There is no division, there is unity.

I was rather disoriented.

I could’ve sworn that I weathered the torture in deep meditation, but memories of thoughts and internal conversations battered my mind, making me question my sanity.

I was pretty sure that I was sane at that moment, but so many conflicting things raced through my mind…If I didn’t know better, I’d say my mind had been fragmented and I had somehow put it back together when I meditated about the force, but that couldn’t have happened, right?

Additionally I wonderedd where the pain from all my injuries had gone.

Anyways I decided to seal all those confusing thoughts and memories in the back of my mind for the moment as I had to concentrate on the four ghosts standing in front of me.

The one to the left was a pretty female Togruta in robes with two lightsaber hilts strapped to her belt and a serene smile on her face, to her left (my right) stood two…absolutely identical, extremely beautiful female humans, both with dark hair in a high ponytail, piercing eyes of unknown colour (they‘re ghosts) and petite body. Even their clothing was identical, both wearing a dark robe with rather prominent pauldrons and an armored torso. The only difference I could spot was the fact that one of them had one lightsaber and the other had two.

The last one was a slightly taller female human, just as ravishing as the others, but with a curvier body type. She too had dark hair, but hers was freely falling to her shoulders. She too wore a robe, but her lightsaber looked like a double bladed one.

All of them emitted a feeling of compassion, happiness and other positive emotions and despite my circumstances I found myself smiling in their presence.

((You have my thanks for freeing us, little Jedi)) That was one of the twins in the middle. She had a quite brisk voice, almost harsh, but by no means unfriendly.

„Who are you?“ I wanted to be sure. I had an idea, I mean how many friendly ghosts would one find in an ancient sith temple?

The other of the twins, the one with two lightsabers answered with a chipper voice: ((We are sith who wanted to change the empire into a worthwhile and reasonable nation, though in the end we were betrayed and stabbed in the back by the other sith. I never understood how they thought killing each other would make their order stronger, they didn’t even understand that change is necessary for progress, everytime a new leader appeared he or she did essentially the same the one before them did, it was really frustrating to try and change things back then, I even...))

((Master, you’re doing it again)) The woman on the right looked slightly exasperated as she said that.

((What? Sorry)) her cheeks darkened a little, ((I blame Vette for this, but at least I don’t have a stick up my butt like my little sister))

((It’s called serious, little sister)) Though she sounded a bit annoyed.

((Who are you calling little sister? I am the firstborn, I was on the council first, I am clearly the big sister!))

((Clearly I am the firstborn, clearly proven by the fact that I am much stronger in the force than you, little sister.))

((Sorry about them little one, they were like this even when we were alive)) The Togruta had a really gentle voice, hearing it let me feel at ease with their presence.

But then she turned to the sisters who had a staring contest and spoke in a more teasing tone: ((Seriously though you two are twins, you’re the same age))

The two just huffed and turned away from each other.

The woman on the right chuckled lightly before she decided to continue the conversation: ((Come on, we haven’t even introduced ourselves yet, have your manners left you in the … how long has it been since we were sealed? No matter, introductions first. My name is Jaesa Willsaam, former Jedi Padawan, later Sith Lord and direct subordinate of the Wrath of the Emperor.))

((Oh, me next. I was known as Darth Midone, nobody really thought about an official Darth title for me, always calling me ‚Lord Wrath‘, didn’t even have the decency to call me ‚Lady Wrath‘, stupid patriarchical society))

She was pouting in the end. I was rather confused, how can such a happy person ever be called ‚Lord Wrath‘? It didn’t fit her at all!

((How you were bestowed the title of Wrath will eternally remain a mystery, little sister. My name is Midome, but I was commonly known as Darth Imperius, a member of the Dark council.))

((I still think the periodical fights over who is the big sister were the real reason they disposed of us, my name is Ashara Zavros. In my life I was first a Jedi and then something in between a Jedi and a sith.))

((Silly apprentice, we already agreed to call it ‚true sith‘ didn’t we?))

((You girls did, I will never call myself a sith))

Midome turned to me, curious the two former Darths didn’t have a family name, but the other two did? I’d have really liked to know why that was.

((Now you know who we are, but we don’t know who you are, so what’s your name?))

This was the first time in a while that I got a word in… I shall make a good impression, I admired those four the moment I read about them in the archives, I never believed I would be able to meet them.

„My name is Shira Drayen, I just became a padawan before my capture. It’s an honor to meet four of the greatest force users ever.“

All of them smiled, though all in different intensity. Midome only smiled a light smile, Midone on the other hand had a huge grin on her face.

((So we are still remembered…I thought the sith would have erased all mentions of our existence after our deaths))

((Drayen? You’re Risha and Ducions descendant then? Those two were awesome, not so stiff and boring like the rest of the people at the talks during those temporary alliance meetings.))

„I wouldn’t say remembered…I only know of you because I did some extracurricular study on the subject of the galactic war five thousand years ago for a class project. Most of the other younglings didn’t believe that sith could be nice, but Master Yoghurt praised me and used it as a lesson for us to be open minded and don’t judge people by what they are, but what they have do.

Though there are some mentions of you in the journal of Risha and Ducion too.“

((Five thousand years? That’s quite a while…So why are you kept here?))

((Smooth transition indeed, little sister))

„Some sith lord of the ‚new sith empire‘ tried to break me in order to make me switch sides, when I said no he went a little overboard.“

((A little? He cut off half of you! How are you even still alive? Is there still war in the galaxy?)) For a Darth Midone sure asks some random questions...better answer her.

„The force is known to do wonders now and then, and no, there is no war at the moment. The last time a sith empire existed was when you were alive, three millenia ago there was an atempt for a new one, but the sith that randomly rampaged through the galaxy the following millenium were not organized enough to be called a nation, a little more than two millenia ago there was a war with the ‚brotherhood of darkness‘ were all sith but two were destroyed and a thousand years after that a brief rule of a galactic empire, but a sith empire has not existed since your era and there hasn’t been any sith since more than a thousand years ago. My guess is that these two are from somewhere else.“

After that all of them thought a bit before Midome extended her right arm and used the force to rip my shackles into pieces. I took the chance and immediately let the force course through my body, realizing how much stronger my connection had grown during the long meditation I maintained while I was imprisoned. I immediately asked the force to let me float and the force answered my plea.

„Thanks“ I said with a bright smile, I hoped it was a bright smile at least. I somehow was unable to summon forth the happiness I held within me before I was kidnapped.

She just smiled a little smile at me and I could see understanding in her eyes. Then I remembered something a jedi called Quorian Dorjis, who had been imprisoned on Korriban five thousand years ago had written down: Two sith acolyte twins had saved him and allowed him to escape his imprisonment, one of them had been raised by their sith father and one by their slave mother, though he didn’t know their names, he found out that they had only met again in the sith academy.

I thought I knew which was which.

((There is an ancient ritual to bind ghosts to a force user. In the beginning it was a technique only usable by sith, because it forcefully took the ghosts freedom. Later I edited the ritual and was able to change it. I created a ritual that lets a ghost voluntarily bind itself to a host as long as the ghost wishes.

After our deaths our bodies and spirits were bound and sealed inside this temple, the seal broke just now but we still can’t leave. The force tells me that you were the reason for the seal to break, therefore we would like to bind ourselves to you, because then we will be able to leave and one last time see the galaxies beauty before we ask you to cleanse us and pass on.))(Midome)

((It’s like what you did with those dead sith right? But you almost blew yourself up doing that! And wait, don’t decide things for me!!))(Midone)

((As if you could stand spending eternity in a dusty old tomb with only mad ghosts to keep you company. Our apprentices will follow us.

 The only reason I almost died was because the spirits I bound tried to take over my body, causing a clash of their respective powers. Since we do not want to take over her body there won’t be any problem. Besides with her latent talent she will have no problems holding our power within her. I enlarged myself beyond my limits too hastily and while using the dark side. My control simply wasn’t good enough. A jedi will always be more suited to hold foreign powers within them because they can control themselves and the force better.))

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

„I don’t see why it should be any problem at all. All of us are one through the force, how can it cause a problem for me to harbour myself inside of my body?“

They looked at me with disbelieve. It made sense, didn’t it?

((A child was able to reach the philosophical point we reached right before our death? Unbelievable, how…))

There were quick footsteps from two pairs of feet.

„They’re coming back, please leave them to me.“ I could feel the anger and hate bubble up inside of me, washing my rational thoughts away until I could barely think.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

 I let the wave of emotions flow past and out of me, taking all the resentment with it and leaving inside me only calmness.

I closed my eye and asked the force for support and it answered my gentle plea. I felt the force in the space around me, not around me, I was the force so I was everything around me. Because I was everything I could move everything to my will.

A second later the metal doors of the chamber were opened noisily and violently and after taking only one step inside both sith began choking. They looked at me with wide eyes, their force shields flared up, but they still continued to choke. Unable to breathe they slowly fell to their knees and began coughing up blood before falling over.

There they lay, coughing and hacking, trying to get even one breathe of air inside themselves and after over a minute of suffering they stilled and their eyes dulled. Their presence in the force vanished.

I was still sitting in the air, not moving a muscle filled with absolute serenity.

((Impressive, you took all of the oxygen out of their lungs and filled them with dust and the more harmful components of the air, but how were you able to do it without them reacting?))

I looked at Midome, no emotion visible on my face: „That’s why the jedi will always be superior to the sith in the end. I didn’t want to kill them. In fact I didn’t want to involve them at all. All I did was take away the oxygen from one part of the room and replace it with other substances. A sith uses his or her emotions to attack violently, more or less shouting out to the whole world what they will do.

This wasn’t an attack, so they wouldn’t feel an aggresive action against themselves through the force like they expected to, had they stopped and calmed down a bit they would have heard the subtle warning about poisonous air.

Because their ability to breathe was cut off, they did the first thing that came to mind. They had ample experience with being choked, sith apprentices are regularly treated bad, so they form certain instincts. Their automatic reaction to being unable to breathe was erecting a force shield because the only choking they had experienced was choking by the use of the force and when the shield didn’t work, they didn’t know what to do.

Had I had the desire to kill them, they would have come in here with their shields erected, because they would have felt my killing intent.

Both of them would have easily killed me in a fight, the only way to kill an opponent so much stronger than yourself is to not fight them. I just had to kill them, that’s all.“

((As a jedi, shouldn’t you have tried to give them a second chance? This was a preemptive strike, a jedi is supposed to act passively, that’s the biggest reason they sometimes have problems against sith invasions.)) Ashara frowned a little as she said that.

„But I acted passively. They attacked my master and me without warning and we defended. After that they held me here and through their actions proved that they were unable to repent and right now I finished the fight we started all this time ago. I did what was necessary in order to stop them from harming anyone else in the future.“

It’s all about the perspective. If you really try you can bend any situation to your advantage, you just have to think around one or two corners.

((You sure you're just a kid? You’re talking like my little sister and she’s five thousand!!))

„Actually this is my second life, so my mind is that of an adult“

((Ahhh, that makes sense.))

„((((((It does?))))))“

Only to Midone it seemed.

((So, if you can move the molecules in the air however you want, that means you will be able to heal yourself, right?))

Midome caught onto my thought process.

„Unforunately not. Just think about how complex the human body is. Moving all of a certain kind of molecules to one area is relatively simple, you just have to ask the force to do it, but to rebuild a body you must understand each and every cell to fit and rebuild all of them by combining the right amount of molecules together.

Adding to that is the fact that there probably are a lot of molecules I need that aren’t in this room, so I would have to rip the molecules apart and combine the atoms anew, maybe even break up the atoms in order to have all the necessary material, which I then would have to form into exactly the right atoms as well as the exact amount needed, which I then would have to puzzle together just in the right way…not to mention all the chemical reactions I would have to replicate for the task, in theory it’s possible, but in reality it would take an unthinkable amount of control and a really long time.

There is another way though, which still isn’t possible for me right now. I could in theory ask the force to replicate the opposite of each of my lost parts, but the problem with that is the enormous power that would take. I think not even master Skywalker, the jedi grandmaster, could do it.

So since I won’t be able to achieve that much power all too quickly…wait“

Jaesa smiled: ((You are able to achieve that much power, in just a second. What do you say, shall we do it now?))

Without any more delay each of them closed their eyes and and brought their hands up in a praying position before they began to glow in a bright light, I had to close my eye to escape blinding.

Then suddenly I felt a huge influx of power. Briefly I asked myself a question: ‚If we only direct the force, why do we have our presences different intensities? Why is our power limited while we are directing the force? Heck why do we even have ‚forcepower‘? Wouldn't we have to store the force inside our bodies for that?‘

I decided to think on that subject another time. Right then I was busy feeling overwhelmed. The power I held before, already extremely strong for a padawan, was like a drop of water compared to the large lake I now commanded, four of the greatest force users ever indeed.

((Testing, testing, Shira can you hear me?))

((Of course she can, my ritual is perfect, little sister))

‚Could you please be quiet for a moment? I’d like to be whole again.‘

((Alright, isn’t like I have been quiet for the last five thousand years.))

I decided to ignore her and concentrated.

I shouldn’t try to heal everything at the same time, even the power I wielded then would probably not be enough for this task, so first I started small: I asked the force to change a patch of scarred skin beside my bellybutton back to how it was supposed to be.

I felt a surge of power directed at my stomach and opened my eye to see flawless skin stretch over my once hideous torso. It was only about half of the scars on the front half of my body, but it brought me hope, hope I could return to what I was before.

Without delay I once again closed my eye and started to restore my body, piece by piece.

When I was finished I looked down to see the flawless skin once more cover my flesh, my appearance once more as perfect as it had been before this ordeal. My hair had grown even longer, now brushing my heals.

I had grown a bit, which told me that the sith had at least supplied my body with sufficient nutrition to grow, necessary considering their plans.

‚How do I know their plans? I didn’t hear anything during my meditation…doesn’t matter‘

I fought down the false memories welling up within me, they couldn’t be mine, just couldn’t.

But I still felt that something was missing. A gaping hole where my happiness once had been.

I shook my head and pulled my mind out of the reach of depressing thoughts. I floated down to the ground, took my first step and immediately fell down, an intense wave of exhaustion washed over me.

I almost couldn’t move, only twitch my body a little. I had stopped the flow of the force through my body and now my body was telling me to rest. Though I didn’t want to rest in this chamber, beside my dead tormentors where nightmares of the last few…how long had it been?

No matter, first sleep. I asked the force for assistance and it picked me up and carried me out the door. I let the force guide me to the next comfortable resting spot, trusting it to listen to my plea. I did hear a few voices calling out to me in my head, but I couldn’t summon the energy to listen to them.

Soon I drifted off to sleep, before I had even reached a bed.

Stoyline Quest: Identity Completed Condition for success: Survive Fulfilled Condition for success 1: Remain (mostly) yourself Fulfilled Experience Gained Skill: Champion's Soultransfer Restored 

Champion's Lobby Shira's Room Luna's House Sleep

I looked at the familiar window and decided to do what I did usually when this screen popped up: I went to Luna’s house.

I opened my eyes only to come face to face with the woman I love her eyes widening in surprise, before gaining a sorrowful look. She didn’t say anything, she just reached out and pulled me into a tight hug, stroking my back with her hands.

I felt the damn break, all the anguish, hate, suffering and everything else I had bottled up during this time of torment, broke through and flooded my mind, all the tension making me hold the facade that everything was alright, that I hadn’t been affected by the torture, left me, the shutters in my mind opened and allowed the memories of my time of madness to emerge.

I didn’t know how long I cried. I clung to Luna like a drowning man to the last plank keeping him afloat, I let all the emotions and the memories of torment and insanity that filled me leave through the floodgates in my eyes, the whole time listening to the soothing whispers and encouraging consolations of my beloved, her calming touch healing me better than all the power of a hundred spirits could.

What felt like days later my cries had diminished to quiet sobs, my grip on Luna not lessening one bit.

„Shhh, everything will be allright now“

„Really *hick*“

„Really. Nothing will happen to you here.“

I felt content. And relaxed.

But the gaping hole within me still remained.

For the first time since I started crying I looked up at her face, seeing the two trails of tears that were visible on her flawless cheeks, drinking in the sight of her gentle eyes and smile.

„Can I stay here forever?“

I didn’t feel like one of the strongest champions anymore. I didn’t feel like one of the greatest prodigies in the history of the jedi order anymore.

The first time since I had been reborn I felt like the frightened little girl I was supposed to be.

„No“

„B-b-but…“

„But I’ll always be here for you.“

I felt a little warmth fill me and chase away part of the cold I just then realized filled me.

„Always?“

„Always. Now sleep, you need your rest.“

With those words she began to sing a lullaby. The gently flowing music made my eyelids become heavy and my mind wander off to a dreamless sleep, my arms still desperately gripping Luna for comfort.

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Surprise chapter!! I hope you like this one better than the last

IMPORTANT

I don't know if what I did here is a plausible behaviour in that situation.

Jut so you guy know: Shira didn't play swtor in her first life.

For those who wonder: I imagine the force shield like a kind of domain that hinders others to use the force inside it's boundaries, but can be overpowered by a strong attack.

I received a comment about recovery after such an ordeal, I hope I made it understandable that Shira is not healed, physically yes, but something like that leaves a mark on somebody...though since I am a first time author I don't really know if I can express that right.

NOT IMPORTANT

I changed something in chapter 15: Darth Nox to Darth Imperius. The reason for this is that I just finished the story of the 'light side Inquisitor' in swtor for the firsst time and realized that my character is now called Imperius and not Nox like the 'dark side Inquisitor I once had...just thought I'd write it here for completion sake.

I also recieved a comment about protheses on MC's and answered that I don't like them since they made Darth Vader weak, but I must correct myself: There are some cases where protheses are awesome, look at Hiccup's leg (How to train your dragon) or Tony Stark's 'High-tech protheses' (Iron man). But Shira won't have any.

Sooo, hope you liked it.

Bye