Duel Season of the Sith

[Vesta]

How Villains Are Made​

T H U L E

874 A.B.Y​

To come from wealth, from privilege, greatness, infamy and yet recognize that vile position of evil that might place oneself in is a sobering experience in and of itself, but to walk the wreckage of a planet once ruled directly by both her father and her cousin and to see what it had become - little more than a mass grave - and come to the same conclusion once again was quite a bit more disconcerting. Empathy in her was dead, an organ rendered inert like a drunkard's liver after far too much to drink, but she saw the desolation that her own flesh and blood had wrought by an idealized drive to rule as symbolic of the failure of the galaxy she had been born into. There was no shame in her mind, in her heart, for the evils of her kin, only the despair she felt for a hopeless bundle of stars that seemed to forever spiral inwards upon itself like light into the bleak horizon of a black hole; the observer of a reality in its last moments, unwilling to save the present from the future it deserved so much so as she was driven to deny the force the satisfaction of maintaining control indefinitely. Thule was barren, devoid of much, if any, life, but it would act as the template to how she would treat the fabric of space and time before tearing them apart and using what remained to make something new - pure.

There would be many that would serve as the stones she'd step over top of on her path to that uncertain rebirth but it wasn't quite so simple as progressing forever forward - there were snakes hissing in both her ears, illusions distorting the edges of her vision, and opportunists at every turn. Each would have to be put in their place in an order counterintuitive to their eventual placement across the turbulent stream of fate she planned to cross. First would be the shadow that believed itself darkness while the rest would follow shortly thereafter - the man that stood not quite so far from her, however, was not this. Darth Carnifex was a latter one, but he was one which would have acted on the opportunity she was inevitably going to create while taking care of the first. The lightsaber that she held tightly in her clenched, ink-stained, fist ignited with its red gleam illuminating her surroundings while the familiar hum it made spoke for her of her intent.

"Surely you knew this was inevitable."

Consolatory, perhaps, or maybe it was guilt - images of the talk she had with Carnifex in their dreams between worlds filled her vision for all but a moment as she questioned that emotion - but there wasn't a single offer for pity or a request for forgiveness, however. And maybe they both knew this was something that was bound to happen, especially given their divergent ideologies that drove them so far apart from each other, despite the early claims either made of agreement and mutual desire in an empire that was now long-dead, but if they had then neither had ever let it on. His path had already led him to becoming the Dark Lord of the Sith, in one manner or another, while hers now projected her towards this new height with an even greater goal already on her mind, so it wasn't far from the realm of reason that this conflict was inevitable regardless of the circumstances that would have caused it.

She took a step towards him, tilting her head to one side and then the next with a sickening crack, sharply, as she assessed one of the single-most influential people in the last century. It wasn't mere politics that had garnered so much hatred, so much fear, nor was it the totalitarianism he had engaged with, but also the skill he had with a lightsaber and his power in the force - the lattermost the reason she was subdued in her approach, the former why she had decided to act here and now in the first place. She knew everything about him that she could have gathered, from her first steps in his empire to the ones she made now, and nothing she had on him made this any less difficult than she knew it would be.

"We both know why I am here."

 

[Darth Carnifex]

A world devoid of life.

The Force recoiling in horror.

There was a distinct emptiness pervading Thule's atmosphere, a wrongness in the balance of nature. Thule had not been the most lively world, but even then it had still resonated with the Living Force as a world connected with the rest of the universe. What existed in its place was a wasteland, stripped of color and sound. Cities emptied of life dotted the planet's arid surface, buildings left to stagnate and crumble with no one to maintain them. No rain fell to nourish the world's rivers or lakes, no wind blew to caress the dwindling bioluminescent lichen that covered the idle plateaus and mesas.

The encroaching hordes of Light-blind zealots had not yet made landfall upon Thule's dead surface, nor had anyone trespassed since the vicious battle that had transpired following the planet's Force-death. That had all changed when several ships, black and sleek of shape, converged on the dead capital of Hurom. They landed quietly in the ruined square just beneath the Hurom temple's northern face, red-and-black cloaked figures emerging from each ship in silent procession.

Leading them was a being of immense proportions, a towering giant dressed in finery befitting a religious autarch. He laid down several commandments in an ancient tongue and the hooded serfs obeyed without question. This had continued for several weeks, more ships coming and going from the temple all the while the giant kept careful watch over their activities. When the work was done and all the hooded servants had departed from the world, the giant remained.

He sequestered himself inside the temple, many days and nights passing before another arrived on Thule.

She passed through the massive archway of the temple without difficulty, finding her path lit by candles and braziers burning with a sickly-smelling incense. At the end of her journey was the giant, stripping to the waist and kneeling at an altar inscribed with the ritual iconography of the Dark Side. He had spent this time pontificating on the mysteries of the Dark Side, reading from the scrolls set aside on his left, and carving ceremonial symbolism across his arms and torso. Blood had pooled and even dried beneath his kneeling form, but his clothing was entirely unspoiled.

"Surely you knew this was inevitable."

The giant was not roused to stand or face her, he only inclined his head as if emerging from slumber. He clutched the ritual dagger, still wet with his blood, in both hands and held it aloft before the altar. The dagger flew from his hands to hover a meter above the altar's edifice, spinning clockwise in a slow meticulous rotation. Only then did he rise, flexing his back muscles as the neatly folded tunic at his feet flew up into his hands. He slipped the fabric over one arm, around his back, and over the other arm.

"We both know why I am here."

"Indeed we do, cousin." The giant turned to face the woman, the face of Kaine Zambrano staring back at her. But it was not the same Kaine Zambrano she had known prior, it was his identical mirror; the one known only as Demiurge. Though he wore the same face as his counterpart, he lacked the deep ocular corruption and the ritual tattoos. Overall his body was much more angular than Carnifex's, with leaner muscles as opposed to bulky. His presence in the Force, while almost exactly similar to Carnifex's, carried with it several distinctions that could be detected by the well-trained senses of a Force Master if one knew what to look for.

"The Oracles foretold of this moment long ago, they whispered it in their dreams. Dragons dancing in the shadow of death." He did not approach her, not just yet. Instead, he reached out with the Force and drew his lightsaber into his hand, plucking it from its resting place near the altar. The cylindrical object landed in the palm of his hand, fingers curling around its cerakote frame. With a flick of the switch the blade sprung to life, sparkling emerald wreathed in acrid smoke. The Dark Side radiated from the weapon with the same intensity as peering directly into an open reactor pit.

"Shall we dance?"

Darth Mori ​

 

[Vesta]

Oracles. Destiny. Fate.

Words used which implied an unwavering, inalterable, road - it may twist, it might turn, but at its conclusion it was always the same and the people who found themselves upon it could not leave it once they took their first steps. To validate such things with those words was to admit belief in something beyond the scope of mortal comprehension or scope, to submit to something beyond one's control. The pressure under her eyes built as she narrowed them to near slits, reminded of greater flaws in the swiftly unraveling tale the galaxy had decided to force its denizens to act within. Permanence was antithetical to her belief, diametrically opposed to the vision she had of a reality of her own making that would supplant the ruined one they lived in now, and there was little more that was permanent, stagnant, than fate. Its threats of a promised end were rivaled only by the willing acceptance of self-bondage in the way of imperial life and an adherence to order.

Whatever respect she had once had for her cousin had vanished when she'd became disillusioned with the façade that all forms of imperialism and tyranny cloaked themselves in. It didn't matter that the person standing in front of her was a contradiction of a man, that there were subtleties between the two halves that had once been whole, his entire way of life was symptomatic of the virus that had plagued this dying galaxy. The muscles that ran along her left forearm tensed as she tightened the grip she had on the hilt of her lightsaber, the thin gradient of black-to-pale flesh stretched slightly at the change. As she would in the coming months over Tython, here she would prove that there was no single future or ultimate end - bending slightly at the right knee, foot slipping back to place her upon its ball and toes while he beckoned her to engage, she shook her head.

She wasn't here to entertain.

Her body surged forwards, like electricity arcing through the air from one conductor to the next, with such speed that the movement of her arm was only just barely able to keep up so as to make an arc with the blade in her hand while she bridged the gap between them. The sound of air being pulled back to fill the gap in which she had just been standing before the impressive burst of speed reached her ears as she lifted her right hand from its place at her side to direct as much telekinetic force towards the ground between them, pointedly in his direction, as she could muster in such a short period of time. She wasn't quite as disciplined, predictable even, as most of the sort that found themselves in her shoes in the past, but she was experienced and did not lack in strength or power that those who relied on their cunning to face him would have. Her greatest asset, however, was the gradual shaping she had taken part in to craft a coming shatterpoint - this duel being but one of the many cracks that spread from it.

"The oracles were mistaken Darth Carnifex - I am death."

 

[Darth Carnifex]

There was a deep breath before the plunge.

A single heartbeat passed before both cousins exploded into frenzied action. The ground at his feet burst as though struck by a bomb, with dust and pieces of stone flying out in all directions as the prelude to their imminent connection. The Dark Lord anchored himself with the altar at his back, bringing his lightsaber around to meet Mori's weapon wherever it moved towards him. He held his lightsaber in only his right hand, his left held at his side with a clenched fist.

"How many that have come before our time have spoken such words, cousin? How many more will speak it after?" One of the differences between Carnifex and Demiurge was that unlike the former, the latter tended to speak more often and with greater emotion; having retained all of his sensory faculties whereas Carnifex had sacrificed most of his for greater power. In fact, one of the most closely guarded secrets between the pair and their uncle Prazutis was that Carnifex's body was beginning to shut down. The ritual he had imposed upon himself had prolonged his life indefinitely, but simultaneously was stripping him of his senses. Touch had long since passed, his sense of taste and smell had recently faded, and now his hearing and eyesight were rapidly diminishing.

Soon all that would remain of Darth Carnifex was a man trapped in the prison of his own body, unable to experience anything other than his inner thoughts.

A fate that was worse than death.

"But I sense an unshakable drive in you, a will that only a few in the galaxy can rival. Does the Maw truly realize what they have allowed in their midst?" He spoke as they fought, blade clashing against blade in a dazzling display of sharp greens and reds. Each blow brought a brief glimmer of light to the dimmed and dull surroundings of the temple, though no splash of color lasted for very long. Even the molten gashes rent in the stone at their feet was bleached of color, joining the muted palette of grays that comprised the entire planet.

Demiurge shifted to his right, gliding across the floor and down the raised dais as if it were ice. From the moment he moved, the altar at his back was wrenched from its moorings and flung end-over-end towards the spot where Mori was or had been. If its trajectory was not altered, it would have continued to tumble down through the middle of the temple nave before clattering to a stop at the narthex archway. Several of the torches and braziers that had lit Mori's way into the temple were knocked over as a result of the altar's passing, and now several small colorless fires burned amidst the ruin and rubble.

"Or do they believe that they can control you like they control their ravenous hordes?"

Darth Mori ​

 

[Vesta]

There was a difference - she felt - between herself and the ones that came before, even the man that led the group she was now a part of. It wasn't her own delusions that spoke to her of the difference, either, but even the very fold of people she had entered at the middle of the last decade. She observed the destruction that pushed her cousin back, witnessed his movements that defended himself from her assault, and felt that same rush that came with the understanding of who she was meant to be. Perhaps it was his own journey to become what she had begun to succeed in that shielded the truth from his eyes - or perhaps he simply did not understand what it was he was seeing.

"I will be the last." She insisted, their lightsabers striking each other like the fires deep in the pits of Chaos itself - a raw fury within her that raged against her like a storm trapped within a container. Anger for a reality that wasn't fair, envy for the better lives that so many others experienced, and an inescapable spite for everything else that she gained at some point forgotten in the past. She didn't care at all for the ambitious strides of others, uncaring for the word and mind games so many tried to play her with, and only had a singular desire in mind that she was willing to do anything for - such a single-minded drive that even the force itself seemed to understand the raw emotive strength carried within her black heart.

"I do not need permission to exist there."

It was a pointless retort which would have been more suitable if she had been able to land a blow at the precise moment she spoke, instead Darth Carnifex moved further away from her in order to hurl a large object - an altar of sorts - towards her in response. She could have moved, could have done any number of things, but rather than act in a manner more mundane decided to offer her relative a glimpse into the rationale she had behind the statements she made. She lifted her right hand, fingers spreading, and in the breadth of a second shattered the object as it reached her into trillions of particles that showered her like dust.

To a master of the dark side as her cousin was, it was obvious that the object's shatterpoint had been touched - that she'd seen the single point, the flaw, in the projectile and its path and chose to destroy it. That was how anyone who could not see such things would have perceived it to be, there was little other explanation for it to be had without knowing otherwise, but to have observed the moments leading up to the altar's unceremonious destruction would have led to a very different conclusion. "I trust your eyes aren't failing you, cousin." She said as she directed her attention back towards him, smiling for the first time.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Of course, cousin." Demiurge smiled back, "A very impressive exploitation of an object's shatterpoint." Neither of the Dark Lord's halves could manipulate shatterpoints, it was something that they had no innate talent or inclination towards. He had followers and subjects that were more attuned to the power than he, and he used them to great effect where needed. It was the design of the Dark Lord's personal entourage to fill in the gaps of his power, doing what he could not.

"It is a pity that our paths have diverged so far only to collide at this juncture, our views so irreconcilable that it leaves neither of us any choice but to fight. Carnifex and I loathe such internecine struggles, it leaves the family weakened in a galaxy looking to tear us down." He did not say that he regretted that it had come to this, only that it was a pity that it had. The Dark Lord, both halves, rarely regretted anything they had done once it had been carried out. That their cousin's path had drastically spun off into its own distinct path did not disturb nor infuriate them, it was simply a fact that had been processed and accepted. Whether she would die here in this temple on this lifeless world was another matter.

"We seek the same power, the power to change the universe forever. The Worm Emperor, Solipsis, you, and I. Cards of the same deck. The Hierophant, the Chariot..." He chuckled for a moment, "Death, and the Emperor. How amusing, is it not?" He breathed out in a long cool exhale, "But only one will remain." He raised one hand towards the roof of the temple above them, quickly flicking his hand from right to left. A bright light flashed in a grid pattern across the exquisitely carved stone, revealing that the entire roof had been sliced into equally sized pillars of stone several meters thick and deep. Another flick of his hand brought them down on Mori's head, a mass of stone missile careening down all at once.

"Which will prevail?"

Darth Mori ​

 

[Vesta]

Wonderland​

To rule - to control - one needed to be powerful, strong, unassailable.

The man that stood before her hadn't even understood the significance of what she'd shown him, or he failed to see what it was that she did altogether - one was a sign of shortsightedness, the other shortcoming. There wasn't a fiber in her being that determined that she was better suited, a given when her ideology was taken into consideration, but it placed the former dark lord beneath the high standard that she had set as a bare minimum. Strictly speaking he wasn't entirely incorrect, the altar's shatterpoint had been acted upon and it had turned the threat into little more than a cloud of dust - but what the altar's shatterpoint had been was what she had been getting at, something that was profoundly more important in the grand scheme of things than something as petty as quaint as acting on a fatal flaw.

"Sure." She agreed, dryly, unimpressed.

He followed with the familiar soliloquy of family, a bond that was meant to be so tight as to become nearly impossible to break, bonds she had broken immediately and with total abandon when she understood how those chains had tried to ensnare her. Her father had deserved more, certainly, and she had granted that in the recreation of her mother for him - but there was no one in this galaxy that she considered close in that regard, not anymore. Whatever pity or hesitation he might've hoped to gain from her with such pretty words had been lost on her, garnering but a slight shake of her head and hardening of her eyes. No matter the decision, the past was now the past and there was no use dwelling on it or the myriad futures that could have sprung from a difference in choice.

"Tell me there's a point to this, cousin." She asked, annoyed, to which he answered.

If her smile hadn't slipped from the lack of enthusiasm he had instilled in her with his answer then the frown that set in did away with it in its entirety. She did not share his amusement, nor could she, as he made his intentions clear. Hot air escaped from the parting of her lips, right hand rising and light collapsing into it - the thunderous opening of her metaphorical maw so ferocious that the dim gray glow that remained where color had faded was devoured whole. The collapsing structure and terrain rained down over her and surrounded her in an obscuring cloud of dust and dirt.

"So much power in a man that cannot see."

Existence fled where her fingers had stretched out towards, matter surrendering to her sundering touch, and from her open hand sprang the darkness itself - tendrils that looked as though they were made from the dark void of space which spread like ink in still water through the air. Duracrete, steel, rock, it didn't matter; everything the darkness touched was completely annihilated. When the cloud cleared enough to make out what was beneath Vesta remained standing, largely unscathed.

"We are after a different power, Darth Carnifex ." She said as she stepped towards him, tilting her head to one side and then the next to crack the vertebrae in her neck. "You want to change what is, I want to destroy and make new. This galaxy, these people, you - everything." Vesta explained with the slow curl of her lips into a snarl. Her right hand was down at her side by now while her left was raised, saber in hand, to keep the tip of her blade trained on the man. "The Maw understands that, and they understand, partially, what I am."

Lifting her saber higher as their gap was steadily closed, she shook her head.

"I am this galaxy's shatterpoint."

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"So insightful."

Mori's words slid away from the Dark Lord like water, nothing appearing to phase the elder man despite the snarling of his younger family. His lightsaber snapped up to strike Mori's from underneath, lashing back to strike it repeatedly as their duel recommenced from the brief interlude. This time, the Dark Lord's attacks came in faster, more vicious with killing intent behind each swing whereas before he had not deigned to leverage such lethality against Mori.

"But you misunderstand. The change I seek is not so dissimilar from the destruction that you covet, the galaxy's annihilation will come all the same. It is the aftermath that is different." The Dark Lord's grandest ambition was to see the galaxy utterly remade from its basic atomic level, everything wiped away so that he could start again and remake all of creation in his own image. He would give birth to new stars, order the planets into creation, and seed them with life that only knew of his generosity.

A universe beholden only to him.

Through ceaseless study and searching, the Dark Lord had uncovered the steps that he would need to take to acquire this power. Through the power of the Mortis Gods, harnessed by might hitherto seen in the galaxy, he could break the cycle. The Empire had been a means to search for this power uninterrupted, its vast resources and manpower bent towards this singular objective. He had discovered much during his long tenure as Emperor, having even crossed over into the realm of Mortis itself. What he discovered there had changed everything.

Written in the ancient scriptures were tales of Cosmic Turbines, wielded by the august Celestials during the earliest eons of the universe. According to legend, the Celestials had moved the galaxy into being with these turbines through their unmatched mastery over the Force and the physics of the universe. One such device had been known historically to have existed, but it had been destroyed when a group of rogue Dark Jedi attempted to harvest its power for their own uses. They had perished along with it, taking whatever secrets they had uncovered to the grave.

Much research had been put into recreating such a device, but all the Dark Lord had to show for these efforts was failure. But he would not be deterred, he would seek other ways to achieve his goals. Even now, as he and his cousin had their bout on Thule, the Dark Lord's agents were restless in their search for greater knowledge of the ancients.

"What will you make with all of your power, dear cousin?"

He struck again, his gaze metamorphosizing into a hateful glare that caused the air to broil with heat, and skin and clothing to burst into flames. The energy was so intense that any stone caught in the narrow cone of vision drooped and melted into molten glass. Smoke curled up from everything struck by the Dark Lord's vision, the very air combusting as the oxygen molecules were riled into an explosive reaction.

Darth Mori ​

 

[Vesta]

Devil Like Me​

'I had no doubt you would think so.'

The thought came to her as naturally as the inhaling of air through her nose to breath, knowing full well just how single-minded in pursuit of strength and power that the sorts of people her cousin had surrounded himself could be. So wicked, so wronged, men like him thought people like her either had to be like him or were otherwise deluding themselves, covering their eyes to prevent themselves from seeing just how base their 'true' desires must be. There was little room for nuance except in the little grains of sand that fell from a slightly different gap between their fingers.

Despite the lifetime of experience that the man she was up against had, and likely would continue to have long after this meeting, Mori had not given herself the chance to rest on her laurels in the time she'd been alive, either. More recently, even, she had pursued enemies that she'd consider above her - not above dealing with the ones beneath her, but punching up relentlessly. The uptick in speed reminded her of duelists with much finer finesse than he, something she did have that he didn't, but with the weight of a terentatek flowing in behind it like a burst dam - she could feel the vibration running through the hilt of her lightsaber wearing into the smooth skin on the palm of her hand with every strike she blocked, every blow she parried.

So much power, such greatness, wasted on the ego of a man twisted by an unfair life, ruined by the corruption of choices that he never should have had to make. He was everything she had found herself becoming with none of the yearning not to be - a man that embraced the fall with all the fervor that an optimist might run blindly into the light. Her teeth grit as her jaw clenched, refusing to concede ground to the towering figure with a steady pivot towards the defensive while the swirling emotions in her emphasized with what he must have in the moments of his youth that chiseled the horrible man he had turned into out of the boy he had been. It was the dull ache in the space where the new heart that beat in her chest was that brought her back to the reality of both the situation and the pointlessness of dwelling on what he could have been.

Kaine was a monster, just as she had found herself to be, and there was no further branching path that could lead him off of that road now.

"What will you make with all of your power, dear cousin?"​

That was why she was here, wasn't it? To take the mask off and reveal to him what kind of evil she really was?

While her cousin had sunk away into the shadows during the chaos that emerged with the New Imperial Order rising up against the Sith in the Stygian Caldera, out looking for forbidden knowledge and aiming to increase power that dormant rule had let stagnate, Vesta had been doing as she was now - only without the clarity in understanding why, and for what. Purpose had been the raison d'etre behind her pursuit for continuous growth then, to discover just why a mother would make a daughter if she knew she would have to die for her to be born and why a father would be willing to let it be so - to understand why she had been forced to live through so much more trauma than the pain that grappling with the former had caused. Everywhere she turned she saw the same thing, people who grasped for power that wasn't theirs, men in high places and kings in gilded towers taking and taking until there was nothing left that could be given - and then destroying what remained out of sheer spite.

Children that were ripped from their homes, fortunate enough to know they had been loved, only to be forced into becoming the sorts of monsters she now stood shoulder to shoulder with.

Even those who lived lives entirely unaffected by the destruction and the suffering spreading elsewhere, in the remoteness beyond, still could not be happy with what fortunes they had been dealt by fate and fought amongst themselves to have more than what they deserved. Righteous men and women took up arms and fought against the crueler ones, people like Darth Carnifex and herself, and ended up dead and forgotten in the process - while remaining altogether impotent when the much broader evils in the galaxy were placed into perspective. There wasn't a Jedi alive, or dead, that had managed to erase the darkness in the galaxy - they'd simply destroyed its vessel of the day while blind to its spread among the youth that suffered who would replace them in the years to come.

Heat tore through the space between them, everything directly within his line of sight caught in a horrendous heat that burned without prejudice. Like the rain of turbolasers on Rhand that literally ripped her cell from cell, atom from atom, she could feel the skin, the flesh, muscles and bone beneath the lower half of her jaw ignite with every nerve that fired in reaction to her being caught in his deadly sight. This was where they were different, though, where the fundamental flaw in the sort of person people like him had in the means they operated by truly were their eventual undoing; every moment in this life, especially and particularly after her suffering on Rhand, was pain equal to this. It did not lessen the sharp recoil that she resisted to let shape her movement while she still defended herself against his blade, it didn't make it hurt any less, and it did not make it easier for her to bear -

But it was another burning match tossed into the fire that fueled her, another morsel of pain to help satisfy her masochistic hunger.

A strike from a whip that reminded her that she was here to fight, not to defend.

She moved in with an agility she had kept suppressed before, precision reminiscent of comparisons one could draw between a scalpel and a kitchen knife, and strength that was entirely unnatural to the human mind when taking into consideration the space she seemed to occupy, and bathed herself in the burning torment of his gaze while she drove her lightsaber towards him while projecting upon him the single-greatest emotion she had in her - self-loathing - and struck at him as she would herself if it was all she was left with.

"A galaxy without people like us." She answered as the hunger within her was let loose, taking what little was left of the planet's thin presence in the force as sustenance to continue.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Is that so?"

Demiurge was made to abandon his withering gaze, the hateful heat dissipating gradually as more effort was put into his blade work than his power over the Dark Side. Still, what was left was a chapel ruined by that power. Stone had wilted like clay, cloth and silk fabric had combusted into ash almost instantaneously, rivers of molten glass left deep scars in the floor and wall. Nothing of the chapel remained unscathed by their battle.

It was symbolic of the power they both wielded, how they left their mark upon the galaxy wherever they went. No being was unaffected by their actions, the reverberations of one event radiating out like the waves from a stone tossed into a placid lake. And it was when the contrasting waves met where the galaxy suffered, the struggle of one wave attempting to crest the other drowning millions and millions beneath the deep dark water.

But there were those few who persevered through the crashing waves, their head staying above the surface. They were the ones who learned from the conflict, who grew stronger because of it. They knew then that in order to survive, they had to force others beneath the surface in the chaotic struggle. To climb over those weaker than them to reach safe ground. Out of them, an even smaller handful managed to reach shore. Those that did were faced with a choice.

Turn away from the lake, leave the chaotic struggle behind, and face the unknown.

Or pick up a stone.

For most of his life, the Dark Lord had ridden the currents of clashing waves until he found solid ground beneath his feet. From his vantage point, he caused many ripples in the lake. Millions, perhaps even billions by now, had suffered because of his actions. And not just by his hand, through his actions he inspired entire generations of madmen to aspire to the same heights. His endless legions of mindless minions, clawing for just a drop of his power. The dark undercurrent of the galaxy, dancing to the tune of the pied piper.

Thule was a prime example of what happened to worlds caught between clashing waves. In the span of a day, the entire population of Thule was sacrificed for the ambitions of one man. Now all that was left was a graveyard, with none left to witness the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon.

He swiped with his blade, the two weapons connecting in a bright flash. Demiurge could feel his cousin's hunger, it was gnawing at the periphery. It found succor in the small traces of life that were left in isolated pockets across Thule, finishing what he had started when he first drained the world of life. If there had been the fainted chance of Thule making some ecological recovery on its own, those dreams were well and truly ground beneath Mori's heel. Now only through artificial means could Thule be restored to something resembling alive, the dead world otherwise condemned to an eternity spinning in the endless void.

They danced back and forth, surmounting fallen obstacles and slicing apart flying debris thrown by the mind of their adversary. "We could fight like this forever," commented Demiurge after slicing apart a stone headed right for his head. He sent a chunk of stone at Mori in retaliation, the debris moving at such speed that it could've easily crushed her skull on impact. "Want to tell me what your strategy is, dear cousin?"

Darth Mori ​

 

[Vesta]

Season of the Witch​

A shower of dull gray and silver sparks ignited at her periphery while her cousin spoke, the embers left of her lightsaber cutting through the air and biting into splinters of wood hurled at her face, her free hand rising as the Sith directed a measure of stone towards her skull to stop it in its tracks through the sheer force of will exerted by her mind alone. She let the features of her ruined face shift into an ugly grin, relishing in the underlying meaning that Darth Carnifex was conceding by making such an observation. The fingers of her hand that had made the gesture to catch the debris he'd thrown towards her, once loose, tightened into a fist that seemed to place an incredibly disproportionate pressure upon the surface of the stone, evident by how quickly it shattered and then compressed into a smooth marble at the heart of where the former chunk of rock had been.

It fell as her the smirk on her face did.

"Yes, we could move endlessly until either of us tires - a result that you certainly are most intimately aware of." She answered in such a manner that it was obvious she did not fancy the idea of doing so, implying perhaps disinterest or even that she considered the notion boring. "Or you could press your luck and end up on the receiving end of the combined attention of both myself and another." Vesta added with a shrug, her shoulders loosening with the gesture, her lightsaber still held in the most advantageous position for her to strike if the opportunity arose. "Evenly matched against one.. but two? Three? Even in your supreme arrogance, cousin, you must understand that there is no hope for you, or any of the insects that posture beneath you, in the event that you try to snatch power out from under my nose."

It wasn't a subtle threat, but she wasn't trying to be subtle either, in that regard. Lingering beneath the consequences listed out to him, however, was something that was made subtle by the blunt commination. "You can scheme, you can plot, and play as the children do with the lives of men and women scattered across the playing field, but when the time comes do not try to take what is mine." She said from behind a narrowing glare, her lips pressing firmly into a thin line. "Theft, by blood or not, will end in your ultimate destruction, something I will relish if you cross me."

"Stand at the sidelines and watch, if you like for all I care - try and take it from me after the time has passed and take your chances against me when I am all that remains."

Her lightsaber's tip was lowered, slightly, as the features of her face and torso, once ruined by his deadly sight, were painted over as if new.

"I am offering to turn a blind eye if you do not interfere in the process I have already set in motion, but I cannot find mercy in myself for anyone that does."

She let it sink in with a brief pause in speech as she emphasized just how ready she was to make that threat a reality - the lightsaber in her hand crumbling into ash as it was consumed by her hunger.

"Even you, even family. Father, mother, cousin, brother, and sister all - I will kill every last one of them, along with the rest of your silly troupe playing dress up in the outer rim, if you so much as lift a finger to tilt the scales."

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Quite ferocious, dear cousin."

Even when faced with such a terrifying force of nature, the Dark Lord did not break composure even for a microsecond. He was the master of his domain, the unwavering sovereign of all that he surveyed. When faced with a challenge, he did not shrink away, nor did he allow that danger to crack the immaculate exterior of his calm and collected nature. Perhaps caution may win the day in his mind and in his heart, but his spirit would not allow an enemy to break his control.

"You needn't fear so much, it isn't within our interest to impede the Maw's violence. Their rising tide of blood will elevate all ships, just be careful you don't find your own capsized. It would be a pity to see such ambition snuffed out before it could burn the galaxy down to cinders."

Demiurge's lightsaber extinguished itself and slipped back into the dark confines of his sleeve. The time for theatrics had passed, and thus the Dark Lord no longer required such crude symbols of violence. Not that he required it to fight against his bloodthirsty cousin in the first place, but it made for a good exercise and to gauge Mori's skill without needlessly escalating what in the Dark Lord's eyes was a test. She was everything that Carnifex had told him she would be and more.

"We are quite eager to see the blood-letting of the cradle, it had been too long since that world suffered the torments of the Dark Side. Though, we suspect the Maw places too much emphasis on vulgar displays. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." His eyes glinted as he looked to regard Mori, "Although you do not need me to remind you of such truths."

He walked a short distance to a stained-glass window, one of the few that had survived their heated conflict. Through the multicolored glass he could see the lifeless husk of Hurom, a corpse-city stretching out to the horizon where the arid lifeless wastes waited. The yawning abyss was all that awaited Thule, for there was nothing left here but an aching emptiness where the miracle of life once resided.

"When you leave this world, I will stretch out my hand and wipe it clean. Nothing will remain of the civilization that had stood for over two hundred generations. Not even the faintest memory of life will endure." He breathed in and exhaled deeply.

"Upon this rock I will build my church."

Darth Mori ​

 

[Vesta]

She had a feeling that he had an inkling of an understanding as to what it was that she had been slowly becoming over the years, undoubtedly because of the dream she had pulled him into that took place in the space between worlds that several of the people she surrounded herself were after now. Maybe he even understood that the, comparatively at least, lax nature of their exchange was because of her desire to show that to him rather than hope for his trust in what she would have otherwise had to have verbally convinced him of. In his shoes she would have retaliated in a way not quite so different from what he had promised to her in that dream over a decade past, and it was out of respect that she began the conversation under the façade of violence in the first place - he deserved to know that it was her choice not to betray him in the way she had said she wouldn't, that what she told him was not an empty threat of reprisal.

"My own ship will right itself even if I find myself sunk to the bottom of that proverbial ocean." She answered rather cryptically, aware of something else that perhaps wasn't quite so important as to be anything more than vague. Onrai had thought that Vesta would learn to come into whatever gifts the heart that beat in her chest had given her, unaware that the act of placing Typhojem's into her had sewn both it and that knowledge into her very soul. "Maybe, but I think you know more about me than you're letting on." Vesta added, referring to his quip in regards to the potential of the force. That, of course, wasn't exactly a well-guarded secret now - she had all but outright told him that she had become an entity similar to the infamous Nihilus, although the new addition to her body had made her something different entirely despite that similarity in hunger.

She considered his desire to build something new, something she had once thought he was incapable of - the man was a relic from a time that had long-since passed, a memory of an old world that persisted in the new age that she was a part of - but slowly came to the conclusion that it had merely been the time she met him in that he had been unwilling to engage in such things. "One last thing before I go, cousin." She said, glancing away for a moment before returning her gaze to him. "I know how you and father think of us, of your children. If we were of the same mind on what comes after then I would have tried to do this together, if only for my parents, it isn't easy to turn my back on the only people I have left to me." Vesta explained, slowly shedding the stoicism she had arrived with in order to express how genuinely she felt in what she was saying. "Your church will only last as long as its foundation, ours eroded the more disposable we became to our elders."

"Love isn't a weakness, Kaine, only the fear of it is. I'd do anything for Quinn, even destroy the universe to create one in which her suffering never happened."

"Even cut out my heart and put in its place Typhojem's." She said, emphasizing the name of the felled deity that he likely thought was little more than a myth - a myth now buried behind her breast.

"Imagine what I, or you own children, could have done for you if you laid a better foundation down for you relationship with us."

She had started to, at some point in their exchange, realize the man standing there wasn't exactly the man she had arrived thinking he was, unaware of the man's dual existence until perhaps now. It would have been a waste of her breath being sentimental to the heartless man that had threatened her with death if she had betrayed her family in the way she knew he would have interpreted this as. "I still love my father and mother, cousin, and I still feel that love for you, too. It is only the knowledge that you and he would trade me for something else if you had to that gave me the reason I needed to make this choice, difficult one that it is."

She paused, wondering if he was even capable of the sort of empathy he'd need to fully grasp what she meant; if it was worth divulging something that she wasn't sure she could share with anyone without putting everything at risk. Starting to turn, she hesitated on how to proceed: whether she'd be blunt or remain as vague and cryptic as she had always been. "Remember that when you find yourselves with the next child, I won't be the last." She said as she shrugged, deciding that was as much as she was willing to say on the matter. "And please do try not to make my father worry so much if he does find out about this ordeal."


Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

He quietly listened to Mori speak, allowing her to speak without interruption as she briefly lowered the wall between herself and him. These were fleeting moments, few and far between, for people such as them. For as long as he could remember, he had carefully guarded his feelings from others. Emotion such as love had been a detriment in a world dictated by the cutthroat ruthlessness of the Sith, for if your rival could discern anything that could be perceived as weakness, then they could use it to destroy you.

His other half, the one that Mori had come to know, had feared love to such a terrible degree that He subjected Himself to such drastic rituals that it had not only led to their current dual existence, but also was currently killing Him. The closely guarded secret was known only to as many people as could be counted on one hand. The Black Iron Tyrant was dying, doomed to become a prisoner in His own body as all of His faculties slip away one by one. Demiurge had been hard-pressed to discover something that could reverse Carnifex's curse, but had so far found nothing.

It was only after the Dark Lord had hamstrung His own existence that He had discovered that love was not something to be feared. A cruel twist of irony that now the Dark Lord's greatest opportunity to prolong His existence came in the form of one that He genuinely loved. Yet it was a closely-guarded love, one that was reserved for intimate privacy. The Dark Lord would only allow such affection in secret, never out in the open.

Demiurge had watched his other half closely, learned from Him and His experiences. If they could find a way to return to a singular existence, then their combined experiences and their combined understanding would make them a far greater entity than they had been separated or even as they were prior to their separation.

"There may yet come a time when father and son, or father and daughter, are not so viciously arrayed." He clasped his hands behind his back and idly rubbed his fingers together in thought, mulling over what to say next. It was not lost on him the irony of the circumstances that had led to this moment. Long ago, he had struck down both mother and father to liberate himself and his siblings from the manipulation of a past generation. In that time since, he had inflicted the same injustice upon his own children that had driven him to parricide.

"The sins of the father imparted on the son," he whispered to no one in particular.

But as Mori moved to leave, Demiurge turned to look at her and called out. "Be careful, cousin. May the Force serve you well."

Darth Mori ​