Private To Meet The Future

[Mercy]

MERCY

EMPRESS | WARLORD | STAR-ARM

Location: ON BOARD THE TYRANNY | Planet: Had Abbadon | Tags: Anet Raine​

.

Arris Windrun had assured her that the Tyranny would be absolutely perfect.

A ship that would drop a shadow over any world it decided to orbit. Gargantuan and rivaling the power of the other navies by its mere independent presence. Windrun presented it as a gift to Mercy, having commissioned it in secret, not even the Empress of the Core knew of its existence until the last stages of construction. Somehow Mercy thought that was the point of it, to rub it in her face that she had dropped the ball, being absent from the Core and the Covenant for so long. Like a hammer on her head: see? I can order a Super Star Destroyer to be made in your territory and you had no fucking idea, you moron.

Mercy didn't think that was very nice. She had already acknowledged her fault in these things and promised to do better.

The fact that Arris hadn't said that was besides the point. She could practically hear it in her voice anyway.

She had received a tour earlier in the day. Arris had practically been gloating all the way through, until they reached the temple that had been erect in Vestra Tane 's honor. That had killed her smile, especially the fact that her cybernetic meditation chamber was smack dab in the middle of it. Now she'd have to constantly traverse the memory of the one she murdered to get to her personal sanctum.

Mercy thought that was a nice touch.

Now Mercy was standing in her audience room, looking over the finer details of the architecture, while waiting for her guest to arrive.

Madrona A’Mia had been rather vocal about Anet, causing her to look into it a bit more, poking Windrun for more details. Apparently the young Apprentice, well on her way to Knighthood, was quite the enterprising individual.

The Empress of the Core wanted to see this for herself.

.

ERASE THE PAST

 

[Anet Raine]

Mercy
Robes | Mask | Lightsaber​

Anet was tall. Certainly not the monstrous Titan that was their Empress, but she carried herself with pride. A pale blue thing, crowned in white threads, with icy eyes that fell deep, deep, deep into an inner realm of violence and depravity. Wrapped in zeyd black robes, fit perfectly to her form, with a dark jade, Ghorman twill trim. Cloak abandoned - for it was not needed. There was no wind or dust to weather, and Anet did not shiver on arctic worlds, and found herself comfortably at home in the cool atmosphere of the dreadful ship.

Her lightsaber bounced at her hip with every step, a scuffed and damaged thing. And tucked within the layers of her robe was a source of darkness that even pierced the noise of that hell which she was about to enter. Without her mask, Anet's connection to the Force was quieted, no different than the unworthy. Only her self-experimentation with torture techniques, A'Mia's spores, and Lowe's formula gave her the mental discipline and fortitude to resist the passive influences that affected lesser minds aboard.

A flick of her wrist directed the ceremonial guard to part the doors that led up to Mercy's domain, an audience chamber fit for one who called herself Empress of the Core.

She picked up her step and marched right on in, before finally stopping a short distance from where Mercy was.

"You summoned me, My Lord."

It wasn't a question.

 

[Mercy]

Anet Raine

Mercy turned, taking in the image of Anet marching into the room as if she owned it.

Contrary what people would assume that didn't piss Mercy off. No, that is what a Sith ought to be. Hungry, chasing for more and only as differential as their own power limited them to be. She breathed in, smelling Anet's heart, feeling the blood running through her frigid veins. But there was something off with her too.

Itchy hands, corruption oozing.

It was interesting coming from an apprentice.

"So I did." Mercy finally said, eyes flicking down to meet Anet's gaze. "My darling Madrona A’Mia has been telling me all about you." She finally moved to sit down on the throne away from Throne.

Made to fit, carved out of Humbarine obsidian-ore, ringed with Stormglass.

"So I wanted to see you for myself. See if you lived up to all the hype suddenly swirling around you."

The moment Mercy sat down, her state of mind flooded the audience room, amplified by the stormglass. Hunger, desire, dark clouds infiltrating the air of the room.

It would be confirmed there to Anet, that the stories about Mercy were true.

Hunger ran through the Empress' veins like blood.

 

[Anet Raine]

Mercy
Robes | Mask | Lightsaber
​

Posture straight, hands clasped behind her back, eyes fixed on the Sith Lord. Anet tilted her head ever-so-slightly at the passing mention of her Sith Master. So, she and Mercy were acquainted? Well enough to chatter? Either that or the Empress had a clever tongue and an appetite for provoking people with the idea that she knew them. That perhaps, they ought to be careful, for Mercy might catch them in a lie.

"I am pleased to hear that my efforts have found their way to your ear, My Lord."

Then, Mercy sat down, and her passions flooded through the room - into Anet like a ghost seeking possession. Her muscles tensed, jaw clenched, and hands balled into fists while she allowed the overwhelming strength of Mercy's animal instincts to pass. It was not unlike braving a flood. Stupid to even try, but necessary all the same to filter out weaklings from the crop of true Lords-in-training.

She swallowed. Hard. As if relearning how to breathe before she spoke again. Her eyes never left the Titan, though they were sharper now than before.

"Do you seek demonstration, or conversation, My Lord?"

Anet was ready to accommodate anything.

 

[Mercy]

Anet Raine

Her eyes watched the reaction of the Apprentice when the room was flooded by her hunger. If it was a test, then Anet passed it with flying colors. She didn't even throw up.

Points for that.

"I am pleased to hear that my efforts have found their way to your ear, My Lord."

Something about Anet's voice grated her. It was honey sweet, silk, it had all the contours of diplomacy wrapped in poison. In a way it reminded her of those early days at the Tionese court. The girls there had also been that way. Perfectly graceful in a way that Mercy was not, but laughing behind her back, when they believed plausible deniability would save them from courtly repercussions.

They had not counted on the fact that Mercy's fists, even then, were more painful than any sharp word uttered by the attendants.

"Do you seek demonstration, or conversation, My Lord?"

"You will find, darling, that I don't plan these things out." She murmured warmly, eyes staying on her. While Mercy didn't know of the connection between Anet and Kirie , the Senator-Spy would probably have heard of Kirie's encounter with Mercy.

And how badly it had gone.

"I just... invite people over and I take their measure as we speak. There is no demonstration you can give me, that I can't figure out by just... talking to you for a few minutes."

Her chin settled on her palm.

"Tell me of your relationship with your father. Rich... an Alliance supporter, if I remember correctly."

Arris had forced her to read the debrief.

Disgusting.

 

[Anet Raine]

Mercy
Robes | Mask | Lightsaber​

If Anet was aware of any meeting between the Empress and Kirie, she didn't wear it openly.

However, when Star-Arm admitted to 'winging it,' the half-pantoran's right brow rose a touch. She wasn't sure if it was true or not... But the Triumvirate had been a wholly undisciplined group, as she had come to see things.

If there was to be no demonstration then--

Oh. Her father? Anet smiled bitterly at the question, nearly snickering.

"Alabaster Raine?" Bass, to those who knew him. "What is the relationship of any problematic daughter with her absentee father?" She answered with a rhetorical question.

"I make my family... and by extension, him... proud with my achievements."

Before rising to the High Republic Senate, Anet was a Resident-Researcher at Shey Tapani University. Yes, that Tapani.

"As for the Alliance, it no longer exists and he's since diversified his interests."

Raine fortunes have quietly spilled into the Core, but the family still maintained sizable holdings in the Southern Systems and Galactic East.

 

[Mercy]

Anet Raine

Slowly nodding there as she considered her words.

It was as much as Windrun's intel had suggested. Someone opportunistic, ambitious, someone who at a young age had already begun making moves, because her family instilled in her the beliefs that this was proper.

All in all, the perfect specimen for Sith.

"Mm, and how do your achievements fit into the picture, Anet?" Mercy continued casually. "How does a Senator become a Sith Apprentice? Or were you already dabbling in the Dark Side when the opportunity arose to become a Senator?" The way Mercy described it, it was almost as if Anet was a child playing with toys.

Or maybe it just sounded like that because of the influence of Mercy's Throne.

Every word she spoke, there was a surge in the air, dragging and tugging at Anet's emotions. Inspiring wrath in her, fury, hunger for more. Deepening out the exact pools from which to draw, if you wished to be the perfect Lord.

"Do you fancy yourself the next Taeli Raaf perhaps?" She added there sweetly, studying her reaction.

She did not mention the other option, Palpatine. Primarily because why suggest that when a woman had done it more recently and arguably better.

 

[Anet Raine]

Mercy
Robes | Mask | Lightsaber​

It was as uncomfortable as it was exhilarating to have this Sith Lord stirring up her inner world. It made speaking difficult. Posture difficult. Without the Force in this moment, Anet lacked the means to funnel or deny those influences. All she could do was remain resilient. There was still strength in will, in tolerance, that allowed even the unworthy to resist the wills that Sith Lords impose on their minds.

"I was already an acolyte when I became Senator, My Lord. I am one of the first... From Desevro. I was there, in that very room, where the Covenant was formed. I listened, outside in the cold, as you declared Kaggath."

When Mercy insisted, or wondered, if Anet had planned for some great betrayal, she laughed. The pressure of Mercy weighed on her. She was starting to sweat. Her heart pumped faster and faster.

"No. I do not, My Lord." She answered. "Why shouldn't a Sith be Senator. Because of the Jedi Order? Because of fear?" She took a step forward, clenching an imagined miniature of the galaxy in her fist.

Anet grinned tightly, almost crazed. "Could they even imagine a Golden Republic, where Sith power showered the Southern Systems with the spoils of war, where Sith Assassins cut down the basest of the corrupt, ended pitiful rebellions and civil conflicts with the wave of a hand?"

The apprentice clutched the mask hidden within the folds of her robes, as if placing a hand over her heart in some great declaration.

"I am a Senator, because I believe one of the great mistakes of the Sith of our time is that they conflate Sith with Empire. They allow their nationalism - their imperialism to limit their imaginations... Respectfully, Empress, we are not... or rather, we should not be a nation. We should be in every nation."

At that point, the half-pantoran was quite jittery.

 

[Mercy]

Anet Raine

Oh, dear, Anet was an ideologue and at such a young age too.

It was a wonder froth hadn't yet formed at her mouth to start seeping down her chin. But she supposed it was her own fault. Mercy had welcomed her in the audience room and then sat down on the throne away from Throne. All in an attempt to draw out the true feelings that were coiled around the poisonous heart within.

But Mercy leaned in, her own eyes feverish, inflicted either by Anet's fervor or her own, or both.

"Oh, you are interesting, aren't you?" The Empress purred pleasantly, already far more impressed and interested than she had been with Kirie before.

"You are correct, of course." The declaration came with a heated tone. "The Sith... are rigid and frozen in their beliefs. It is why even when we succeed to bring down the Jedi, we fall soon after anyway. We grasp too tightly, we let fear infect our veins, until we become the very thing we were made to kill."

Stagnation.

She had almost spoken this clearly with Acier Moonbound , but in the end had opted for vagueness. Ambiguity. Thinking that they would have... many more confrontations.

It had been disappointing to hear he had fled. What a pity.

A shrug there.

"No offense taken. I am not fond of that title, really." She thought back to her conversation with Arris back in the Outer Rim. "I have been toying... with an idea however."

The air became even thicker with hunger as it grew inside of Mercy.

"Did you know the Emperor before me had claimed the title of Sith'ari?" It almost seemed random. An afterthought. Except.

However, when Star-Arm admitted to 'winging it,' the half-pantoran's right brow rose a touch. She wasn't sure if it was true or not... But the Triumvirate had been a wholly undisciplined group, as she had come to see things.

Anet had already looked into the dark tide that was Mercy and found much more than a creature that was 'winging it', in spite of her own claims.

Purpose beneath animation. Desire beneath amber eyes. Conviction beneath flesh.

 

[Anet Raine]

Mercy
Robes | Mask | Lightsaber​

Anet didn't want her approval. Didn't need it. Though the Triumvir was more realized than the apprentice believed. Despite that, perhaps in her arrogance, Anet continued to drill for flaws. Weakness. Misguided views, values, or beliefs.

When Mercy shrugged, Anet had expected a change in subject... but what seemingly random question the Empress arrived at was far from expected... Though not unwelcome.

She grinned, half-laughing, half-coughing. Giddy. Deranged. And there was the spittle, the froth that Mercy imagined. Yes, her power was just that overwhelming for the young Sith to bask in, and her mask fed off it, even tucked away as it was.

"Many Sith do," she answered.

The thought of Sith'ari, however, flashed a single image in her mind. That of Kirie . "Why - do you intend to claim it for yourself? Is that the game you wish to play, My Lord? Do you know what the Sith'ari is? I mean truly is?"

It might've been reckless - stupid even - for Anet to question her knowledge. Let alone lead with the voice of lecture.

 

[Mercy]

Anet Raine

If only Mercy knew of the connection between Anet and Kirie... or Anet's ultimate ambition for Kirie .

She might have laughed so hard she'd choke on it and die on the spot, saving everyone a lot of trouble.

Alas.

It was pleasing to see Anet succumb to the mania of the throne away from Throne. It made her even more confident it had been the right decision to line her true Throne with even larger crystals, to amplify the effect even more. By the time it was done, even the mightiest Lords would have difficulty keeping their balance intact if Mercy decided to use it.

That would be amusing.

"Why - do you intend to claim it for yourself? Is that the game you wish to play, My Lord? Do you know what the Sith'ari is? I mean truly is?"

"Possibly." Mercy said with a sigh as she drew out her pipe and began to stuff it with herbs. "I could have done it from the start, of course. Win the Kaggath, take all they own, as you know."

The pipe lit up and smoke began to drift up.

"It would piss off a lot of people." Her mouth dragged up into a smirk. "Even those in our little Covenant. We aimed for it to be a band of equals, you might know, at the start. With the Triumvirs first among equals." But never above anyone in truth. This had been fine with Mercy, she had never been particularly bothered by titles, ranks and hierarchy.

Why would she? If she wanted something, she either did it or took it, titles didn't factor into it.

Arris Windrun 's words kept coming back to her however.

“We need purpose. We need meat to dangle. And as far as I’m concerned, you’ve been running off too often, leaving me to figure this shit out.”

You’re right,” her arms fell. “You’re the face - that’s what you’re good at. I believe you. You’re out there being the putty that holds it all together. But I’m Arris Windrun,” she pointed index finger and thumb up, then leveled it at Mercy. “I’m the gun.”

"I know what drives them… You have your ways of crawling into people, and so do I… I think it’s time you started to admit you’ve let the reins slack a little, yeah?”

"I am starting to think that has been a failed experiment. My aim was for the Covenant to forge Lords out of Acolytes, then stand aside and watch what they do to this Galaxy of ours."

Eyes flicked back to the froth-spittled acolyte in front of her, raising her eldritch fucked-up arm, golden and terrible. Unwinding from claws into tendrils with just a breath.

"But what they need is an golden hand pointing the way. No argument, no discussion. And then lead them into this new land."

 

[Anet Raine]

Mercy
Robes | Mask | Lightsaber
​

Oh, Netherworld. The Empress was so caught up in the question of being Sith'ari that she completely failed to hear the more important question of what the Sith'ari is. Typical.

"Perhaps the golden hand does the pointing. But what of your mind, My Lord?" She asked, a touch haphazardly. Maybe. "Was it on purpose that you ignored the greater question, or were you so full on the idea of being Sith'ari that you couldn't hear it?"

Under better circumstances, Anet would've spoken far more tactfully. Rather than loose her thoughts as she just had, and would continue doing. However, she was already next to feral.

"Please - allow me to educate you, My Lord." Her hand tightened around the buried mask, nails scratching the zeyd cloth, before finally falling back to her side.

She stepped forward, inching closed the gap between them.

"You're not the Sith'ari until you do this," she snapped her fingers, "and everything is gone - the universe, the Force, all life, every thought... the possibility of existence." Every step closer caused her to feel weaker, shakier. "Unless it ends with you, then you are not the Sith'ari."

Finally, she stopped a space before the Titan and looked up. Blood joined the drool around her chin - somewhere along the way, she had literally bitten her tongue to spare a more derogatory remark.

"It is a measuring stick... for Sith to compare themselves against one another."

She snapped her fingers again. "If you take the title before that, then you must accept your purpose; the role that the universe gave you, My Lord... To be measured against."

 

[Mercy]

Anet Raine

Oh, Netherworld. She was really lost to her ravings now.

Thankfully Mercy was mostly amused by it and maybe a little nostalgic. In some ways Anet reminded her of Vestra Tane . If Vestra had been prone to navel-gazing and being all up her own arse.

She listened and watched Anet's approach.

Finally, she stopped a space before the Titan and looked up. Blood joined the drool around her chin - somewhere along the way, she had literally bitten her tongue to spare a more derogatory remark.

Then that torturous golden hand touched Anet's cheek.

This was the first time that Anet was touched by Mercy. And the first time she was touched by that thing. So Anet had the privilege of being hit by a double-whammy. Mercy, by and large, did not radiate any presence in the Force. The most powerful Lords of their generation could walk into a room and people would know inside they were coming from miles away, simply by the dread they exuded. An aura of power, it was said.

Mercy had none of that.

Where she walked was only a silence, an abyss where gravity distorted. Until you made flesh-to-flesh contact with her. Then all that force potential that was balled, wrapped and absorbed into her meat and bones unleashed all at once. Like lightning striking from the heavens straight into your head and surging through your body like live-wire.

This is what Anet suffered, but it was not all. When the Gold touched her she got flashes of a different place. Not the Netherworld, which had rules and was governed by logic, no matter how illogical it seemed. This was a world crafted from flesh, hunger and webs spun in a sky of pulsing light. Of titanic creatures moving on flesh-spun winds.

She guided Anet's face up and their eyes met.

But it was not Mercy anymore, or rather there were many heads. Arris Windrun had seen a moment of it, when a face seemingly pushed through Mercy's neck. This was worse. Each had hungry eyes, hungry maws, that wished to break the old and begin the great revival into the new. All slowly growing out of the Titan, among them hung the lifeless stump of one already severed.

"Philosophies are chains, Anet. Doctrine to tame us... grazing along previous established paths." The voices were whispers, harsh and guttural. Then the Gold threw Anet back, away from Throne, from Mercy and the vision was over.

In the throne sat a large woman, brutal, but just a woman.

"I don't care about the past, about orthodoxies and what dusty tomes say we must be. They failed and their story is over. Ours is just beginning."

 

[Anet Raine]

Mercy
Robes | Mask | Lightsaber​

Her eyes sharpened under a disgruntled ridge - jaw tightened into a teeth-grinding scowl - as all the muscles on her face quivered hatefully under Mercy's touch. Even as the Titan's emanations caused her body to burn with searing pain.

Flashes of the Netherworld did not seem to bother her at all. Anet was used to her mind being in two places at once, quite literally, in a way that she had yet to fully grasp.

A pale blue hand touched the blades of the tall fern that filled her view like a field of tall grass; there were no trees, no mountains in the distance, just an endless expanse under a turquoise sky with no sight of its star.

See, after an incident at a Zeffonian laboratory on Serias, the scholar's mind began to fold across space and time. Granting her perceptions and glimpses through the Force, inhabiting bodies that didn't seem to belong to her; a passenger, not a pilot, in the grand and psychotic tapestry of existence.

When Mercy spoke down to her, Anet's anger soared. Ignorance. Dismissal. What a disappointment. The horror show would've been terrifying if her mind wasn't so utterly pulled at the seams.

Anet was ripped out of Mercy's touch, stumbling back in the recoil, and coughing blood. Her hand dug through the robes wrapped around her chest, disheveling them to a point of near-indecency as she ripped the half-mask from its confines and smashed it to her face. She screamed from pain, rage, and exhilaration as her connection restored - a flash of darkness that, for a moment, swallowed all sources of light in the audience chamber, as if the power flickered.

Suddenly, this young woman emanated a vain, hateful, and proud - very proud - Dark Side aura. It hemorrhaged power that Mercy would undoubtedly feast on, as the mask had. Power that was Anet's. Power that was claimed; gorged from the vergence on Coruscant. Blood continued to trickle from her bottom lip and down her chin, dribbling onto the floor like the first drops of rain before a storm wept.

Her arm snapped into place, fingers tensed like predatory claws. Her lightsaber jerked against the Force, called by an impulse to join Anet's hand and ignite in a frustrated strike that said just how badly the half-pantoran wished to kill this woman.

Instead, she channeled that need into a telekinetic burst off to the side, ripping up flooring and smashing apart a pillar.

"You!" She screamed the word. "You..." She breathed quietly, giving her lungs time to catch up.

Her head snapped in Mercy's direction as Anet stumbled in place, drunken-like. Not that someone of Mercy's caliber was likely to be affected, but staring into the eye holes of the mask felt wrong; beyond them, those icy orbs were now a sickly yellow, and Anet's skin paled with the signs of corruption.

So this was who Kirie would be up against, she thought. Anet had hoped for more meaningful prey. But it confirmed one thing - that the Sith Covenant were little more than a band of butchers and warmongers. Yet, when she compared that to the alternative... At least the Covenant didn't deny that they were creatures. Mercy just, clearly, had a chip on her shoulder. One Anet could handle.

"I will care for you, My Lord," she panted. "Because... You will, I think you of all people, will not understand the point... until you have lived it."

She would not see the Empress end prematurely by unworthy hands.