When I opened my eyes the next time I saw something. That was already more than I expected, I lost a fight with a sith after all and everybody knows that sith are the natural enemies of jedi. If they wanted me for information, they would have taken my master too instead of killing her. They wouldn’t get much information out of a fresh padawan.
Before I could think further on the subject I heard footsteps nearing and the darkness that surrounded me began to lessen. Gradually my new surroundings were revealed. I was in a chamber made out of dark stones traversed by depictions of … something. Nothing was really recognisable because everything around me was very old and chunks of the walls and the ceiling were lying everywhere. The only reasons this place still stood were probably the metal support beams, which looked newer than the rest of the room, but still old.
The room wasn’t really big but multiple people could fit inside comfortably. In front of me there was a menacing looking stone statue depicting a man in a hooded cloak, his arms spread with his palms facing the ground. At the statue’s feet was a coffin. All around the room stood smaller statue’s of men bowing. It looked like an old tomb of a very important person which was stripped of all it’s burial objects.
But the thing making the greatest impression to me was the overwhelming feeling of negative emotions and darkness that crushed down on me. This wasn’t the work of two sith, it seemed to me that the very planet was permeated by feelings of hatred, anger, jealousy, greed, arrogance and revenge.
By the feeling of it I was bound to a vertical metal plate, my arms and legs chained in the classical cross shape. I was really cold. For the same reason that I could determine the plate I was bound to as metal: I didn’t even have a single shred of cloth to cover myself.
That meant my captors knew what they were doing: Take away someones clothes and you take away their dignity. If one is stripped in front of strangers they feel vulnerable, it affects the psyche. Luckily that wasn’t the case for me. This wasn’t my first body and I wasn’t really affected by the shame and reluctance that normally comes with the exposure of ones body. I was really proud of my second body, after all it was as close to perfection as possible. Besides my body hadn’t begun to develop yet.
„Ah look apprentice, our guest is awake.“ There they were. The two sith, the old guy and the young man, both clad into black robes.
„So, why did two grown men attack an innocent, defenseless little girl? I must say quite the mighty accomplishment. I can see why the sith are nearly extinct, they can only take out the small fish, as soon as a real opponent arrives they are useless.“
I probably shouldn’t have said that, but I was trying really hard to stay calm, downgrading my captors was a really successfull way to make them look less threatening.
My words didn’t seem to have the impact they should, I thought they would be angry, but they only laughed.
This time the apprentice talked: „Seems like our intel was accurate. A girl with wit far beyond her years and a habit of talking down to others. That doesn’t affect us. Besides, didn’t my master just kill yours?“
„Surprise attacks are known to put the surprised party under a disadvantage, afterall a little girl also succeeded in cutting off half of your hand.“
This time he looked angry. I might have found his weak point, well it was probably the weakpoint of every man: pride. But before he could do something he was interrupted by his master: „Let’s end this childish banter and come to the reason you are here.“
„Fine with me, after all you would think a thug that was defeated would stay low, I bet if master J’zargo knew I would meet you he would have told me to send his regards. How is that arm of yours?“
J’zargo had told me the story about his fight with the sith during the rebellion of Dubrillion. He had severed the siths left arm before the sith fled and the man in front of me had a mechanical left arm meaning that he was that same sith. A good thing, that meant there was a rather low probability of more than these two sith to be hopping around the galaxy.
He grit his teeth.
„You are here for one reason and for one reason only: To join the new sith empire. I wouldn’t normally tell you this, but since you aren’t going to go anywhere anytime soon, it doesn’t matter if you know: We are scouts of the empire here to prepare the arrival of it’s fleet in a few years. But we just so happened to hear about a jedi youngling with incredible potential and thought it would be a shame to let this youngling waste her potential to the jedi. It’s too bad that you’re a halfbreed, but even halfbreeds or aliens can go far in the empire if they are powerful enough. Join the sith order and I will teach you the true secrets of the force, the mysteries of the dark side.“
He began this little speach with a tone of suppressed anger, but it gradually turned into something akin to a not very convincing recruitment speech of a third rate villain.
Of course there was only one answer I could give: „Nope, you’re stupid.“
The younger man didn’t seem to like that, he looked at me with a horrified look.
„How can you fail to reach for this power like every proper Drayen should? Our family began as warriors and a warriors goal is to achieve absolute power“
„You’re not a part of the Drayen family, what’s it to you?“
„Of course I am a Drayen, my name is prince Martin Drayen, I’m your uncle.“
So that’s how it was, no wonder he seemed familiar, he looked quite a bit like my father, but that didn’t mean I would just accept that.
„Yeah no. In case you aren’t aware, my father kicked everyone who was a part of that little terrorist stunt you pulled from the family. There are only four Drayens right now: My father, my mother, my little brother and me. You are just a random stranger without a last name.“
„How dare you…“
„Shut it, you’re annoying. In regards to joining the sith, I don’t wanna join some half cooked, brain dead psychopaths who aren’t even able to understand their own code.“
I could see their faces turn red in anger, but they really seemed to have trained themselves in fighting down their anger, something necessary, they were hiding from the jedi after all, it wouldn’t do for them to lose control over themselves in public.
After they had calmed themselves down a little the old man decided to try to mock me: „Oho, if you think you know our code then by all means, enlighten us.“
That was perfect for my situation. If I was able to convince them of my opinion there was a chance to get out of this alive and unharmed.
„I always thought that the sith couldn’t have been that bad. In all the stories I heard and read they were portrayed as the worst of monsters. There was no way in my mind that so many people could so easily fall so far. There is an old saying, it originates from the homeplanet of humans: History is written by the winners.
For some time I thought that the sith too were demonised in the stories and the jedi shown in a too bright light, I have already met a few jedi with a rather unpleasent character, no organisation or gouvernment can ever be perfect.“
„So, why not become a sith? It is a proven fact that the way of the dark side is much more powerful.“
I had come across a very rare sih lord: This one was able to have a calm converstion.
„The dark side isn’t more powerful, it leads to power faster, but that power is uncontrolled and corrupts the user. At least how the common sith uses it. The sith code says:
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion I gain strength,
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Through strength I gain power,
Through power I gain victory,
Through victory my chains are broken.
The force shall free me.
The first line looks suspiciously like a direct response to the first line oft he jedi order: There is no emotion, there is peace, which leads me to believe that the codes were made to contradict each other. In other words: The two codes are two different ways to achieve the same goal and that goal is the mastery of the force.
The jedi use the force by calming their emotions and by seeking knowledge in order to gain control over it while sith use the force by heightening their emotions and pursuing a goal or ‚victory‘ as it is called in the code.
The codes only determine, how the force it used and not what the force is used for.
Any user of the jedi code could kill their emotions to accomplish whatever selfish goal and any user of the sith code could heighten positive emotions like love or compassion to achieve a goal like healing the sick and freeing themselves or other people from the chains of suffering and guilt.
But for whatever reason the jedi code was in history and is even today commonly percieved as the path to the ‚light‘, while the sith code was and is seen as the way of ‚darkness‘ and after a while the two approaches of using the force where dubbed as the ‚dark side‘ and the ‚light side‘.
But the thing that I don’t like about the sith is, that you guys use only negative emotions and often completely contradict the sith code. The ultimate goal of the sith code is freedom, but you let yourself be controlled and chained by your hatred and anger, therefore harshly limiting and hurting yourself and those around you.
One example for that is the story of the great sith lord Darth Vader. Because of his betrayal of the jedi and the use of only his negative emotions his love to his wife turned into obsession and he ended up killing his wife.
The story which led to me believing in the jedi’s story of the sith however was the tales of the sith lords Darth Imperius and Darth Midone during the war five thousand years ago. Those two members of the dark council were known for their compassion and mercyful actions and along with their apprentices Jaesa Willsaam and Ashara Zavros held the positions of the four greatest sith of their time.
The journal of my ancestors Risha and Ducion Drayen describe any interactions they had with these four sith as pleasent and name Darth Imperius as the person who defeated both emperor Vitiate and hiss on Arcann in single combat.
They were on the way to establish a peaceful coexistence between the Republic and the Empire, but were betrayed and killed by the other sith, causing many citizens and whole systems to side with the Republic, which led to the defeat of the Empire.“
„That’s a lie. It was Darth Marr who vanquished the eternal throne and those who sat on it.“
If my hand was free I would have facepalmed. Martin seemed to be unable to carefully listen.
„As I said before history is written by the winners. My knowledge of the time comes from a relatively neutral source, the diaries of my ancestors, who were mercenaries and smugglers, which mostly conincides with the official records. The only reason they supported the Republic was, I quote „The Empire and the Republic both aren’t perfect, but at least the Republic tries“.“
The old sith, I still didn’t know his name, looked to be contemplating a bit, before a cruel smirk appeared on his face: „I heard your opinion and have concluded that you will not willingly join the Empire. Fortunately you don’t have a choice, which means I get to persuade you.“
Apparently it wasn’t possible to peacefully convince them after all. How unlucky.
When the old sith stepped forward and roughly laid his hand over my face I felt real dread for the first time in this life.
I had felt fear quite a few times, the most recent the moment I woke up naked and bound in this room, but now was a really bad time to feal such a massive amount of it. A experienced sith could use my fear to gain access to my mind and make forceful and unwelcome changes.
So I did the only thing that came to mind: I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, forcefully controlling my emotions and heightening my mental defences to maximum.
I was just fast enough to block his initial assault, something akin to the charge of heavy cavallery. Fortunately I had done something uncommon: I had trained my mental defences to extraordinary extends. It was comparable to the defences of a lower jedi master and jedi generally had a better mental defence than sith. That was because it needed an extraordinary amount of discipline to silence ones emotions and discipline was a huge factor in a battle of the mind. So his cavallery assault ran head first into a massive wall of stone.
No matter how much he battered my defences, they stood strong. I could probably have entered his mind, but I didn’t want to risk that. It could cause insanity to invade a sith’s mind and only jedi with specialized training would ever atempt it. I was very good at the mental arts, but I lacked the necessary training to try that.
He could have easily invaded my mind while I was asleep, but that would have been stupid. When asleep a mind wanders on strange paths and there is a very high chance for an intruder to get lost in the realm of dreams.
After he realized he couldn’t break my mind he retreated into his own body and backed away from me. I had scored a small victory, but I knew what would come next, so I entered a deep meditative state and emptied my being of any thoughts or feelings. From very far I heard the voice of the old sith: „It’s a shame I have to break such a strong minded person, but you don’t leave me any choice.“
He didn’t sound regretful. His voice had a touch of glee and excitement.
-------The following is a torture session. I thought I’d warn you---------------------------------
A second later I felt pain wreak my whole body. Even though I had deeply sunken into my connection of the force, I almost wasn’t able to take it. That was the nature of a sith’s torure lightning. With enough proficiency a sith could change the nature of their lightning to either kill their victiom, stun them or inflict unimaginable pain on them. With the lightning they would send their hatred to not only harm the body, but also the mind and emotional stability of their opponents.
It was a perfect tool to break somebody and because of the force restricting shackles I couldn’t even use the force to lessen the pain. I could still connect to it, but my body lost the ability to channel it. After what felt like hours the pain stopped. By the time I was exhausted. I slowly opened my eyes. I didn’t know what I did while I was tormented by the lightnig, wether I screamed or not, wether I said something or not, wether I begged for mercy or not. I only knew that the entirety of my being became pain.
In front of me I saw the grinning face of the old man, his eyes a shining yellow as he savored my pain.
„What a surprise, not even a sound! It will be fun to break you!! Come in, X5!“
His voice was crazed. He probably hadn’t been able to torture in the last few years, he had to avoid attention after all and kidnapping random people draws attention.
To his words a medical droid came in, carrying a metal case.
„Many sith are satisfied with using their lightning for torture, but I much prefer to use other methods to have fun!“
With those words he grabbed my left arm and unshakled it before binding it to a table the droid pushed to my left side. Through the haze in my mind I wasn’t even able to summon the will to struggle.
The sith opened the case the droid had brought, bringing to light an assortment of tools, from knives to phials of glass, hammers and nails, tongs, skrews and all kinds of other instruments. He picked up a butcher knife and slowly turned around before using the force to force my fingers to spread on the table.
Without any hesitation he brought the blade down on my figers, sending the tips of my forefinger, middle finger and ring finger flying away, accompanied by a stream of blood, which painted the table red. I looked at my fingers in disbelieve and then the pain struck me. It was worse than the one before, if not in intensity, then because of the fact it came with a large feeling of loss. Those fingertips were gone, they wouldn’t come back and there would be other things following.
It wasn’t a problem for them, if they succeeded in breaking me, they could just replace my bodyparts with machines.
I wasn’t prepared for the pain this time, so I screamed. Loudly.
And he laughed. Loudly.
He grabbed a phial with a white content and rubbed the salt into the wounds, adding a anguishing burning sensation to the harsh sting of the cut off finger
And then he shot lightning again, this time causing me to scream during the whole duration of the shocks.
After a while, I didn’t have the energy to scream anymore.
He stopped and I could practically see the happiness radiating off his skin, while I hung elirious and panting from my shackles, My whole body hurting.
The worst part as the huge ball of pain wer my fingertips once were.
„I’ll be back tomorrow, good night little jedi.“
He walked away and I weakly wondered, when his apprentice had left.
Before he rounded the corner he looked over his shoulder and smirked.
Hatred.
Burning hatred sparked deep within me for a second before I quickly supressed it.
,There is no hatred, there is only pity
There is no pain, only contentment‘
When he left, the light left with him.
And then the voices came.
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So, here is the chapter. I really hope it isn't too bad, I saw that a few people didn't like that the story stopped to be lighthearted, but this is necessary for the progress of the story (in my opinion), so I hope, that you will continue reading my story, even after this change of direction.
IMPORTANT
I already wrote this in fragments throughout the comment sections throughout the different chapters, but I have a different opinion of the jedi and sith codes than most, I hope I could explain it with this chapter. With it also comes a categorization of Jedi and Sith:
Jedi: uses the 'light side' for others and not for their personal gain.
grey jedi: Uses the 'light side' however they want
dark jedi: Uses the 'light side' with bad intentions and for their personal gain.
Sith: uses the 'dark side' only with negative emotions and intentions
True Sith: Uses the 'dark side' with all emotions
Light Sith: Uses the 'dark side' only with positive emotions and intentions
In case you are wondering, Shira is a grey jedi in my eyes. But since she has strong morals and has a gentle (though funloving and maybe a little dominating and arrogant (often talks down to others and sees many people with an in her eyes wrong opinion as stupid)) character, she usually uses the force wuth good intentions. At the moment.
Next chapter could take a while, exams are coming up.
NOT IMPORTANT
Originally I wanted to write a long chapter and study this weekend, but somehow I got stuck rereading Andur's "Beyond?". A really good story, I hereby recommend it to all my readers.
As always I hope you liked the chapter
Bye