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Ary the Grey

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The starfield melted into a blue, whirling tunnel of light and barely understood physics as The Bleeding Edge shot into hyperspace.

 

"Sir", the pilot droid said, "course plotted for Kuat."

 

"Keep me apprised of any changes," Nok replied. "And call up BD, have her pull the Darius Jadeo identity and start filling out the edges to match Lord Akheron."

 

"Understood sir."

 

"Oh, and send a new robe to my suite. Not one of the silk ones, use one of the imitations." Nok had no doubt he'd lose another robe by the end of this trip to Kuat, and he'd rather not have to hunt down another hard-to-replace silken traditional robe of his homeworld.

 

As he left the bridge, his fingers absentmindedly ran along the edges of the bacta-patches on his shoulder, a twin to the one on his back. They tingled as the biochemicals did their work, but the pain still throbbed. Yet...he didn't hate it. It was galvanizing.

 

He turned to Lord Akheron.

 

"Where to now master? I have several suites here, stocked with the proper refreshments and foods to satisfy most civilized species if you'd prefer to talk or rest. Or I have a small gym if you'd prefer something less ornate."

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Nok led the way through the luxury yacht, bringing his new master to the ship's gym. Originally furnished as a casino for guests, Nok had had the room renovated into his personal workout space. Weights, a shower, mats, and gleaming workout devices littered one side of the large room, while bare space for calisthenics and sparring occupied the rest. One of the ship's cleaning droids was in the process of polishing one of the devices when the pair entered.

 

"Out," Nok ordered, the droid immediately moving to comply.

 

He took a moment to stretch, feeling the wounds on his shoulder and back stretching and sending sharp lances of pain across his body. He grimaced, but kept his face turned away from Darth Akheron.

 

The perception of power is power, the perception of control is control. He would not show weakness.

 

"If you want to start with something physical, I think you'll find me a bit higher than a beginner's level. I've had training..."

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THWACK

 

Nok opened his eyes to the mat floor of his gym. Blood coated his tongue and teeth like slime, and his head felt as if someone had inflated it and stuffed it with cotton.

 

So fast. His eyes had barely registered a blur before he'd found himself on the ground. He couldn't recall falling...

 

Sputtering, he struggled to pull himself to his hands and knees. His limbs betrayed him and slipped away, plunging his face back into the mat, the taste of sweat and dirt mixing with the coppery tang of blood in his mouth. The gym swam, tilting and spinning like a room in freefall, and Nok's stomach lurched for a nauseous moment.

 

Emotion...focus...fuel...pain... His new master's words blurred together in his mind, leaving only impressions of the meaning behind them, though pain stood out in stark contrast as a reality he understood at the moment.

 

Emotion... Dead in the cold and dark Fear...he felt fear.

 

NO! No fear! Control...I must control...

 

Rage. Yes. Rage that this vision would dare dictate my death. That it would dare deny me what I take with my own hands. That it would deny me all...

 

Nok's mind flashed to that moment as the soldier died at his feet. That moment of eternity within. A black expanse containing the universe that declared a cold death his fate, containing Nok himself, yet contained inside him. All of creation. All of him. All his.

 

My sovereign desolation...

 

He needed that. He ached for that. There was his strength, his purpose, his focus. That moment of perfection. It pulled at him now even though he couldn't feel it, like a song in the fog he couldn't quite hear.

 

Focus on nothing but that emotion he says

 

Nok did. He banished the fear, balling it up, binding it and walling it away. Such a familiar action now. And then he let the need grow. He fueled it, pouring his rage at his own weakness into it, swelling the emotion from desire to craving. Then he bloated the craving into pure, crystallized desperation. It spread through him, every tendon and bone in his body yearning for that connection. Yearning for the Force.

 

The Force wasn't a power, though it was powerful. It wasn't fate, though it dictated the course of galaxies. It wasn't life, though it existed inseparably within the living. It was everything. And it would be his.

 

The cotton stuffing his head dissolved like powder beneath a flood. Nok staggered to his feet, staff held loosely in his hand. The room tilted but didn't whirl as before. The blurry form of his master came into focus.

 

Nok looked Darth Akheron in the eye.

 

"Alright Master..."

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Four years ago.

 

Nok landed on his back, head slamming into the durasteel grating of the access tunnel for the old space station. He scrambled to his feet, but what had struck him had already moved off, silent as ever.

 

"So you're just going to beat me up?! What the hell do I pay you for?!"

 

No response. Nok slowly turned, eyes searching the shadowed corridors around him for any sign of...anything.

 

"Mistress Rill?"

 

Weeks earlier, when Nok had hired Masters Miwak and Rakha and Mistress Kida to act as his personal self-defense trainers, they'd softballed him and given him an intense but ultimately unoriginal series of exercises and lessons. Satisfactory, but Nok hadn't hired them for "satisfactory". He'd demanded they earn the money he was paying them by giving him a true noghri training regimen, the training that let the ferocious hunters down beasts capable of killing squadrons and earned them a reputation of fear from all who might oppose them. At first, he'd thought they'd quit on the spot. But then they'd come to him. They said they'd do as he asked, but only if he hired one more trainer. When Nok had asked why he needed another trainer when he had them to teach him grace, weapons, and martial combat, they'd simply replied that Mistress Rill was one of the best for teaching the final topic.

 

Survival.

 

Something struck him from behind, and Nok tumbled forward into the bulkhead, banging his skull and collapsing to the floor with a ringing in his ears.

 

Where WAS she?!

 

"I've barely begun my training! How am I supposed to compete with you?!" Nok clutched at his knees as he forced himself up.

 

"You're not."

 

Nok whirled towards the voice, but found only an empty corridor.

 

"This ends when you ask me to end it. And when you do, I go back to Honoghr. You don't pay me. I just leave."

 

Nok tried to follow the voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere he wasn't looking. Something like a club or foot struck the back of his knee, and Nok stumbled to all fours.

 

"Will you give up?"

 

Nok glared into the shadows.

 

Dead in the cold and dark

 

No. He wouldn't give up.

 

Dropping himself into the combat stance he'd only learned a week before, he slowly turned in place.

 

"Alright Mistress Rill..."

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Nok held his master's gaze.

 

"...let's try that again."

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Nok heard his master's words, closed his eyes, and concentrated.

 

What had he felt before Darth Akheron had struck him down? Nothing much. The sith had moved so fast he'd not really comprehended what had happened. What had he felt after though?

 

Rage, frustration, nausea. And need, that need he'd used to clear his mind and stand up again. Nok let it fill him again. He wanted that connection to everything.

 

But that wasn't what his master asked him to do. Nok squashed the emotion, driving it out, and focusing again on his master's words.

 

what you might do to those who oppose you

 

Nok thought back to his competitors. He certainly had enough of them. The lesser ones, the hounds snapping at his heels, had been killed or driven off by Nok's single-minded campaign. As he thought of them he felt...disgust. Conniving desk monkeys, entitled brats who'd schemed their way to power and hid under the shoes of others stronger than them. Spitting and laughing behind droids and bodyguards, playing dress-up in palaces they couldn't afford. They'd looked down on Nok, and when it became clear he might be a threat they'd conspired against him at every opportunity. Tossing legal claims into his path, or poaching his best underlings, or even publicly lambasting him out of spite. Nok had shrugged off each threat, but they kept coming, like a swarm of buzzing, tedious insects. Eventually, Nok chose to cut through the distraction and hindrances...with a knife. As competitor after competitor disappeared, others backed off, or became so engrossed in cramming down the scraps Nok's hitmen left in their wake that they hardly paid attention to the young businessman.

 

What had Nok felt before he decided to end those distractions? Irritation? No, he'd been irritated, but that day he'd finally crossed the line. Disdain? Closer, but not quite.

 

Hatred. Yes. He'd hated those slugs.

 

Nok thought to all those he hated. A dozen different faces came to mind immediately. The CEO of Offworld. The lawyer from Coruscant putting together that class-action lawsuit against Nok's branch company Chem Corp. The ithorian activist driving out Nok's agricultural interests on Dantooine. Irritations by themselves, but they took time to deal with, and Nok's growing empire was forced to swat them away again and again. He hated them, he knew that.

 

He let go of his composure, let the hatred flow through him. He imagined butchering each one, imagined them scrambling away while they tried to ply him with the precious words they spread about like a hutt's slime. He vividly pictured each one bleeding out on the floor of his palace, red spreading over the tile as each one was finally...finally silenced. The hatred and the joy balled up in his chest, a sun under his skin. It burned and it warmed, and Nok breathed in and out, fanning the fire.

 

He opened his eyes and looked at his master. His master still stood before him, but...

 

"You're different. You radiate. The air warps around you, and I feel pressure coming off you. I feel hot and cold, and alive."

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Nok nodded, and reached out with his hand. He closed his fingers on air, as if gripping the staff. He imagined the web his master spoke of, the black, the Force stretching out around him and through him. He pictured it as lines, infinitely thin yet strong, wrapping around the staff, Darth Akheron, the ship, and spreading out into space to the billions of worlds of the galaxy. In his mind, he reached for the web and plucked at it.

 

And felt nothing.

 

Nok grimaced, and carefully constructed the image again from scratch, his hand stupidly clutching the air like street performer. This time he imagined a network of lines, shifting and breathing like a living thing.

 

And again nothing.

 

Gritting his teeth, he clenched his fist and fed his frustration. He could feel the Force, it was there! It swelled and shifted as his emotions churned it, making him think of an ocean beneath his feet. Yet when he tried to grasp it, it moved like oil through his hands. Nok could float, but he couldn't swim.

 

The dark side is about passion. Intention. Action.

 

Nok reached out and directed his curdling fury at the staff itself, trying to hate it and immediately feeling foolish for hating a piece of wood. He gritted his teeth until it hurt, but the pain only swirled the currents and threads of the Force more. He knew he should be able to grasp the Force, push it and pull it with his mind, but his "hands" couldn't seem to find the weave.

 

With nothing else to try, Nok constructed another mental image, this time paying careful attention to his own position within the web. He recalled an arachnor he'd once seen at a competitors food development company. The massive 2 meter high spiders had fed on fungi as a part of their diet, and Nok's fellow neimoidian entrepreneur had brought in several of the creatures along with their preferred fungus to see if he could cultivate the fungus into a new snack for Neimoidia. Apparantly the spiders and the fungi had shared a symbiotic relationship and were necessary for cultivation. Nok grinned at the memory, along with the memory of sneaking back in to let the creatures out of their cages. That had been one of his earliest acts of sabotage, and probably his clumsiest, but damn had it been entertaining.

 

The arachnors as he recalled wove huge, intricate webs coated in some the stickiest fluid imaginable. Nok had considered engineering a synthetic version for commerical use, but had forgotten about it among other projects. He should look back into that. But the image that had stayed with him was the spider moving across it's web. Never entangling itself, its body unfolded and pulled itself along leisurely. The instant something touched the web (like one of the panicked lab techs who'd made a wrong turn) the spider froze, before slowly turning and moving towards the disturbance in its domain. Graceful beyond anything Nok could hope to achieve, the arachnor would wrap its food in more of the web, its deliberate pace contrasting with the frantic struggle.

 

Taking the mental image of the spider's body and placing his own mind within it, Nok tentatively reached for the strands of the Force. Yet still, nothing. Nok tamped down his exasperation, and again thought of the arachnor. It hadn't hesitated, hadn't felt at its web like a child crawling on the ground. It had taken its web and simply moved it, like a part of itself. Nok reached again for the Force, but this time he did not hesitate or look for a sensation. He expected the Force to be there just as he expected the ground under his feet every time he stepped.

 

Something brushed his mind, quivering.

 

Nok's eyes flew open. Indescribable. He had sensed the Force before, but now he had touched it. Like touching time, or embracing a planet, it couldn't be adequately described. But he had done it!

 

He didn't look at the staff. His crude eyes wouldn't serve him here. He instead stared into space and again reached for the Force, believing that it would be there. And again, it was. Shivering and dancing across his will like a feather on his palm, he couldn't grip it without losing it. Instead, he bled his frustration and sudden pride into it, rather than letting it directionlessly swirl around him.

 

Across from him, the staff jerked. Not enough to come to Nok.

 

But it moved.

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...See the unseen, view that which is without form, that which is yours to control and take command of it...

 

Nok lowered his hands and lifted his head upward. The ceiling of the gym blurred as he let his eyes lose focus. He had dribbled his passion into the Force a moment ago, afraid of losing the connection. Not this time.

 

Nok reached out with all his mind, extending his awareness to that expanse that was the Force. He did not brush against it as he had before. No gentle push or controlled pull. He clutched at it, wrenching it with his will. For the briefest of moments, Nok had the impression of unraveling, as the Force flowed out of him just as it flowed through him, unspooling him into the churning void. The moment passed like a dizzy spell, and the Force all around him twisted. He shook the web, he was the web. Distantly, he heard the sounds of exercise equipment rattling across the floor, weights falling off shelves, the ripping noise of mats tearing. That didn't matter. This, this feeling, this control...This mattered.

 

Standing at the eye of the swirling storm, Nok found the staff.

 

Dead in the cold and dark

 

Not afraid

 

Dead in the cold and dark

 

Not afraid!

 

Dead in the cold and dark

 

"NOT AFRAID!" Nok screamed.

 

A sharp, deep crack cut through the noise as the staff shattered in two and pieces flew past Nok to clatter against the opposite wall.

 

Nok stared down at the shattered remains of the staff, breathing hard, lips pressed into a thin, harsh line. He stretched out his hand, and one piece shot towards him. With a loud slap it struck his palm and he clutched it, pain tingling across the now bruised skin.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Nok listened as his master spoke, his mind still reeling from what he had done. The weights, the mats...he had done that. Not intentionally, but he had done that. The Force had moved under his touch. Under his...fear.

 

With telekinesis many things which before seemed impossible, become possible. He repeated his master's words in his mind. Like grasping the universe, he added silently.

 

As Darth Akheron lunged forward, Nok raised his hand and again found the staff in the swirling energies as his emotions stirred the Force into motion. Again, Nok had the brief sensation of his essence bleeding out into the Force, becoming one with the storm. Again he accepted it, and-

 

Nok's senses brushed against something. A counter-current. No, not simply a current. A storm that dwarfed his own, a well of emotion and power so black and deep as to seem like a black hole.

 

His master.

 

With a surge of white panic, the unraveling of his mind into the Force turned twisted and gnarled like threads in the hands of a toddler. Nok withdrew into himself with a snap, instinct telling him to withdraw from this thing before him, this entity of destruction and power.

 

The next thing Nok knew, he was on the ground, head throbbing once again.

 

He slammed his fist into the mat. Weak. He'd broken his own rule. He'd withdrawn and chosen not to fight when he could. He'd let his fear rule him. Nok had no issue with a tactical withdrawal, with using trickery or underhanded methods to win. But this...he'd simply fled from his master's presence.

 

As Nok, stood up, the tinny voice of one of his droids broke over the intercom:

 

"We will be arriving at Kuat shortly. Please prepare for landing."

 

Nok shook his head. "Apologies master. I need to prepare our meetings and landing procedures. We will continue this...later. If you're amenable..."

 

[sTORYLINE CONTINUES ON KUAT]

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  • 4 years later...
On 9/30/2022 at 11:17 PM, Solus said:

Solus bowed to the others. “If you wish, I will not mind company, for my glorious master has no orders over you, and perhaps you would like to learn what i am learning? Perhaps you, blind one?” Solus gestured to the miraluka. “Or you, great Apothos? Lord Innmortos held a keen interest in our databanks, and perhaps you might share his interests, hmm?” 

 

Apothos smiled, a gruesome thing given the taut, deathly grey flesh that was left of his face.

 

"I appreciate the offer, and I'll take you up on it," he rasped.

 

________________________________________________________

 

Apothos, once he'd been given access to the ship's databanks (minus anything the crew would want to keep private, he was sure), seemed to go into a trance. The screen, which he couldn't see anyway, only flickered fitfully, and Apothos' body jerked in time with it. In actuality, the computer was indeed running, and far faster than it normally might. Apothos mind, a much more elegant interface than a mere keyboard or control pad, blended with the databank, parsing through the information at the speed of thought. Files were brought up and dismissed in the same split second. Others had excerpts extracted and compiled as Apothos separated what he needed and copied it to a private file. He was catching up on all he had missed, and he was mildly surprised by what he'd found.

 

The Sith Empire was on the run, if not destroyed entirely. A critical defeat, a resurgent desire for unity and order, both at a profoundly inconvenient time, and it all began to crumble. The wave of history had struck one side of the pond, and now it was moving the other way. Now the question was whether one hid from it, or rode it.

 

Considering, Apothos nodded to himself. He'd return to form. He'd move to the shadows, starting in the Outer Rim where this new galactic order would have as little a grip as possible. He'd take care to hide his identity, and remain on the move. And above all, he'd be discreet. No more grand displays, at least for the time being. No, he'd build instead. Slowly, carefully, and subtly.

 

Of course, first he had to see what awaited them where they were going.

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