The Dollhouse (Rayna Eclipse)

[Southstar]

Part I

The town of Hearth was wedged between the mountains outside of Coronet and virually isolated from the world and especially the galaxy. Southstar had used his power as a Sith Elder to establish a protectorate over the area and to keep it untouched by the rest of Corellia. The townspeople were appreciative of this act of his and therefore answered only to him. Upon first sight, one might be led to believe Southstar had found some sort of power source there. One would be mistaken to believe it. He had a special attraction to the town and its beauty, the simplicity of its people. It was a little project of his that he enjoyed very much.

The town also provided a cover for him to embark on several projects that might be considered downright evil, especially if the New Republic ever found out. One of the mountains hid a small complex within it. A former mining station, Airidite held a maze of tunnels carved from rock and supported by giant iron plates.

Southstar was currently passing through one of the poorly lit tunnels with his new apprentice Rayna Eclipse close behind.

"What brings us to such a place, master?" She said from behind him in her ever monotone voice.

"Somewhere to practice your skills." He replied as they came to a fork in the tunnel.

As she followed him to the right she spoke again. "I can honestly sense little life here. No mind presence at all. I thought you had said earlier that this was a mind exercise."

"Be patient apprentice." He said as they came to a halt. "Just down this ladder and you'll learn about our exercise." He held the glowtorch between his teeth as he set himself on the ladder and began climbing down. Rayna followed.

His feet touched down on the rusty iron plate that made up the floor of the apparent room. "I suppose you can sense life now."

"Barely." She said as she looked into the dark for the slightest hint of what might exist out there in the abyss.

A loud clang echoed in the room as Southstar allowed the electricity to flow into the room, illuminating it no more than if there were several glowtorches on the floor. In the rusty glow she could see half a dozen figures standing against a wall. "Who are they?" ANd why couldn't se sense them? Was what she wanted to add.

"Dolls." He said with a smirk. "At least thats the nickname given to them by the scientists that worked on them. I'd say it stuck well. Welcome to the dollhouse."

Rayna didn't quite understand. Were they alive, droids maybe? She walked closer and let her mental power loose as much as she could without making it apparent to Southstar of her true intentions and origin. The best she could describe it was that the minds of the 'dolls' were empty, yet imprints of memories were present.

"A very thorough mind wipe. That's what you're seeing." He said as he walked up next to her. "A combonation of Forcework and science." He compelled one to walk to him and it did on shaky legs, as if it had been standing for months. "He grabbed it by the hair and showed her the back of its head. "Some sections of the brain have been removed, tinkered with and replaced. It's like their freewill is reset every three seconds. Their memories have been wiped and stored."

Had she been accustomed to expressing feeling in her facial expression, pure disgust and horror would have appeared. Instead she stared at the grotesque head of patches of hair, scars and diseased skin. "And what is it that you require of me?"

"You're going to control them for starters. Then we're going to explore the mind and see what makes it work. There's nothing to inhibit you from learning everything possible about the human mind here."

"Very well." She said.

[Rayna Eclipse]

Part II

The very fact that such an act could happen and no one would know, no one could do anything about it was horrendous. She wanted to habe nothing to do with this, but she really didn't have much of a choice. Once again she found herself compromising her values and everything she stood for as a Jedi. She could kill him. She wanted to. However, as a Jedi she couldn't as she had taken a vow to never end life. She thought of her partner, Enith, a fellow Jedi. She had killed him, in a manner of speaking. Enith was a Kruthian, capable of full regeneration. Regardless, severing his spinal cord and watching as his head hung from the strip of flesh that was the sternocleidomastoid, the jugular and cartotids pumping blood into the messy wound. The disturbing image was enough to make her forget that Enith would survive. She shook the memory away along with the thoughts of killing the Sith Knight that stood next to her.

She closed her eyes asshe couldn't bare looking at the dolls standing in the corner any longer. Her mind extended out to one of them and took control; it was very easy. The mind had put up resistance that was like that of free will, but once she pushed past that, she found that whatever acted as the free will resistance was only an illusion of sorts. The figure walked around in circles and soon one followed uner her control. The rest just stared idlely on at the two circling about.

"If it's these silly exercises that you want me to preform, you're wasting both our time." She said and opened her eyes. "I have Force powers already, I've leart this..." since before I could walk. That last bit was what she wanted to say, but withheld it. Her true origin must stay secret.

"But you need to get used to the dolls." Southstar responded. "Since you want something challanging, how does this sound? The human mind has a self preservation mechanism in the brain. That in the doll is very much intact. Convince the doll to hurt itself without manipulating emotion. Make it logically sound in this thing's mind."

Her eyes turned back to the lead circling doll. She could do this trick long ago. Though she never honestly tried as such an exercise was against her code. Emotion was the easy way out, apprentices could manipulate emotion. Warping logic was a totally diffferent story. Rayna couldn't simply tell the doll break your arm because it makes sense. She had to make it seem to the doll that not having his arm broken was wrong, that he should have broken it long ago. To do so she had to alter everything that was once logically sound in its mind. It's lack of real-time memories would save her about half a years time. But certain observations and mental connections could not be broken so easily.

Illusion was the first step, to the eyes of the doll, everyone else had broken legs. In a crude and primitive way, the doll grunted and reached out to touch the leg of a female. Touch illusion was next, she couldn't make the sensation of touching the broken leg apprear in the doll's finger nerves as she wasn't a telekinesis master. She would have to change the way the brain interpreted the finger sensations. She did just that and the doll found that the broken legs were a reality. She could see the confusion in its limited mind and now her goal was to erase it. She searched quickly for pain memories and blotted them out, followe by blotting out all memory of the use of the legs. As the figure fell to the ground with no knowledge of how to walk or even move his legs Rayna reframed the logic in his mind.

Southstar watched as the doll broke its own leg and dispite the howls of pain it broke the other. Her reframed logic was so flawless that even apparent pain didn't stop it or cause it to hesitate. He was honestly impressed. He searched the doll's mind for any possible mistakes Rayna had made and found none. As his mind focused back on reality, the howling cries of the doll entered his ears. "Shut him up would you."

The crying and screaming doll broke his femur yet again. She undid the logic in the dolls mind as quickly and easily as she made it. Next she simply blotted out the communication section of the doll's mind. "Better?"

"Yes." He said and stepped next to her. "You've impressed me thoroughly. That whole process took only ten seconds. That's very close to some masters."

"I don't need to learn Force skills, Master Southstar. I need to learn the darkside."

He nodded. "Well take your time learning about the mind. This kind of imformation is very exclusive to the Sith Order."

"Then I best do so." She sat down against one of the iron walls and let her mind wander into the dolls.

Southstar sat opposite of her and stared for a minute. She held a great deal of power and for some reason, she was holding it back. To be honest, she amazed him. Quickly he erased the sense of infatuation from his mind.

[Southstar]

Time passed rather quickly, for him at least. This was primarily a training exercise for Rayna, but there was a wealth of knowledge for him to become aquainted with. Mentalics, as his former apprentice Je'gan had called it, was not his specialty. He was quickly becoming a master of telekinetics.

He sat crosslegged across from one of the dolls, who was absent mindedly scraping against the iron plated wall. Telekinesis went down to the smallest atom and at this point he was looking at the tiniest blood vessels. At a whim their flow would quicken and the doll would jitter. Then at a moments notice it would slow and the dolls scraping would become weak rubbing against the rusty plate.

Such tricks weren't entirely difficult for him. They were not easy either. It seemed like the right amount of concentration to use while his mind wandered towards Rayna's workings.

She was doing as he suggested and was exploring facets of the mind once unknown to her. But at the same time she was devoting her mind to something else. But what? It had been customary for him to invade her mind without warning and he did so. She had dark feelings, but not those of a Sith. She wasn't completely given over to the darkside, yet. Her defenses eased as she detected that he was taking a look around. Some secrets opened up, ones she might hide normally, but they had come to an agreement about his checking up on her. It was primarily for security reasons, before taking her to Corellia he had searched her mind thoroughly for traces of bad intent towards the Sith. He found none then and was finding none now. He read her memories of her past time at the Sith Order, it seemed she had a slight infatuation with the soon-to-be Knight Mars Whyte. Interesting. Perhaps a little passion in her life might liven her up. He pressed futher and found what seemed to be a genuine joy of learning the secrets that the dolls had exposed to her. When he had first met her, truly met her, she seemed devoid of all emotion. Even when he searched her mind, he found none.

He withdrew his mind and returned to a full focus on affecting the doll's body with telekinesis. Her current thoughts were hidden and he silently wondered to himself what she might be hiding.

[Rayna Eclipse]

Part III

Her mind was a fortress, impenitrable to all but her. The illusion she maintained inside her own mind was one fo the most difficult tasks she had ever been put to. Those illusional fortess walls had to stand all day of everyday that she spent in the company of the Sith. She put forth illusions of her falling towards the
darkside for Southstar to find. She put forth illusions for Phoenix to find. Every single thought she had, there was a counter thought for it.

However, she wasn't positive those illusions were truly mirages. To her they were seeming all to real. As her thoughts had to be guarded at all times, she never had much time nor energy to think about it. Was she really enjoying the exploitation of the 'dolls' before her. These unfortunate beings that had been drprived of everything. It seemed the truth was that she did infact enjoy it. Years of Jedi training was giving away to the emotions inside. Behind her fortress wall she was struggling to determine if it was so that her penetration of the Sith Order would prevail or if it was indeed her who was faulty.

She opened her eyes and took her mind away from the doll's. Her spine straightened and her lungs took in a deep breath. As she exhaled her Sith Master returned to his own mind.

"Who are these people." She asked as light conversation but her emotionless voice did not do her justice.

Southstar was used to her strange way of making conversation and had adpated. "Political prisoners. Rebels. Those who's thoughts were too dangerous to be allowed any longer."

"You have re-education camps for them, correct?"

"We do. But these are the special few. The true ringleaders." He said and pushed himself to his feet. "Free thought isn't entitled to everyone. It is our job as Sith and rulers to decide who is worthy and who is not."

[Southstar]

Rayna said nothing for the moment.

"Does that bother you?" He asked sharply.

"No." She stated. "These methods are different. So effective." She turned to him. "Ideas are more powerful than weapons."

He smiled. Words of wisdom. "Very true, my apprentice." He glanced at the dolls, who were now sitting against the rusted iron wall. The one iwth broken legs was rolling around and it became evident that he'd never walk again. Perhaps he should be disposed of. He made a mental note to inform the droids to do so once he returned to the palace.

By the time his eyes turned back to Rayna he found her close to one of the dolls in the corner. She seemed to be examining it from its teeth to the state of its skin to is feet.

"Do they eat?" She asked.

"Some do. If they're especially useful. The failures tend to sit here and fade away." He said. "Through I've never seen it, but the ones that die from hunger are apparently eaten by the others. On numerous occasions the droids have found one bones with teeth marks."

She smiled slightly as she studied the palm of the doll. "What does one deserve to recieve such a fate?"

"Treason."