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2. Chapter

‘One day later in the living quarters of my somewhat reconstructed sith temple. I was sitting on an oversized armchair, in a quite depressed mood. My partially opened eyes were looking at a spot on the ceiling. There was nothing interesting there, and that was the point.’

‘After the ritual, my mind was overwhelmed with information. Memories, old and new, were jumping around in a hazy storm that reminded me of the cruel sandstorms on Korriban.’

‘Reminded me… the very notion of being reminded to something I never actually witnessed or experienced was entirely ridiculous.’

‘However, there was one instinct or thought that came back again, and again, and again...’

‘Which was to leave this place as soon as possible; staying here was too painful.’

‘Too many masters died in this place. The memories I inherited urged me to run away, to leave. The thought of death and solitude lingered in these old corridors. It was a heavy feeling that I never felt before the ritual.’

‘I tried to make myself look at the things that I liked here. With the childish thoughts I had before, but it didn’t work. Every item and every corner here brought back memories, memories I didn’t have before and I didn’t want to have now.’

‘Every item in these halls had a story and, in most cases, many stories. It was a museum created from the items of the masters, in other words, the members of my family. Yes, many masters thought about their apprentice as their child, or at least their family.’

‘It wasn’t rare for the masters to speak out loud or in their minds, addressing the future holders of their memories, effectively speaking through time and space.’

‘Note to myself, don’t do this type of communication in the company of others, especially not out loud or I will be condemned as a crazy individual. I felt an unexpected blush appearing on my cheeks, and I felt an unnatural embarrassment assaulting me out of nowhere...’

‘I thought about the potential cause, then realization dawned on me.’

“Oh no, master Ari, that crazy Cerean was locked up once for half a month because of this exact reason...”

‘Oh, force help me... I would say that I have second-hand embarrassment, but taking into consideration how the ritual made me act, it is probably first-hand embarrassment... The only silver lining is that it happened hundreds of years ago. Regretably, the memory is as fresh as if it happened yesterday… at least I won’t run into anybody who would still remember that…’

‘I forcefully shook my head to chase away those thoughts... This whole situation began to look like a poor joke, if you ask me.’

‘Anyway, back to the topic. I want to leave this place for the foreseeable future and wander around the galaxy to my heart's content. What I really want is to go to places where the older memories originated, and look at the things I find there, match them with my memories, and find out how much has changed.’

‘I also want to move out and add unknown places to the archive, that was, how most of the masters called our shared memories. An archive that was always at hand and completely safe from thieves.’

‘Well, it was always at risk from eradication too, in case I die randomly. Even the thought made me cringe; I could not bear it... I can’t be the one responsible for the loss of our archive...’

‘Well, that was the reason why many masters were afraid of going out, deciding to live a more safe and secluded life, in one of our secret bases spread out all over the galaxy. That living style lead to the stagnation of the archive’s information quality.’

‘I mean, if you only watch the holo net news, you can’t really learn quality information and how do you recognize what is true and what is false or simply a lie? So I will not do something that stupid...’

“I will go out and live my life as I want to. If I die, no one will get the memories and therefore no one could curse me for my stupidity later, heh!”

‘There was a powerful shift in the force behind me; it was so sudden and unexpected that I instinctively rolled out of my seat, creating a high-pitched girlish squeak on the way that was cut short when I accidentally head-bumped the corner of the table near my chair...’

“AAAHH!~ Damn that hurt! Curses! What did I do to deserve this misfortune?”

‘I was very disoriented and confused, laying on the ground moaning in pain while hugging my head, tears appearing at the edges of my eyes.’

‘Why did I have to hit my head, of all things? It was already threatening to split in two… Thanks to that damn ritual!’

‘The ritual negative side effects lessened somewhat, but the memory overload of my brain is still there. While my thoughts were all over the place, a craggy, unamused voice resounded in the room.’

“Pathetic.”

‘Who the heck is this now?’

“Such impudence, to risk your betters hard-earned knowledge in such a blatantly disrespectful way. This same behavior led to the destruction of more than one line of memories in the past. I will not stand by and watch as my own legacy disappears in the dust of time. All because of a sleazy twi’lek girl-child with pink eyes of all.”

‘My confusion cleared from the sudden scare and unexpected head injury. Then I looked up, narrowing my furious eyes at the huge, ghostly figure towering over me. The moment my gaze fell on the familiar mask, I instinctively gulped with a newfound sense of self preservation. My anger quickly dispersing in the air. With my awfully thin, and somewhat trembling voice, I could only say the name...’

“Re-Revan...” — ‘I am so dead…’

“It is Darth Revan to you. Consider yourself lucky to be in my presence.” — ‘I gritted my teeth as the ghostly form continued to insult me.’ — “I have sensed a mild disturbance in the force, a while back. It seems I was right in my assumption… that old fool has finally kicked the bucket.”

‘I sensed a spike of pain in my heart followed by righteous anger. Revan or not, what does he think to insult my dear master? Right in front of me.’

“He had a certain talent, and I believed that my line was in the right hands with him… At least for a while. I couldn’t have been more wrong. That senile idiot left the most ancient of all our memory lines in the hands of a barely trained uninitiated street waif. His softness and emotions clearly blinded his judgement, creating this… catastrophic situation.”

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‘I felt his radiating disgust and biting scrutiny on my skin. He easily pierced me with his sharp gaze, bypassing my mental defences sensing my anger, sadness, grief and also my fear.’

‘I caught a yellow glint through the dark visor of his helmet, then sensed the immense malice coming of his ghostly presence in powerful waves.’

‘I couldn’t help but shiver in its shadow.’

‘He was once a true Darth lord. The influence of channeling the dark side without reservation always leaves behind a deep scar on one’s body and mind.’

‘A scar that never heals entirely. Thanks to my memories, I knew that I had nothing to fear, since a force ghost or force apparition has only a limited arsenal to influence the physical world aside from certain special places which they are bound to.’

‘Therefore, even one as powerful as Revans could not hurt someone with as much knowledge of the force as me. Yet the legends and memories I had gained after the ritual made Revan look like a godly, all-knowing and all-powerful entity.’

‘Those memories and my general confusion clouded my judgment, and I was scared witless by his sudden appearance. It didn’t really help that I actually had his memories, and so I knew most of those legends were true, if a bit exaggerated.’

“Ah-eh?… First-grandmaster Revan, I didn’t mean it that way. I-I just wanted to... to explore and expand our knowledge of the galaxy, you see... I might have become a bit overexcited… but that’s all…”

“Silence!” — ‘He shouted.’

‘I squeaked in my fright, once again managing to embarrass myself. Face turning red rapidly. There were no more excuses to be made.’

“Stop creating those utterly embarrassing sounds! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You have more than four thousand years of memories. How can you still act like a child?” — ‘Revan raged on, and to my stupidity. My mind decided to come up with a cheeky response at a time like this.’

“B-but, I am still a child. My body is definitely that of a child’s! And it’s not like the ritual overrules the core personality, it just expands the mind with new layers of knowledge separated from the core. Therefore, even my mentality should be considered that of a genuine child’s. Albeit one with a shocking amount of lexical and practical knowledge. Even if I can’t control it that well yet, he-he.”

‘Revan glared at me as if he was contemplating to smother me in a spoonful of water.’

“Did you just explained me the workings of a force technique I myself created? How enlightening...” — ‘He didn’t sound amused to me…’

“I should have made it into a primary dogma to forbid the use of the memory transfer technique on children. Even if that means the end of the line… I can’t seem to accept this humiliation. I hoped against hope that the memories will have enough power to overwrite the general stupidity of a careless child!”

“Hey! I had enough of this. Stop insulting me and my master, you stupid prick!” — ‘I shouted at the translucent bastard.’

“At least you continue to impress me with your irritating nature… and sheer lack of intelligence.”

‘Did he just called me stupid again? I had enough of this!’

“Excuse me!? Am I the stupid one now? I don’t know about that, at least I had enough guts to show my face without a stupid mask, Mr. big nose!” — ‘Oh yes, that hit a nerve isn’t it? I am in possession of his memories. That means I knew his secret… hehe~!’

‘The victorious smirk quickly froze on my face, though.’

‘I immediately regretted saying those words. I wanted to apologize, but the threatening silence that engulfed the room made those words stuck in my throat... ‘

‘For whatever reason, though, a sense of haughtiness rose inside me, winning over logic and useless stuff like that. It decided to pour more oil on the already burning fire.’

“Anyway, what could you do about it? You are just a force ghost after all, humph!”

‘There was a dangerous spike of anger, and a cloud of malice and hate began to fill the room. My confidence quickly started to waver as I watched the sadistically cringing eyes of Revan.’

‘I could only see his eyes, since his big nose was miraculously out of sight.’

‘My lips curved to a smirk as I imagined his giant nose under the mask. He quickly realized the cause of my smirk, it was not that hard really, since I was stupidly staring at the place where his nose ought to be.’

‘Suddenly I felt an awful premonition. I looked up into his eyes, and they were already turned into glowing golden rings. When he saw that my attention was back on him, he voiced out a few lines of words practically dripping with malice.’

“I may be a force spirit, but you had forgotten who exactly built this sith temple in the first place. Activate unit HK-47!” — ‘His cold voice rang out in the hall.’

‘The last remainders of my smirk disappeared hearing that dreadful activating code... My face turned from its natural light grey color into an almost white shade. A few seconds later, I could hear the first heavy robotic steppes closing on our location.’

‘Revan was looking at my terrified expression, enjoying and most likely siphoning my suffering and fear.’

‘At last, the air pressure door lock opened on the farthest door, as a copper-colored, at least two meters high, fully armored droid walked into the room with an arsenal of different weapons. Many of those weapons were long forgotten, used by bounty hunters to capture or kill force sensitive’s under the Mandalorian wars and even before those...’

‘Yet the biggest problem was the droid itself, an assassin droid, created by Revan himself, and I was currently in the body of a thirteen-year-old child, without the muscle or stamina that needed to challenge such foe, my body was far from its ideal condition and well, my current body's midi-chlorian count was only a bit above average...’

‘Those numbers are not really important. They are only crude estimations of one’s raw force power. With enough knowledge and control over the force, I can achieve almost anything, so those numbers will be more than enough... The only problem is that I am a somewhat clumsy child right now.’

‘My body could not withstand the pressure of channeling that much force, either. Don’t get me wrong, for a child, I am well built, but looking at it from an adult’s perspective, well, you see... I couldn’t find a way to deactivate that droid, not even talking about destroying it, especially without a long-range weapon.’

‘While the droid came closer, I looked back to Revan with the legendary round pleading eyes of a child, on the verge of crying. The bastard only smirked, then said with glee.’

“Kneel.”

“What?” — ‘I can’t believe this bastard…’

“(Observation, curious, hopeful) Master Revan, is this the meatbag I have to clean out?”

‘Revan smiled down at me condescendingly, repeating his words with an ominous tone.’

“Kneel.”

‘I tentatively glanced at the droid, which was already heating up a flame thrower built into its arm… I gulped, then said.’ — “...kay...” — ‘I kneeled down slowly, accepting defeat… for now.’

“(Observation, disappointment, realization) Ah, so it was just another slave of masters. One more meatbag to endure. What a pity.”

‘This droid is even worse than him…’

“It is indeed, HK. You have a new order; from now on you will guard this pitiful excuse of a meatbag with your current body. She will soon start her adventure around the galaxy, and I need you to watch over her if she acts stupid or reckless, endangering my legacy... In that case, I order you to stop her stupidity with force, and save my memories. They are, unfortunately, in her mind right now.”

“(Astonished, frustrated) Can’t master just create a safe copy of those memories, then eliminate her?”

‘Wait… what?’

“No, it doesn’t work that way, unfortunately.”

‘…’

“(Frustrated, resigned) I understand, master, it never ceases to amuse me, the inconvenience of meatbags. Droids are much more sophisticated. I have hundreds of different copies of my memory base. My superiority is unquestionable.”

‘My superiority is obvious… bla-bla-bla… EH?’

‘The droid came over to my silent kneeling form. Causing me to look up with a round pair of eyes…’

‘It picked me up, grabbing the back of my clothes with one hand and started to walk out of the room while constantly insulting me in a variety of ways.‘

‘While silently dangling in the air like a wet cat caught by its owner, I felt another force pulse as Revan’s force spirit left.’

‘Being in this unique perspective, I had a chance to reevaluate my choices. I sighed…’

“Damn, me and my big mouth...”

“(Observation, surprised) Oh, it speaks.”

“...”