Overture of the Return

[Aszräl]

The debris orbited low over Doldur. It was wreckage of some kind; it looked like it had broken off from a capital ship. There were few remnants that weren't completely shattered to slag, and those remnants were valuable for parts and scrap. Surprisingly for the scavengers that moved through the wreckage like odd bees, the bridge was one of the sections left mostly unscathed. In fact, the blast doors were sealed and cursory scans showed that the main chamber was still somewhat pressurized. What that could mean was largely conjecture, but nevertheless it was an issue that nobody wanted to think about until it came time to 'crack the egg'.

Planetside, the benefactor of this operation was one Jules Crux, sometimes known as Crux Denko, but nevertheless the prevailing authority of this little nowhere world. Once a proud part of the ancient Galactic Empire, it was something of a production facility and marketable only to the right parties. This haul of metal would help him with some new innovations he was working toward production on, and it was surely a turn for the better for his company. It had plateaued in recent years and his net worth was plummeting. Never a good sign for a businessman. His eyes watched the dance of shuttles in the night sky as they raided the wreck with a twinkle in his eye. Things were finally going right again.

If only he knew how mistaken he was. Seated and unmoving on the bridge of what was once a great vessel, utilizing the generosity of the Force to maintain consciousness even near death, an entity from an all-too-quickly-passed moment in time waited. What he'd seen in the Unknown Regions was beyond his reckoning, and in his desperation for survival he retuned to the places of the Galaxy where men did tread. He'd gone by many names during his time, but ultimately there was a single code that marked his identity forever. Momentos came and went, as did victories, losses, limbs, and power. Once the Force-Using pinnacle of the Techno Union's military seat of Authority, he abandoned that rank and file to chase down his mentor.

It all played out for naught, and all he found were more mysteries, more pain, and a cold acceptance of what it was to exist. He learnt that there existed one truth, and that was reliance on the self. He could no longer hold that man to such an idealized standard; no longer have that guiding light to follow. His footsteps would become his own, his motivations of his own writ, and his mission simply to survive this world. It was animalistic, as all sentients ultimately were, and it was pure. Nevertheless a certain mistique was required, and he'd learnt temperance in his time away. The old days of allowing his energy to radiate and his imposition of presence were impractical and oafish. That was one last leaf he took from his interactions with his old accomplices: appropriate subtlety.

The sound of drilling roused the man from his self-induced stupor. So someone found him after all. He'd vaguely sensed the signs of life around him, and it tickled the back of his consciousness. It created something of a readiness, and it helped him to know how to respond to this inevitability. They were simple scavengers, from some business venture or other. Simple men without malice. Armed with this knowledge, he merely slumped over and lightened his trance. Now, rather than being nearly comatose, he would be found as a fortunate unconscious lone survivor, and he would be reckoned into this Dejarik board anew.

 

[Aszräl]

The scavengers recovered a body, barely showing life signs, and sent him off on a med-evac shuttle to the planet's surface. For Sigma, the events thereafter were a blur. He was restrained into a medical table, where many medical professionals and droids alike worked to mend his wounds and restore his health. His cybernetic arm, however, was removed and scrapped just as his ship was. Time passed, though how much he couldn't say. It felt like an eternity and in reality it was roughly a decade.

Finally, the time came that action was necessary. Sigma has lie dormant for long enough, and his body had recovered. Unfortunately, stagnation eroded at his willpower and he could feel old Rhoujen pulling for freedom. Sigma's eyes opened and a pulse of energy made the electronics around him go on the fritz. He sat up easily, will of telekinetics shredding his restraints as he moved. A medical droid's alert system went crazy and it attempted to restore the restraints to its patient. Sigma's eye sharply regarded the machine and it crumpled into roughly the size of a drinking can. The man rose to his feet and stretched his aching joints. Change was necessary, and he could sense a powerful presence worth investigating.

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Crux was busy discussing internal affairs with Sieron about the takeover of his company when the alarms sounded. The two had recently undergone an arrangement to allow the Denko family ownership of the corporation so long as Mr. Sieron retained his status as CEO. It was fine by Crux, so long as he got his cut. That deal, however, was eradicated as soon as their subject broke free. Security ran to the site, but Denko could feel the threat rising and it made him feel ill. What was this creature?

Security forces smashed into the wall before the duo and around the corner came their harbinger of destruction. Sigma, his power reeling and relishing from its long dormant state, formed a shard of telekinatically-charged electricity before him and it lanced Rilus Mercer Sieron through the heart. As Denko gathered his will to retaliate with his own Force abilities in kind, Sigma gripped him by the throat and lifted him a few inches off the ground. Crux anticipated his quick demise, but the growling voice he heard next made his heart sink.

"Do not think your death will come quickly," Sigma spoke as Denko's vision blurred and swam, "I need you alive... for now."

 

[Aszräl]

Sigma had never attempted such a feat before, but he was determined to undo his damage. He was incomplete, he lost years of his existence, and these were both unacceptable. Among the horrors he had to endure in the Unknown Regions, he was unfortunate enough to have been afflicted by creatures who rent the very life essence from his soul. They were natural Force vampires, and such a pain he had never experienced before. Paradoxically, this exposure showed him the truth of what the nature of the Force was, and kindled his own hunger. Until now, the art of Force Drain was nothing to him but a weapon. In the face of his greatest desire and a strong user of the Force, however, he found himself realizing a simple truth of life.

Hunger was the absence of sustenance. Sustenance fueled and mended the body. The Force would repair him and all he needed to do was consume.

Sigma strapped Crux to the same bed he had awakened in. More medical attendant droids alarmed and attempted to stop the man, but they ended up joining their companion as tin cans. Whenever the boy began to rouse, the elder would quickly knock him back out. Didn't need the struggle before it was necessary. Before it would fuel the fire of his damnation. Finally the last of the restraints were in place and Sigma settled into a meditative position on the floor at the foot of the medical bed. He closed his eyes, and concentrated on the Force.

In the seas of life and death and the endless pools of energy, Sigma found and touched upon the focal point of energy that was the young Crux Denko. It was simple to find, being so close in the corporeal world. The energy of Denko writhed and resisted as the metaphysical claws of Sigma wrapped around it and squeezed tighter and tighter. Tendrils of connectivity to the Force strained and held on for dear life, but the presence of the Dark Master was overwhelming for the young adept.

Physically, Denko's eyes shot open and bloodshot and he thrashed in his binds. A shriek welled up in his throat and escaped his lips as he could feel his presence in the Force being dominated and his senses began to fail. It was as though his soul were being ripped from existence. Sigma had not even begun the drain. Not yet. He was weakening the boy's resistances to the coming doom. Many of the more delicate connections separating Crux's heart from the circulation of the Force severed and retracted into the natural flow. It was this natural flow that Sigma used to even further assert his dominance.

Frantically, Denko tried to push, pull, shock, or otherwise muster some kind of resistance to the inexorable pull. The result was an even greater buildup of energy in his body but Sigma kept it all locked up in his victim. This manifested itself with lights flickering, the floor shaking, and a thrumming in the air that matched Crux's heart rhythm. The struggle in the Force to survive was creating physical phenomena that would have made a lesser individual believe the building to be cursed. As the thrumming began to generate heat and spontaneous flames licked around the walls is when Sigma truly dug his fangs in.

Crux's voice rose to heights that his vocal cords strained and failed as the air around the two turned ice cold and the undeniable ambience of pure dark side energy enveloped the two. Sparks of purple lightning danced around the flames and the boy's body and in the metaphysical realm of the Force, Sigma's grip finally wrenched on the very life essence of his prey and the feast began. Those purple sparks shifted to a deep crimson, the fires bellowed and licked up the walls, and in the mind's eye the light that was Crux Denko was siphoned into the body and soul of Sigma.

The boy's skin paled and his eyes rolled back as he gasped his voiceless screams. Sigma sat still, as the vortex of energy from younger to older manifested physically as a small whirlwind the flames were sucked into and spat out anew. The boy's skin cracked and flaked as his physical body attempted to fortify his connection to the Force. He was nearly consumed, and Sigma's body was looking more and more rejuvenated in each passing moment.

Finally, as Denko reduced to ash and his presence in the Force was erased, Sigma's consciousness wavered. He took a deep, shaky breath and smirked. He opened his eyes and looked to his hands. He couldn't help but feel instant disappointment and fury. He only had one hand. Youthful as it may be, and he physically felt better than he had in years, hew was still missing his arm. He let out his own scream of blind rage that shook the room, crushed the objects around him, and blew out the windows.

That last act of defiant malice caused him to stagger and collapse into a world of dark. The only place where he and his counterpart could meet.

Rhoujen had seen enough. He wanted his body back.

 

[Aszräl]

Rhoujen had been the real victim of Sigma's malice. For nearly a decade, he was forced to backseat as his demon wrought death, chaos, havoc, and mayhem in a bloody swathe across the galaxy. From Wild Space to the Mid Rim to finally the Unknown Regions, the hubris of Sigma and his power knew no bounds. Meanwhile, the boy who was subject to painful experiments and an onslaught of torment since near-birth was forced to bear witness to it all. With the consumption of another living being for little more than avarice and selfish jealousy, Rhoujen was fed up with this behavior.

A happy side-effect of this horror was that while Sigma was so focused on draining that boy's life to create youth, Treiades created his own siphon against Sigma. He used the demon's own art against him and pulled that precious power away, heightening the 'weaker' to become the new lord of this body, and when Sigma had finally weakened enough from his tantrum the previously repressed persona ripped his counterpart back into the recesses of their mind. It was here that Rhoujen would make his stand. Neither of them could truly die without the other, but like hell would Sigma be retaking this body again anytime soon.

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Sigma awoke in the stark white sands of their shared subconscious. This was a separate plane from the Force and a separate place in the mind from their dreams. It was, for lack of a better term, a holy ground. They had been here only once before at the behest of Sigma. It was at Naboo, when the more power-hungry of the personalities had seized the moment to assert his dominance. Now, it seemed, the tables had turned. At the center of this plateau-like arena, Rhoujen sat in a meditative fashion but stared directly at Sigma with fury in his eyes.

"So you bring me here for what? To be beaten again? I am our true owner, bo-" Sigma's words were cut short as the pseudo-representation of the Force here closed in around his throat.

"You talk too much, Sigma," Rhou replied quietly, "and you're not much more than a parasite" the finality of his tone was represented as a cut trailed itself along Sigma from ear-to-ear.

Sigma managed to wrest himself from Treiades' grip, but the boy had made his point clear. This was no longer Sigma's playground. Refusing to relinquish his bravado, Sigma applauded his counterpart. His voice now gurgled with the blood he spilled, a visual representation of the bleeding that Rhoujen had imposed. It was essentially a drain in its own right and Sigma could feel it.

"Well done, boy, well done," he choked on his blood but carried on, "you're practically me now," he beamed at his counterpart and knew full well what would come next.

"I'm nothing like you," Rhoujen yelled, rising to his feet, "You murdered, no, slaughtered hundreds-if-not-thousands of innocent people!"

Sigma took a step forward.

"You razed cities, shattered domes on otherwise uninhabitable worlds,"

Another.

"And now you've destroyed some boy for your own perverted selfishness!"

And another.

"No, Sigma, I'm not you," Rhoujen's fist clenched and his old sword Drachlaan, a gift from an old friend, shimmered into pseudo-reality, "but maybe for you, I'll make an exception."

What happened next was an inhuman blur. Sigma outstretched a hand and shot out a beam of crimson energy to take back what was his, but Rhoujen's pure willpower overcame that strike. He deftly flicked the power away with his sword, spun, and then lanced Sigma with his own screaming tempest of blood-red electricity. The smell was that of ozone and burning corpses, and it ate away at Sigma's form. Sigma's eyes widened in surprise but then he simply smiled at Rhoujen.

"I'll return one day, boy," he warned as he was picked clean by those tendrils of destructive force.

Treiades didn't lie to himself. Sigma was still here, somewhere, but he was deconstructed for now. He would have to rebuild, and hopefully in that time he could live out his years in peace. At least, hopefully return to his good old age of about thirty... though he'd really be around sixty by then. Sigma sure had made a mess of things. This reality shimmered away, and darkness took over Rhou's vision for the first time in a decade.