Mastery of the Force

Packing the camp was quick. They trekked into the surrounding wasteland of hills their footsteps taking them ever lower toward the plain below. The city stood in stark relief to the surrounding badlands. It's tall spires and busy traffic moving along as if the current war was non existent.



Their path took them down through the rocky crags past the blasted craters and out into the open. It was a relatively simple matter to advance on the city, they ran across that plain as if the enemy were right behind them. Which in a way was correct. At any moment fighters from the hostile fleet above could sortie into the atmosphere to drop bombs and rend this dead zone into a pit of fire and death.



“How many people live on this planet?” He asked as they neared the wall



“Difficult to guess, these domed cities can support somewhere on the order of twenty million, and there were five of them across the planet surface. However that may have changed.” She said



“So if we take this planet we will have access to a rather large fighting force.” He said



“Quite” She replied



They were within two hundred meters of one of the grand gates, it stood several times over a man's height it's reinforced bulk would slide back into a recess in the wall leaving the pathway open for business. The towers flanking it bristled with several rotary blastercannon batteries. At the entry sat two peculiar looking tanks and about fifty foot soldiers.



“How do we get in?” He asked



She stayed silent for awhile. Taking stock of the situation. He was about to ask again when she lifted her gauntleted fist and extended a finger out toward the distance. On the horizon he could see a moving blur, which revealed itself slowly to be an incoming patrol.



“Follow me” She said



She got up and began walking calmly toward the great gate. He attempted to not feel tense. They had avoided the open till this point, now they approached blazonly and every moment he expected the scorching fire of those blastercannons to rain down on them. However he relaxed as they did no such thing.



He could feel it radiating off of her in waves. She was manipulating the entire garrison from here, they could see them clearly, however they assumed that the intruders were supposed to be there. It was like force persuasion on a grand and subliminal scale. His respect for the armored woman grew.



They reached the gate just as the patrol came in, the grand door thicker than he was tall opened without a noise, sliding on repulsor power back into the recess seamlessly if slowly. They crossed into the city without further ado.



“Here is ten thousand Marks, Find us accommodations.” She said “Not beyond two thousand of their currency per week, I must go speak to my sources.”



He started to protest separating from her as she pressed the currency into his hand, yet she faded into the crowd and here he was standing in amongst the lower level denizens of this city with no idea of their culture and no concept of where to go. His first inclination was to ask for the location of a nice hotel, so he ignored it and decided to look around and that something would become apparent to him soon enough. He played with the currency in his pocket, the five vouchers clinking off one another, he had never had so much at one time before in his life. It was a new feeling.



The people that swirled around him were much different than he was accustomed to. Even those of dark skin were pale beyond anything he had seen, it was as if they never saw the sun. Some of the women were tattooed in vibrant shades of red, and black patterning. He saw men dressed as he was in long flowing robes, yet the women wore as little as they could some completely nude others lewdly dressed he could not keep his eyes to himself. A group of them caught him gaping and smiled at him they were wearing high boots short skirts and tops that left their breasts nearly falling out when they moved. Here was a complexity of culture he was not at all used to. He ventured into shops to find them stocked with the oddest things, herbal remedies, bones of strange animals powdered and advertised as cures. Strange liquids that bubbled of their own violation.



Then he stumbled on something he found revolting. He had taken a side street out of interest, passing among the lower dwellers without getting more than a casual glance when he found the path took him to a wide plaza. Here he found the meaning of the tattoos.



On a raised flat platform in the center of the ring were girls, not much above sixteen standard cycles of age. They were completely nude and hairless from head to foot. None were covered in the ritual looking ink. They were beautiful to look on, yet something struck him odd about the scene. Then a man came up on the platform and selected a girl. Anerias could feel the evil emanating from him. He was obviously a Sith. The girl he selected smiled and moved over to a selection of droids which injected her with a sedative and lay her on a table. They began at her feet, the tattooing process began and did not stop until she was covered in a particular set of markings. Anerias heard weeping to his right and saw a woman heavy with child sobbing in the arms of her husband who was whispering to her.



He realized then what it was that had happened. The girl had been selected for her beauty and had just been claimed by that Sith as property. He was watching a slave auction. His lightsaber found its way into his hand from where it had been clipped to his belt on instinct. His anger and revulsion welling in his gut.



The force wave hit him crushing him to the ground with near paralyzing strength. A break in the crowd had formed and standing down the way in a close fitting garb designed for combat was a young man.



“Now now Hopeful, we can't have you raising your pathetic weapon against a full Sith because of some silly girl.” Said the man



His face was a caricature of how he said the words, his voice light and cheerful, his face a mask of pain.



“Well come then pup if you've need to vent your anger” He said “I'll be happy to help.”



Anerias realized quickly enough that the young man meant to kill him. His only thought as he activated the lightsaber and leapt to his feet was that this planet was bizarre beyond belief. The snap hiss of his lightsaber coming to life shocked the crowd, he wouldn't have known that such weapons were rare here and more often than not red as a Cahr'ist crystal. They stood in stunned silence as he assumed a middle guard the long blade in one hand. His opponent stood mute.



The man faced off against him was weathered in the extreme though his stature said he couldn't have been much more than twenty standard cycles. He was shorter than Anerias, though that was understandable. He had the look of someone that would go round if he wasn't constantly active. Unfortunately at least in Anerias's eyes the man was in top physical shape and looked to be on the sharp edge of his training to become a Sith. This was not how he imagined a confrontation with a Sith would begin, he would remember it.



The crowd had parted giving them space, though no one made a move to call the authorities, the Sith lord that had purchased the girl looked down from the stage with vague interest then walked off to the side.



It came in a rush, he could feel the force energy around him gathering and then being let loose in a powerful thrust designed do destabilize him. He launched himself into the air over the wave, the crowd behind was struck and buckled under the force falling to the ground, some dead, all broken. Their conjoined scream winked across his consciousness and fueled him. He felt their anguish and transferred it into anger.



He landed out of his flip close enough to strike and bent in viper quick just so moving his feet through his attack. The blade only struck air, the Sith slid away from him. Again the force energy came this time a member of the crowd screamed as he was launched at Anerias at high speed. It came instinctual the gold amber blade bit through the man severing him in half in a shower of cauterized blood and viscera. The Sith was laughing. Anerias was tired of this already. Tired of that smug self confidence as if the man couldn't possibly lose. Stepped closer, step, step, his feet moving in unison neither moving without the other.



Anerias closed the distance to where he was prepared to strike again. Yet the Sith stopped him in his tracks arcs of lightning began crackling down his wrists and launched themselves in vicious cords toward the young Jedi. He absorbed the majority of the attack the the blade of his weapon. The blue white of the electric fire skittering off the blade and being absorbed by the energy field. Licks of the lethal stuff found it's way to his body and scorched him, he howled and spasmed in pain. The Sith laughed again, and then Anerias did something unexpected.



The force came to him full on as a weapon he struck with it at the Sith a simple push yet magnified to send the man flying into the crowd and the stalls of the market beyond. However the energy dissipated as the Sith recoiled bracing himself. Yet even in that moment Anerias did two things he reversed the energy and threw his lightsaber forward. The blade cut across the coble stones in a boomerang motion, the surprised Sith was off balance from the push and the pull brought him forward to meet the blade. The characteristic fusing noise as the blade cut into his abdomen came as a shock to Anerias, he had killed a Sith in single combat.



He paused a moment before moving to retrieve his weapon. The crowd remained motionless. He was kneeling to pick it up when it flew from the ground landing with a snap in the hand of the Sith who had purchased the girl. She stood mute to his side and behind, her heavy breasts rising and falling in a calm even breath.



“Do you have any idea how much time you just wasted?” Asked the Sith



Anerias was confused but that ended quickly, the force blow sent him sprawling, it was quick like some giant slap to send an insolent child to the ground.



“I trained my son since birth in the arts, that he might one day take my mantel and master over my academy.” He said with a slight shake of his head. “Twenty six cycles for nothing.”



The blow came again flipping him onto his back with crushing force.



“Yet here in the middle of a purchasing day, you come, an untrained insignificant with an old weapon and take him just like that.” The Sith snapped his fingers, his veiny bald head pulsing with his frustration.



“Now what am I to do?” He said “His brothers and sisters do not show his talent.”



Anerias coughed and spluttered blood on to the stone. He didn't have the strength to rise or comment. The Sith sighed.



“I suppose I have two options, I either crush you here, or I take you to the academy.” He said “I tire of this abuse, you will come with me and you will study at my school, perhaps you will rid me of others who are worthless yet I over value mmm?”



The Sith motioned for the new slave girl and another with the same tattoo. “Help him walk he will not have enough energy to do so on his own.” He said



Anerias was fading in and out of consciousness, he felt himself raised up slowly by two sets of soft hands, then his shoulders held aloft by theirs his arms draped around slender necks and hands resting on their soft breasts. Yet he was too weak to even appreciate their beauty.



From the distance a beautiful woman with an armored cloak and gauntleted fists smiled a sweet smile as she watched this whole event.



“He will make a way for us yet.” Said Revan.



She stepped back into the darkness to wait, she was good at waiting. Had she not waited for the last... Damn I'm nearly fifty standard years. She'd been twenty five when she went into the cryo sleep chamber in the Savont's hold. The years hadn't done much justice in her absence however. The Sith empire still lay shattered as she'd left it. Turning in on itself in a grim similarity to a piece of metal being folded for strength at a forge.

“When I'm done hammering them into shape, the nation will be hardened for what must be done.” She said



At the end of the alley stood two hooded forms. So they had noticed her after all. She smiled at them. Whether they were supposed to detain her or kill her she didn't care. She could feel them in the force, sense their hostile intent. I amused her that they could not do the same for her. She pulled the cloak of shadows on herself and walked past them. They would report back that there had been nothing to find in that passage, and that the person they were sent for must have gotten away. The lord would probably kill them for their incompetence, but that was none of her concern. She would need an army and Anerias had just found himself in a position to draw not only military strength, but Sith themselves under her banner. The possibilities danced in her mind as she returned to the quarters she had secured.



Anerias stood stripped to the waist. His robes a moted black, supple boots of drak leather hugged his calves the durasteel inlay on the fronts etched to a ruddy brown hue. The Sith lord examined him in detail.



“Your body is carved from long training, yet I see none of the scars of conflict on you.” He said “You bare the weapon of our oldest enemies, and use it with training you will find nowhere in our sector. So tell me, and tell me truly, how comes a lone Jedi to our fair city?”



“I am not...”



“DO NOT LIE TO ME!” The rage in the Sith Lord's voice cracked around the room with an energy of it's own, Anerias Flinched at it. “A hopeful would not have such a weapon, and you know little of harnessing your emotions. Ah, the recently fallen. So much sweeter, though your deception could use work yes?”



“Then you don't mean to kill me?” Anerias Asked



“No, quite the contrary, you are here because of that incident in the square. You killed my son in single combat, this presents a dilemma, however you have potential and I do not waste good raw material. You have officially been enrolled in my school, mmm. Much as I hate to bandy words I imagine you'd like to know what is expected of you. Simply this, learn or die, the other students will mark you the moment you are among them, the guards will kill you if you leave the premises, and I will kill you myself if I do not hear of your progress soon. You may go.” The Sith turned to look out the window and view the city below.



Anerias was frustrated. He didn't like the situation he was in but couldn't see a way of resolving it. He left the office, were he found another of those female slaves waiting for him.



“If master will follow me?” She said



She turned down the left hallway and he found himself following her. His eyes traced the lightning like lines of the tattoos down her ass. At the end of the hall he found himself in front of a turbolift.



“The academy takes up fifty levels of this building, this includes the rooftop arena, you are allowed to go where ever you wish.” She said motioning him to get on the lift with her “This lift is one of twelve shafts six on the exterior and six on the interior. Your chambers are on the thirty second level of the compound, I will take you there now. You should rest, your training begins tomorrow.”



They rode the rest of the way in silence, he didn't bother asking her name, and she being what she was, probably didn't even consider asking his. He was far from comfortable with slavery. The lift stopped and the lights blinked to indicate the floor. Anerias followed the slave girl into the hall and saw his first students.



He could feel them, they stood in small groups of two to four, here and there a lone acolyte stood by his or her self. They were garbed in many different colors, dark blues, reds, greens, and of course the black that he himself was wearing. All of them reeked with hate, anger, and terror. Anerias smiled, they were much easier to read than the Sith Lord, he had been a blank slate, with an overlying sense of menace that came off him in waves. Few of them noticed his arrival. Looking up from whatever they were doing. Some sat pouring over great tomes or Holocrons while others held muted discussions among themselves.



A girl, not much over fifteen standard cycles stalked over. It seemed odd to him that someone so young could possess such a menacing walk. She stood just over five feet in height so she was forced to look up to avoid staring at his chest she wore red robes with black trim, they were dark the color of blood rubies.



“I heard you killed Florian.” She said



Anerias couldn't decide if she were asking him a question or stating her own knowledge. So he simply stood there a moment.



“Do you not speak?” She asked. Her indignation and rage apparent to anyone in her immediate vicinity.



Anerias figured it out on his own, she did have a pretty if not fully developed body. The man he'd killed had been her lover. Most likely her teacher as well. Unfortunately for her he was rather lacking in sympathy at that particular moment.

He turned to the slave and asked. “Will you take me to my quarters please?”



The slave nodded and slipped past the wisp of a woman and led on, however the little thing would not move from his path. Anerias sighed and stepped around her, things would get ugly eventually, however now he just wanted some rest. He followed the girl further down the hall to a doorway. Inside was a single cot of modest size, a lavatory and a food dispenser unit with a touch pad ordering system. A data screen and a portable data pad sat on a desk off to one side with a uncomfortable looking chair designed to make the sitter alert instead of relaxed.



“This isn't finished scum!” He heard the girl shout from the hall as he stepped into the room.



“Is there anything master wishes before Nalia departs?” Asked the slave



“Would I be pushing matters to ask for my lightsaber back?” Said Anerias



“My lord told me of this, there is a trunk under master's cot, it contains everything that was on his person when he enrolled in the academy. I imagine the item you asked about is also there.” She said “Is there anything master wishes before Nalia departs?”



He looked at her puzzled, her breasts rising and falling with her breath. It dawned on him then that she was offering herself should he desire her. He shook his head slowly,



“No Nalia, that will be all, thank you.” He said



“I serve” She said, before turning and exiting out the door.



Anerias collapsed on the bed his mind rushing about in many directions, however exhausted as he was from the physical abuse the Sith had delivered before rendering him unconscious cut his thoughts short and he found himself drifting into sleep quickly enough. His last thoughts before he fell asleep were of Revan, covered head to foot in lightning patterned tattoos asking him if there was anything he wished before she left. Sleep hit him like a grav car.