Shadow Hand
The facility on Ession's barren moon had never been a place for the living. Even in the height of its purpose, when the Tenth Sith Empire poured its secrets into these sealed corridors, it existed only to serve ambitions that outlasted flesh. Now, in the emptiness of its abandonment, the structure clung to its purpose like a corpse refusing decay. Ash drifted across the scorched landing platforms. Static lights blinked fitfully behind armored viewports. In the main hallways, chambers, and laboratories, the last testament of Darren Shaw lay preserved in a cradle of alloy and ritual bindings, skin stretched taut over bones that had once carried the weight of empires.
When the outer doors accepted the arrival of the Shadow Hand of the Kainate, they did so not with alarms but with the quiet resignation of something that understood it could not refuse. The seals parted, and the darkness beyond the threshold thickened and crept inward, as if to herald an authority too immense for the ancient locks to contain. Darth Prazutis stepped into the hall without hurry or pretense. The black warplate that sheathed His vast form caught the guttering light and returned no reflection, as though it drank in all radiance. In His wake the light withered and died, shrinking from his titanic frame as a measured stride carried the hush deeper into the chamber. Shadows drew long across the various consoles and containment tanks, trailing behind him in slow ripples. The very air itself grew colder then, brittle even with a tension that made the walls shiver and a pressure that forced groans from the floors and ceilings.
When the giant swept into the laboratory at the center of the facility, he paused before the preserved ruin of Darren Shaw. Where others might have lowered their gaze in deference to memory or legend, He regarded the corpse with the same patient curiosity He might have given any failed experiment. The Shadow Hand didn't reach for it, nor did He break the silence with proclamations. His sheer presence was enough. It filled the laboratory with a certainty that nothing in this place would remain unaltered in his wake. A careful gaze scrutinized every curve, every shape of a body altered for genetic perfection by its creator, a form designed for unending war. Slowly, carefully, His attention shifted, passing over the rows of alchemical vessels and the evidence of a long obsession that clung to every surface. No flicker of sentiment moved behind the helm's expressionless visor. Only an enduring, measured consideration as He shifted to something else.
When He finally spoke, His voice was not raised. It didn't need to be. Even quiet, it possessed the gravity of something that did not ask to be acknowledged. "Here in this tomb of the past, you wear his memory as though it were armor, Delsin Shaw." Prazutis said, each syllable carrying the finality of an oath already fulfilled. "But there is no defense in devotion to the dead." He took a single step to the side, his gaze unbroken. "But the question stands: Have you come here to inherit his failures…or to surpass them?"
