Bane of the Apprentice

Posted on Thu Sep 13th, 2018 @ 4:50pm by Thane & Amare

3,136 words; about a 16 minute read

Chapter: Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Coda's quarters, Red Raptor
Timeline: Follows "Call of the Tombworld"

ON:

She could still see and hear every detail of it; the blackened event horizon of swirling darkness, the screams ushering forth from the impenetrable depths, and at the center a small font of smoldering red light. It was absolute chaos, despair, and madness. What she found most disturbing of all were the words she used to describe what she saw and felt when she first beheld the infinite anomaly in the desert she left far behind her...

It's...magnificent.

Coda calmly breathed in through her nose, and out through her mouth, slowly opened her eyes, and rose from her kneeling position in the training room. She could hear the steady, soothing hum of the Red Raptor's workhorse engines, and could taste the cool recycled air, although with a little extra humidity which was just the way she liked it. With that, she was satisfied with her meditation and Shii-Cho practice for the evening. She plucked her lightsabers from the floor with the Force, clipped the larger weapon on her belt, but stopped to ponder the slender off-hand shoto, and recall the avian face of its former owner with vivid clarity.

"Yvala," Coda said softly to herself, "the crystal longs for you, and yet...I can feel it slowly bonding to me. I was wrong to call your master a fool. He was a good man. He was like a father to you. No girl should be without her father." She sighed, clipped the weapon at her side and decided to retire for the night.

Thane had been largely keeping to himself after she shared with him and Bomoor the story of how she survived the great winged beast, Zennibalas. They had adjourned for the evening with the promise of continuing the ongoing tale of Lorrd in the morning. Thane's parting instructions were for Coda to resume her practice of Form I combat techniques as the Rift Jedi had taught her, and that he would determine her readiness to progress to higher Forms when the time was right.

When she arrived at her quarters, she didn't expect her bed to have a strange device seated upon the neatly tucked-in sheets. She glanced left and right over her shoulders seeing no one in the hallway. Even the resident busybody droid, G2, wasn't seeking her attention. She slipped inside, made sure the door closed behind her, and nervously approached the four-sided red and black pyramid. She gingerly reached out to touch it with her bare hands, but stopped herself short of making physical contact.

She surmised that it most likely came from Thane, but why leave such an odd thing in her room? There were strange markings on it she didn't understand, but it was clear by the enticing detailing that an artist with an attention to detail had crafted it. She decided that it might have been a test of some kind from Thane; a fancy puzzle box, perhaps, or a container for some sort of artifact inside that he wanted her to have, or maybe it was some kind of weapon intended to supplement her lightsabers.

She gently applied the Force to the pyramid that was somewhat larger in diameter than her hand, and slowly lifted it up in the air, and willed it to hover a few inches above her right palm. She could see a faint red light usher forth from within the semi-opaque core of the device. It was eerie, reminding her of the distant little red light from the dark anomaly she witnessed on Lorrd.

"What in the world are you?" she quietly asked the device, not expecting an answer of course. It would be silly to expect a response from an inanimate object, after all...

"I was the first dreamer." The sudden and deep voice that unexpectedly answered her had no origin, but seemed to resonate around the enclosed space of Coda's cabin, which also now seemed to be shrinking in size, the periphery and edges of the room being consumed by a slow-spreading shadow.

Coda gasped at the sudden, deep and rumbling reply. She nearly dropped the holocron out of sheer bone-chilling fright, but it held fast over her palm, and she kept still as well, albeit she was trembling. She wasn't sure if she was either hopelessly captivated by the voice, or if she was held in place against her will. "Th-the first?" she asked in a soft, almost mewling voice. She was feeling smaller than the object she beheld.

Tendrils of dark-red light sprouted from within the ever brighter glowing core of the pyramid, which now seemed to hover of its own accord, independent of the Nautolan trapped before it. "And once, almost the last. I am the terminus of the old, and now twice the progenitor of the new." The origin of the voice finally coalesced, its source taking form behind Coda, between her and the doorway into the corridor beyond, although all sense of the wider ship now seemed absent.

Clearly visible within the darkness, with a red hue decorating the entirety of his form, was a tall, broad man, a long black cape draped over his burly shoulders. Peculiar insectoid shells covered the entirety of his body, although they did little to disguise his heavily-muscled torso beneath. Only his square-jawed face was spared the armour of carapaces, but the glowing red figure's features were entirety obscured by an ornate jagged helmet, which itself bore similarities to crowns forged of crustaceans.

Menacing, intellectual eyes glared at Coda from within that helmet. The tiniest hint of an upward curve of satisfaction to one side of the man's mouth was barely visible, and it was clear to the Nautolan it was not an expression typically worn by her dark, imposing guest.

Coda's hearts were beating like war drums, each one thrumming to their own frenzied cardiac rhythm, her blood pressure squeezing the blood faster than her kidneys could keep up, and her eyes welling up with tears not from sorrow, but from horror and the sickening sense of impending doom. It was like the wraith's lair on Vaa all over again.

"You...are you a Dark Lord like Cabal was?" she asked trying to put on a brave face, her voice shaking, swallowing once to keep her vocal chords from cracking under pressure.

The figure appeared to grow angry, and larger, as an even deeper shadow spread out from his bulk. "I was no sorcerer of cheap spells!" He boomed, and his ire appeared to be rising at the sight of Coda's near-palpable worry. "Your fear is a chain, constraining you within the depths of mediocrity; the dark side consumes those too feeble to make themselves its master! Instead, it tightens those chains, making you its half-life slave, rather than using that power to shatter them entirely!"

After his last word, the man's incandescence waned, and his form returned to its former size. His jaw and bottom lip jutted out in undisguised dismay. "I had expected Lord Serus to have chosen a superior specimen - not a bungling child."

"No..." Coda said, her hands tensing, teeth grinding under a new wave of anger that rose from the gatekeeper's insult, her fingertips flaring a stark red to match the roiling crimson glow of the holocron. She slowly rose to her feet to face down the spectre of the pyramid that she placed down on the bed. "...Not after everything I went through to get back here. You don't know me. You don't know who I've had to kill just to be alive right now." She drew her shoto and ignited it. "I've made sacrifices. I could have been a Jedi initiate today, but instead I stained this weapon with the blood of a Jedi who was my friend right after I tricked her master to his grave. I don't care what you think I am, but I'm no longer a slave. My name is Zaracoda, and I will not be denied power or disrespected by you, or Thane, or anyone. Not anymore! Now tell me your name and what you want from me, or I swear I will carve your fancy paperweight here to pieces!"

The smile returned to the man's face, only this time it was larger, and much more frightening than the small curl that had appeared before. "Ah! There it is, the creature lurking within, so full of pride, of rage. But you are a buffoon if you think you could ever be a Jedi. Your emotions fuel and twist you into a machine of fury. It is beautiful, raw, and most of all, cunning. You have done what is necessary to achieve your ends, showing power and strength of will to destroy that which would resist you. You have see what you want and you claim it - you merely require patience and focus. Together, these are the tenets of our faith. These are the tenets of the Sith."

The crimson shade had raised his clenched hands during his speech, but they now found their way back to their resting position as he regarded the young woman. "I am Darth Bane, Dark Lord of the Sith of and Gatekeeper of my holocron. You would do well to not destroy it, should you truly covet power and ambition."

"Power isn't all that I want, Lord Bane," she declared, and disarmed her shoto. "I'm going to use it to find and protect my brother--the only family I have left--and then I'm going to make a lot of people on Nar Shaddaa pay for what they did to me and my parents."

"Is that the limit to your scope of vision?" Bane's avatar queried, his scowl returning, even if his tone was more of a mentor's challenge than a critic's disdain. "What of when these tasks are completed?"

"I asked myself the very same thing when I stared into the Void in the desert of Lorrd," Coda replied, looking away from Bane. "I know it's my destiny to help my master kill Axion. That cannot change, but...when that day comes, when his revenge is fulfilled, then I will ask him a question about the Jedi. If he remains sympathetic to them as he does now...if he chooses to return to them..." she gazed up at the Dark Lord again, no longer fearing his intense image, "I find myself doubting his commitment to the dark side, Lord Bane. He tortures me to prove otherwise, and I accept his display of power because I lack the power to resist him, but I sense he is still sentimental for his old life as a Jedi. I fear his weakness for them could get us all killed."

"So says the girl who speaks in one breath of saving her lost family and revenge, and of mistrusting her self-admitted superior master in the next," Bane said, matching Coda's gaze without now seeking to overcome it. "But there is truth in your concerns, although I do not believe it is the Jedi who distract him from his destiny. The Ithorian, perhaps, but not this Reborn Order." The deceased Dark Lord almost spat the last words. "No, it seems Serus' distraction is the one you have already identified: this would-be tyrant, Axion, and his coterie of slaves."

Bane's data echo gave a facsimile of humanity as he shrugged within his armour, shifting his simulated weight. "Sacrifice is the birth, core and catalyst of what it is to be Sith. You have no doubt already learned the Sith Code, and will be aware that there was a man named Thane who has made one sacrifice already to smash his chains. But we are capricious creatures, as sentients, and there are many shackles we must shrug off before we can truly transform into the gods we are meant to be."

Bane paused for just a moment before he continued. "The blasphemous Axion is but one of those, and there will be more. As Sith, we learn that we are individuals and that we must strive for perfection as solitary beasts, but that is not entirely true. My Order teaches that we are a legacy, a poisonous chalice in which the purity is poured from one vessel into the next. But you are also a partnership, if a rivalrous one, working within the shadows to overcome the greater numbers of the mundane and delusional masses. Together, in your own way, you will discover the power of the dark side, expanding your influence and might with each passing day, until such time you are prepared to overcome the weak and pass the flame to the next. In this, we do not become complacent like the Jedi, but more learned, more powerful... and more worthy."

The gatekeeper drew his head back, looking at Coda with hooded eyelids beneath his obscurely-designed masked helm. "Patience and shadows are your allies, Zaracoda Wolph, for neither of you are invulnerable - you are a rare commodity, a precious jewel in a sea of pebbles. Listen to Lord Serus and find the shackles built by Thane of Caanus, just as you must find your own. Overcome these and understand them, for only then will you be ready to assert your will upon the galaxy. Only then will you comprehend the necessary sacrifices, and be able to do what you must do, to accept the vilification of those you once admired and sought the approval of."

Coda noticed Bane's mention of "Wolph". She didn't use that name when she declared herself to him in anger. Either the holocron could read minds, or Thane already spoke at length about her to the ancient Master and Lord of the Sith.

"Thane wishes to become Serus," she spoke her thoughts to the gatekeeper. "When I think of my name, all it does is remind me of who I was...who I still am. I can hardly stand the sound of 'Zaracoda' anymore. I want to kill that part of me, my Lord, more than anything. She who let herself be tricked into shooting her own father and allowing those slaver scum to throw her into a cage like an animal without even trying to fight back. She deserved slavery! Every part of me loathes her weakness, how she lets her childish emotions get in the way of strength, and that sickening craving for pity and acceptance. I desire so deeply to have power to transform and be...'reborn'...to have a new name and a future that I control. I have begged Tha--Lord Serus to instruct me, but I fear his energy is too focused on his obsession with Axion. And Bomoor, much as I admire the goodness in him, the kind I once thought I had...I sense he remains an agent of the Light, and a possible threat to us. My lord, the odds are stacked against me. I'm a wandering apprentice to a conflicted master who travels with a Jedi as friends...brothers even. I have weapons, but I barely know how to use them. I have powers, but they are so far beneath those two men, let alone their enemies. What must I do at this point to ensure the survival and rise of the Sith?"

Bane's grin-grimace returned. "You have great clarity, child. And commitment." The avatar seemed uncharacteristically pleased, and began pacing in the small space of the room, a very Human affectation for the Force data echo as he appeared to think for a moment before replying. "No transformation is instant, despite what history may tell you. There is who we were, who we want to be and, ultimately, who we actually are."

The deceased lord halted his pacing and continued. "It is the right of a Sith Master to choose what they reveal to their apprentices, of both when and how, just as it his right to determine the manner of their student's education. It is also the duty of the Sith Apprentice to seek what she can, always fighting, searching and suffering for each morsel of knowledge and power. Serus' trial for you on Lorrd is an illustration of such things. So, my directive to you is this, young apprentice: continue as you are, taking what you can from both your master and the Ithorian, and whatever other sources you may discover, and do not just learn the Sith Code - understand it, until it punctuates every word you utter and every thought you have. Continue your training so that you may bend both the Force and people to your will, so that your power grows absolutely. Join with Lord Serus as he endures his own trials, taking all that you can from them yourself, but guide him, where you can, for you are a lineage still. But, finally, should you see that he is faltering from the Sith vision when the time truly comes, and your power is of such that it surpasses his, then that legacy falls to you, and you must excise the cancer."

Coda felt a jubilant willingness and desire to show her respect to Bane's counsel by lowering herself to one knee and bowing her head to his peerless image. As she did, a satisfying thought formed at the core of her mind: the Sith and their Code was more than just a new way of life, or a path to power or revenge...it was the formation of a family. It was the one thing that meant everything to her, the one thing she had allowed herself to lose sight of ever since her apprenticeship began. Bane was right about everything. There was no grudge to harbour, no flaming antipathy to stoke, no reason to be paranoid. Serus was her master, but Thane and Bomoor were her family. She thought about that genuine hug she gave to her wise Ithorian friend, and how the Force channeled itself through her using all of her deepest feelings and strength to bring Thane back from the brink of death; those things were the essence of her purpose. She accepted her place as being the one to serve, to persevere against all odds, and to take hold of power and bring it to bear where it was most needed.

For Serus most of all, she swore inwardly that she would make it her mission to keep him on the path Bane set forth. She would do all she could from this day forward to never let him falter from that. Anything else would be failure. It wasn't about evil, or darkness, or any cliches associated with the Sith; it was about family, and family would come first above all things.

"It shall be as you command, Lord Bane," Coda reverently acknowledged. "I swear it."

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