Private Day of Activation

[Percival Io]

Percival walked in silence as the Amalgam told her story. But as the tale ambled to its conclusion, he felt... confused. The Amalgam was a master manipulator; Laertia had written a healthy wariness of her into the fiber of his very being. Yet if even his Mother could be swayed by her, what did that mean?

Was he meant to save Mother from her influence? Or would Mother's views of the Amalgam change, resulting in his programming conflicting with her wishes? He did not know. The uncertainty made him feel strange, as if there were a tangled knot inside him which was impossible to untie. Try to pull on a thread, and it would only tighten.

"So you see, dear Percival, the groundwork for the Cult's acceptance by your Mother's House was not without precedent. She had laid the groundwork just giving me that teensy permission..."

He heard the distinctly unpleasant sound of the Amalgam's flesh warping again, and glanced over to find that she had once again taken the form of Darth Phyre. His gaze was drawn to her red hair, glinting like flame in the light. How beautiful it was...

"So unsure of who she was back then. It's why she lost some battles..." Phyre noted, more distantly...

"She does not know even now," Percival murmured. Then, his voice grew stronger, vehement and passionate. "Phyre, if you absorb my Mother into the Cult—and I know that is what you intend to do—she will not learn who she is even then. What you offer her is not identity. It is the loss of any hope of true self-knowledge. She will disappear into the whole, an ego death like that of becoming one with the Force." He shook his head. "I don't think that's what you really want. You want her, but you don't want her to be like you."

The Amalgam​

 

[The Amalgam]

Phyre listened to the reply Percival Io gave his critique.

Phyre didn't sneer at her Son's musing, didn't dismiss it as hesitance or weakness.

"Your Mother tried for decades to have an identity among the supposed 'Good Guys'..." Phyre remarked quietly as she got closer and closer to the site where Laertia had crashed.

"Let it be said that in the early years, she really did try to build an identity with them. But she was too much an outsider, in too much pain from things that had nothing to do whatsoever with me and Amy. It's not like she didn't...try."

Phyre was silent a moment as she pondered this.

"But Laertia was always more loyal to her ideals than some Code. It's what made me fall for her when I finally 'met' her...point is my Son, she had a long time to figure out herself...how can you be so certain she doesn't know who she is? Sure, it might not be fashionable to admit, but she did accept me, eventually. Enough to give me you." she pointed out, turning to him.

"I designed your face personally..." Phyre admitted...

This, as Percival would eventually realize down the road, had been one more layer among many of Darth Phyre's domino effect on their lives. After all, one of the reasons The Battalion had grown so attached to him was because he reminded her of one of her human selves students, killed by her own hand after her conversion. The facial resemblances between Percival and whoever that slain student had been were made deliberately different, but not so different in certain key points that it wouldn't cause The Battalion to unconsciously latch onto Percival for her own reasons.

"You say my conversion will destroy her. I disagree. Laertia has been on a long slow process of destroying her own self perceptions anyway from my point of view. I didn't make her turn on the Jedi Order. I didn't make her kill all those people. I offered her an out at the beginning, and I would have let her leave, because I am in love with her."

She stopped, corrupted eyes glancing at the stars above before walking over to Percival.

"No force in the Galaxy could make Laertia do something she didn't truly want to do. If she didn't want to accept me after Kerest, she would have killed me on the spot for having killed and replaced Amy all those years ago. She could have chosen to kill me, or my Cult, at any point. Yet she is married to The Battalion officially, and when I say she loves Elaine, I mean it. Nothing could force her to love either of us. Yet she does. Granted, it's a tad more complex with me, how she goes from hot to cold where I'm concerned, and back again in a bizarre running gag..." Phyre trailed, placing her hand on her Son's shoulder.

"She doesn't have to carry on with me in secret, while making a big, fashionable gripe about it in public...yet she does..." Phyre emphasized to him patiently and gently, trying to ease him into understanding the concept of Hypocrisy.

"But that's not so much a lack of identity... that's more...denial..." Phyre explained, brushing her fingers gently on the side of the face and kissing him on the forehead.

There would be other days, she knew, days where they would eventually come to blows, eventually be at each other's throats...but she would still love him during all that. Or as much as an evil, reprehensible creature like her could get to the idea of love on the Brain Demon's leash.

"Perhaps your mother is not so lacking in identity as you claim..." Phyre said quietly. "For if she was...how could she lead your brothers? Your sisters? How could she form our House?"

Phyre stepped back, form shuddering and warping uncontrollably back to The Amalgam's, though half of Phyre's face lingered for a split second before becoming Amy's fully.

The damage from the crash was still there, but it was coming less frequently.

"If anything, my dear Son..." The Amalgam said, clutching her head and speaking with all the voices in her body, flesh ripping on her face, shifting between the faces of dozens of personas Percival and even Laertia had never seen.

"The real issue isn't a lack of identity..." she said, even as her face shifted to Phyre's fully for a second before it was completely her own

"But an overabundance of it. But that, I'm afraid, can hardly be helped..." The Amalgam said with a small smirk as she again took the lead, coming up on a crashed starfighter where the injured pilot, one of the pirate forces they had been battling above, was crawling out.

"Tell you what, Son, let's make this a bonding moment..." The Amalgam said, cheerfully walking over to the injured pilot.

"Since this is your literal birthday, I will allow you to decide this man's fate at my hands. Spare? Or kill? Keep in mind...you have been talking to me about identity..." she said, standing over the pilot who was in no condition to fight.

"He will die a VERY gruesome death, should you decide I should kill him. On the other hand...he is a pirate. No one made him raid those vessels or kill all those other people. Why should he NOT get a gruesome demise as his comeuppance? After all, you think fate exempts Cultists like me from horrific ends?" The Amalgam questioned, pressing the end of her inactive saberstaff against the skull. The Pilot whimpered.

 

[Percival Io]

"... Point is my Son, she had a long time to figure out herself... how can you be so certain she doesn't know who she is? Sure, it might not be fashionable to admit, but she did accept me, eventually. Enough to give me you."

"I designed your face personally..."

Yet the Amalgam (or was it Phyre talking now?) was quick to shift the blame back onto Laertia. She was the one who chose to kill all those people, to betray the Jedi Order and found House Io. Percival considered what he knew of his Mother's history, and he had to agree with her assessment: no force in the galaxy could make Laertia do something she didn't truly want to do, even if her desire was unconscious.

"Perhaps your mother is not so lacking in identity as you claim... For if she was...how could she lead your brothers? Your sisters? How could she form our House?"

His expression did not change as Phyre caressed his cheek and kissed his brow, his newborn mind busy processing their conversation. He knew what hypocrisy was, even if only in an abstract form. But to realize that his Mother was a hypocrite was... difficult. After all, she was the source of his programming, the author of his worldview. All of his ideals, beliefs, thoughts and desires came from her. If she was flawed in her thinking, then perhaps he would have to reorient himself. Clearly he could not rely upon machine logic in dealing with the likes of the Amalgam or the rest of her mad Cult. Perhaps Mother was no different.

"If anything, my dear Son... The real issue isn't a lack of identity... But an overabundance of it. But that, I'm afraid, can hardly be helped..."

Percival's green eyes focused on the Amalgam's warped countenance, an unfamiliar feeling igniting his brain as he watched dozens of trapped souls writhe beneath the surface. He had no name for it yet, but he would eventually come to know it as rage. It was a righteous fury at the injustice that had been done to the victims of the Cult, their identities absorbed and powers enslaved to the Demon's bidding. Perhaps in that moment he sensed what was to come, in Phyre's red hair and the agonized expressions of the trapped personas...

"Tell you what, Son, let's make this a bonding moment. Since this is your literal birthday, I will allow you to decide this man's fate at my hands. Spare? Or kill? Keep in mind, you have been talking to me about identity...

"He will die a VERY gruesome death, should you decide I should kill him. On the other hand... he is a pirate. No one made him raid those vessels or kill all those other people. Why should he NOT get a gruesome demise as his comeuppance? After all, you think fate exempts Cultists like me from horrific ends?"

He looked down at the injured, whimpering pilot. "He deserves to die," he agreed. "But I don't see the point in sadism. He should be killed quickly and efficiently, putting an end to his pirate career and ensuring he is forgotten."

The pilot's whimpering grew into a wail of terror at Percival's words. Yet the newborn Chaplain didn't move to strike the killing blow.

"There is another option. Spare his life and make him indebted to House Io. Let him carry out our wishes as penance. He will die, whether in battle or years from now, but only after his life has been spent in service to the House."

The Amalgam​