Chapter 17

Obviously, the way the Brotherhood of Darkness taught their force users was nothing like the Jedi. The biggest difference was the need for resources. The masters didn't teach for free, you had to earn their tutelage and it was certain that they wouldn't teach you all they knew. The students constantly fought each other for resources, taking from the weak to become more powerful. It was a rancore eat rancore world.

I was no different and was attacked. They knew I had just been kidnapped/recruited but it was a power move that the masters encouraged. It was no wonder that the dark side was better at fighting than the light side when every moment was about becoming strong and winning.

This was a problem for me as I didn't fight the way the Jedi and Brotherhood did and I didn't want them to learn from my tactics. The resources that were assigned to me were quickly stolen. I could have pulled them apart using telekinesis but then they would learn from it. The Brotherhood was my enemy and I wouldn't give them any chance to learn from me.

Still, I wasn't completely defenceless. As well as my usual force powers of telekinesis I had been using my force powers to disguise my face. Now I had doubled down on the ability and was trying my best with it.

At first, I used my force illusion ability the same way I had always used it. I would change my features in the hope that I wouldn't be targeted but I soon changed that as there was no safe place and no one was safe. It didn't matter what face I wore, I would be attacked for resources or just because of the nature of the dark side causing pain and misery.

I then adapted the illusions so it looked like I was already injured with broken bones and cuts but it would seem that nothing spurs on the sadists of the dark side more than causing more pain to someone who was already weak.

At times like this, I would usually concentrate on gaining support in the form of droids and tec but the dust ball of a planet the Dark Side academy was on had no droids and basic stone technology. There was nothing to steal or buy for me to tinker with. Even if I had an army of droids to do my bidding the emotional side of the Brotherhood caused them to lash out on almost everything. The very few cleaning bots I had seen had quickly been crushed by an upset force user.

If I were to win against the dark side force users and escape without giving them anything to learn from I would need to lean in to subterfuge.

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Illusions became my bread and butter. I still took the beating but I made it appear much worse than it was. The simple fact was, as a student in this academy, I was a resource to the Botherhood, which means that if I was damaged to an unexpected level then that was the fault of just one person and that person was at fault for damaging the Botherhood's resources. That was the theory, it didn't always work because of how the dark side thought but it was enough to protect me, sometimes.

It turns out that the reason I was able to kill so many Brotherhood of Darkness was that most of them were initiates doing missions so they could get resources to exchange for lessons from masters. I was no different. The Brotherhood had a quantity-over-quality mentality and sent their initiates into battle. The ones who survived were strong and the ones who died had fulfilled their purpose. This was how I found myself on a transport ship heading towards battle.

The whole thing was unbelievably messed up. In the eyes of the Brotherhood, I had almost no training but was still given a lightsaber and pushed into battle. The initiates were packed into a simple cheap drop ship and released from the transport ship. The usual tactic was for these drop ships to charge in and smash through any entrance. It wasn't just the initiates that were packed with me but normal soldiers and a couple of move-powerful force users. The idea was to cover the powerful by using the weak.

When the dropship opened up to release its payload we all rushed out to minimal resistance. A very light shower of blaster fire peppered us. I wasn't going to help the Brotherhood in any way, why should I? They kidnapped me, tortured me and most of their members were massive jerks.

I used my powerful illusion ability to fake a blaster bolt hitting me and dropped to the ground. I would stay out of the way until I could escape, the best time would be when the Jedi turned up and started to fight with the Brotherhood. I just needed to stay out of the way.

Thankfully, training illusions meant that I was pretty good at disappearing as well. It was called force cloak or force camouflage. It was easier to do than my illusions. Disappearing with force camouflage was done by manipulating light and sound, while my illusions had to be created to be seen or forced into someone's mind. It was odd that I had learned the harder force ability before the easier one.

I would wait for the Jedi, snap some poor initiates' neck and steal their ship while the two enemy forces attack each other. And yet, the Jedi didn't come. I had made the mistake that every attack the Brotherhood made was countered by the Jedi. The truth was the galaxy was a big place and not every fight was against the Jedi and Brotherhood.

Of course, without anyone of substance to counter the Brotherhood, they won easily. Bad news for me. The Brotherhood took over the ship leaving me no choice but to go back to the academy. Until I could make a ship disappear I wasn't going to be able to leave without being shot down or swamped by a hoard of Brotherhood of Darkness initiates.

Despite not being able to escape I was able to take some sonic grenades, a repeating pistol blaster and a dead initiate arm guard. The arm guard was a nice find as it was a material that had resistance to lightsabers. I had to get more of this stuff. I was a long-distance fighter but it didn't hurt to have protection against one of the most badass weapons in the galaxy.