for a drink?"

A massive flipper pointed toward the crystal decanter.

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Haytham found his way through the mansion of Cloud 9 fairly easily. It wasn't as much of a complicated design as he had previously though, and when you had a mind like his, one that imagined the worst of situations rather than the best, he was quite glad to find that he had been wrong in his thinking.

The room he found himself in was filled with oceanic decor. Creatures that he hadn't seen before, tapestries, and furniture he wouldn't have thought to see before. I suppose mentioning home is out of the question. He thought to himself as his grey gaze quickly took in the room as he strode through it. He did his best to suppress the impressed look that tried to meet the surface of his face.

"Yes, of course," he said politely. Haytham had been raised correctly, besides, it wasn't right to be rude to a courteous host.

He stalked towards the decanter and poured himself a glass. He blinked at it a few times as if to discern as to what it was, and once he was content with what he found, he lifted the glass, but didn't take a sip just yet. "Why did you shoot me?" Of course, he was speaking of the Hapan gun that he had been blasted with.

[member="Darth Orcus"]

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

One blubbery, hairless brow rose. Orcus set down the book on the arm of the chair and leaned back, flippers steepled. The single nod of understanding looked an alien motion, with trapezius muscles so large and head so squat that it appeared almost as if he had no neck at all.

"Some Sith love to deal in shadow games. I am quite the opposite. I take risks. I gamble. Sometimes I lose, but I like to... stack the odds in my favor. Perhaps I might have trusted you to give in to the Dark Side, but we Sith are not a trusting breed. The galaxy is full of deception, especially among those who we call allies. Shooting you with the gun of command was my insurance policy. It expedited matters."

The clouds beyond the enormous window wall shifted and sped, dancing their slow ballet across the skies. Picturesque and almost surreal. Murderers did not recline reading books, sipping wine and watching the sun go down. They hid in dark caverns on far distant worlds, hideous in appearance and smell. Reeking of malevolence.

Or did they?

Orcus swirled his drink idly and took a sip.

"Do you feel slighted? Insulted, perhaps?"

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Haytham did feel slighted, but deep down he knew it was necessary. It would've been a gamble to let Haytham make the choice completely on his own, but he had been ready. He had been pushed to the tipping edge because of Vassara's own fall, a betrayal in it's own right, he had felt. It would've been less of a fall in the mind, but more of a calculated decision he knew.

"I don't feel slighted, or insulted." He paused for dramatic effect. He may have been a former Jedi but he had a knack for the holos, no? "I was slighted. And you did insult my abilities." His grey orbs leveled on the Herglic. "I would've followed you anyway. There was no other place for me to go."

Another pause, this time a little longer before he continued and presumably came to an end.

"It doesn't matter. It happened and is behind me now." He twists his head around to look about the room, before raising an arm and casting it out around him. "Why this place?"

[member="Darth Orcus"]

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

"Ah," said the cetacean, standing and clicking a remote.

The glass wall retracted up, permitting access onto a patio that overlooked the clouds, a nigh-eternal drop below. Orcus wandered onto the patio and extended a flipper in a sweeping motion.

"Why not here?"

Rosy clouds of endless shapes danced through the sky. Surreal images.

"This is what everyone longs for. Beauty, a home, wealth. I want them to have it. I want an educated populace, with a high standard of living. But not everyone can receive such things. It is simply not the way the galaxy works. The greater good comes at an expense. Lives, fortunes, families, and homes. Whatever it takes. Some disagree, thinking security should not come at the forfeiture of freedom. And so they destroy. They seek to tear down what they see as tyranny, never realizing that such security is the bedrock of their so called freedoms. For without the ability to safeguard such privileges, words like freedom are nothing but hot air. And in that war they cause, digging up the bedrock, how many countless civilians die? Only to bring about some new form of corruption, perhaps even worse than the one before. This is why 'here.' To show what your friends in the Underground deny to others through their stubborn refusal to see the way things are.

"But come, you must have other questions."

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

 

[Haytham Kaze]

The Herglic's response had been short and concise. It left much to imagination as to what he had truly been thinking. He supposed he wouldn't be getting an answer unless he asked directly.

[member="Darth Orcus"] stood up to his feet, and Haytham's gaze watched as he pressed the remote that was undoubtedly made for the two flippers he had instead of actual hands. With an almost amused look on his face, he looked out onto the patio and the world that was beyond it. Stepping out onto the patio a few steps behind the Sith Lord, he folded his arms over his chest as he listened.

"We were not friends. They were only for convenience." He said politely enough.

"I don't have much in the form of questions. I only want to know what you were before you becoming a Sith Lord." Whether he was a Lord of the Sith mattered not to him, the young dark haired male didn't care whether he was just a Dark Jedi or a Sith plain a true. The question would allow him to clarify anyway.

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

Orcus nodded. Convenience, then, yes indeed. Friends were like dejarik pieces. You moved them around the board, pushed them into positions of power when opportunity presented. Sacrificed them when it did not. Why? To create opportunity for others. Mainly, for the player. A cold, bitter fact. It was well that this boy had learned it early.

Ah, he remembered many such friends he had once had in the Order. Kira, for one. His one time master and ultimately, the woman who had killed him. Obviously, it didn't take. The end of their friendship had been a sacrifice, but one that he hadn't come to fully understand until recent times. Indeed, Orcus' whole philosophy had been in motion, evolving until it reached this latest, fullest point.

It all came down to the greater good.

Black eyes swept across the multi-colored clouds, streaked through with the red of blood and fires of orange and sharp slashes of pink. Orcus clacked his teeth together.

"Who I was..."

He panned over to regard [member="Haytham Kaze"]. "A Jedi, once. Before that a mercenary. Before that an unfortunate gambler. I was all these things and some others besides. I was corrupted by the touch of the Soulsaber. I didn't even know the instrument of terror that I held. It deformed me. I was a mindless beast then. I died. I came back, resurrected by the Dark Lord of the One Sith. I served him until he died. Now I am my own master. A Lord of the Sith, as you said. That is the short of it."

 

[Haytham Kaze]

If his arms weren't crossed before, they definitely were now. The cold grey eyes of the rogue apprentice stared at the Herglic.

Convenience. Did he approve of that answer? Did he consider Haytham convenience? [member="Darth Orcus"] was hard to read as a person in their first time actually speaking with each other. Exhaling a breath that he didn't realize he had been holding in, his arms fell to either side when he got the answer that he had been waiting for.

"I assumed you were a Jedi," the ebony haired human said. "But I don't like to voice my assumptions." He'd start to walk back and forth, a pacing sort of action as his mind raced, clearly aiming to piece together the run down of the Herglic's life. "Without a true Master in the form of the leader of the One Sith, you figured, who better to control your actions than yourself?"

The balcony was spacious, and soon enough he'd find himself squared off, facing his would be Master. He wasn't hostile or aggressive in anyway, at least, not consciously. "Why not continue with the One Sith?"

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

A derisive snort issued from Orcus' blowholes.

"The One Sith are a broken entity. A collection of parasites feeding off the galaxy. They rape, kill and burn, but they cannot build. Most of them are mindless monsters, too consumed with rage to do anything but destroy whatever they encounter. Hauum."

Orcus peered down at his new apprentice's pacing until the boy drew up short in front of him. Those eyes bristled with defiance. Good. Every Sith needed a successor. Perhaps he would be the one.

"I seek to establish a new order, principled upon security and stability. And to regain the ancient worlds of the Sith. Our burial places and our temples. The One Sith are too set in their ways and too distant from my goals."

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Haytham slowly nods his head [member="Darth Orcus"] spoke. Was it respect that he sensed in the Force? Maybe, if there was a scale to judge the types of Sith there were, then he'd definitely put this one in the area where being a 'Law-abiding' Sith Lord should be placed.

"I didn't know that," he'd say to start at the first statement of Hion on the One Sith. "What with how many Jedi and people they've killed." He said matter of factly. Haytham wanted to save people, the Jedi wanted to everyone. But towards the end of his time as a Jedi, he came to the realization that you can't exactly save everyone.

Speaking with Orcus, he made it seem as if that were alright.

Turning his head to take a look at the view. Haytham makes his own, 'hmming' sound as he thinks.

"Yeah, I think I can agree with that."

After a few moments of silence, he'd swing his head back around to Orcus.

"When do we start?"

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

A chuckle issued forth from the cetacean, a low rumbling that came from the depths of his belly and grew into a full throated laugh. Mere joviality, or simple gloating? The affable Sith Lord made such a detail difficult to distinguished. A good natured killer, thoroughly perplexing.

A smile split Orcus' lips and stretched wide across his face.

Eager boy, did he not realize?

"We already have."

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Haytham's head cants to the side when Orcus begins to laugh. What was funny? His eagerness? His want for power? He blinked at him as his arms dropped to either side of his body and hung there. An arm raised up to scratch the back of his head in confusion.

"Wait? We did? How?"

He definitely was childish, even if he was a young adult.

[member="Darth Orcus"]