Those Red Eyes [completed]

[Lilaena De'Ville]

<center>Continued from <a href=http://www.swforums.net/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=360196#post360196>The Truth About Masters</a></center>

De'Ville sat on board the Corellian gunboat, The Devil's Advocate, and tapped her fingers on the table of the conference room she sat in.

Shaed, her apprentice, was bringing The Shell, a ship of a make unlike anything else in Known Space, into the docking bay. Soon he would join her on board the ship, and they would continue on their journey.

Only he knew where they were going. Capt. Michel Delving, a human of integrity, and his crew, were adept at following orders. For the past year, they had been traisping the galaxy, without her.

De'Ville had been busy, but the precious cargo on board this ship could not be abandoned on a whim. So Delving and his people, rather, her people, had kept the ship and its secret cargo safe. But now she had need of them, and so here they were.

The comm chirped. "Kar'h'tzen Shaed is on his way up now, Lady De'Ville."

"Thank you."

Lilaena stared at a tiny hologram and then slipped it back into her pocket. Jax....his tiny face filled with the joy that came from knowing nothing about the universe, She pushed her son from her thoughts, and refused to think about Tondry. It had been so long. Did he even care for her anymore? Did she care for him?

The doors swished open, and Shaed stalked inside, casual, but on edge, and covered in black from head to toe, as per usual. She smiled. "Now, where are we going, exactly, Shaed? I am impatient to start our journey. Let us not keep Master Banestone waiting any longer."

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Shaed smiled. Was it too tense? Why was he tense? He knew what waited for him.

"One of the moons of Iego. I trust you've heard of them... those satellites have been constantly visited by tourists and the casually curious alike, from a hundred years ago to even this day and age."

It was a stupid thing. Apparently someone's long-dead great-great grandfather started a rumour about "angels" - as if such things existed - that he saw on one of the moons of Iego. As with all great legends, there was utterly no proof but there was an intruiging-looking set of moons to look at. The moons themselves were largely uninhabitable.

How Banestone had found a habitable atmosphere, deep in the caverns of the second-smallest moon - Cr'ail - was beyond the young Dark Jedi. But so it had been. Scientists the galaxy over would pay incredible sums of money just to see the species of animals and plantlife inside that swirling hunk of rock. But it was more valuable as a permanent retreat for Banestone.

He added, for De'Ville's benefit:

"The moons are almost completely uninhabitable. And even the ones that are, are not as inhabitable as the hole Banestone managed to crawl into. So no one ever lands, no one ever finds him."

Shaed shrugged.

"Well, except for me. I have a knack for finding hidden things."

He would have glanced meaningfully around the ship if he had been in a better mood.

[Banestone]

*Deep within a dark cavern, Banestone slept. But he did not dream.

He had not had a dream for longer than he could remember, now.

Sometimes he woke up, and he would eat. How he ate, he didn't know and didn't care. He would find food near at hand when he opened his eyes. Always meat, and always raw. It sustained him.

Banestone didn't even know why he bothered to keep himself alive at all. He didn't bother doing anything else, anymore. He had lived here, in this darkness, for... a month? Years? It must have been years. He didn't know.

He didn't look at his memories these days. They were darker than these shadows under the moon that hid his face.

Wraiths came by, occasionally, when he was awake. He didn't like to call them "angels". He didn't know why. But they almost consoled him when he bothered to watch them. He didn't like that.

It was the only emotion he remembered feeling for a long, long time.

The Force... what was that? It was so useless. His ship... it had been useless. He gave it away, he thought. His strength... his powers...

So useless...

Banestone had not been anywhere but this moon since he had returned home, years ago. But home was... no. Memories. He didn't remember them.

Banestone slept.*

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville nodded, and looked at Michel Delving, who also nodded. "We will be there as soon as possible, De'Ville." She didn't like extraneous titles. He'd learned that quickly, and only called her by her last name. Which was the way she liked it. "I'll calculate the jump myself. Iego is pretty far..it will be about two days in hyperspace."

Lilaena nodded again. "That is fine. He is not going anywhere, but if you can make up time, do so." Delving clicked his heels together and departed the conference room.

She turned to Shaed. "I will take you to your quarters, unless you would rather sleep on board The Shell?" He shook his head in the negative, and she smiled slightly before exiting the room. "You will report to me first thing in the morning. We will run over a few of the finer techniques of hand to hand fighting. A lightsaber is all well and good, but even a trained Force user is sometimes without one."

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Kar'h'tzen Shaed (half-human Force user, lvl. 5, alignment: dark) attempts destiny roll: A combined throw of 15 or greater = De'Ville (human Force user, lvl. 8, alignment: dark) and Shaed fight off space pirates (mixed aliens, lvl. 8)! A combined throw of 14 or less = Shaed goes to sleep until they arrive. Kar'h'tzen Shaed has rolled a combined total of 12 with the dice! Kar'h'tzen Shaed goes to sleep!

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville stood on the bridge of her Corellian gunboat, and looked at the moon through the viewscreen. Shaed stood beside her, pointing out the correct moon to the helmsman, but she simply stared at it. A part of her wanted to ask "Are you sure?" but she kept her mouth closed.

She couldn't sense Banestone's presence, which wasn't unusual, as they were a fair ways off. Twenty minutes later, when the Master and Apprentice touched down on the hunk of rock in the Revenge and she still couldn't sense the former Sith Master...now that was unusual. There was a division in the Force, or a disturbance.

The same sensation had been often described in different ways in the past, by many different people. The only thing De'Ville could say of it afterwards was that it appeared that the Force was interrupted, as if it was flowing around something instead of through it. Or perhaps that...no that is not right either. Yes, disturbance..that is the right word after all.

She looked through her vac suit at Shaed, and motioned forward. "Lead the way."

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Kar'h'tzen Shaed could feel his old Master nearby. Old... it was a funny thought. In what felt like barely six months ago, he wouldn't have been Shaed's "old" Master at all.

By the expression on De'Ville's mind as she concentrated, she could feel him nearby, too. Or could feel that the Force was, shockingly, NOT in a certain spot. Which was all Shaed could feel, too.

It was how Shaed had found Banestone so easily, at the first. Somehow the alien could completely reject the Force... an amazing thought. And a wonder that it did not kill him outright, but Shaed suspected the technology that ran through Banestone's bloodstream was what sustained him at those times.

It appeared the cantankerous old fool was still among the living, then.

Shaed nodded to his Master, and stepped off of the landing ramp and onto the moon's slightly spongy surface. The disguised hole that led into the network of tunnels and caves beneath the satellite's surface was not far off, but it would not spacious enough to allow De'Ville's ship through. Shaed had never actually walked on this moon's surface before.

He pointed to a huge, slightly consipicuous boulder off to their left. It appeared to block the end of a ravine, which otherwise seemed it would end in the side of a small mountain. In truth, the stone was a hologram, projected by machinery Banestone had assembled from his ship. The ravine went right into the cliff face, and became a tunnel.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Lilaena followed Shaed into the disguised tunnel, walking through the hologram with a flinch. She would tell through the Force that it was not real, but with her eyes open, it was hard to convince her body that she wasn't going to bump her nose.

The tunnel was dank and dreary, with more of the same poisionous atmosphere from the surface. De'Ville adjusted her rebreather, and followed Shaed through the labyrinth of tunnels. The further down they got, the cleaner the air became, until it was almost breathable. She looked at her apprentice. "Is this the place?"

The strange disturbance was up ahead, probably around a few more turns in their current tunnel. She could find her way out again by herself if need be, it only took one trip for her to remember the directions. She'd lived in Coruscant long enough to become very good with crawling through vents and the like..it took more to disorient her than the usual sentient.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

"Almost," Shaed replied. He bent over suddenly and dropped down through a fair-sized hole in the floor of the tunnel... landing in the next level of tunnels. This level was completely non-toxic to the average sentient creature, so he released the seals on his helmet and pulled it off. In fact, he felt a little strange being on this familiar territory in a hazardous environment suit.

No matter.

He quickly sidestepped to let De'Ville through, as a wisp of half-seen light flashed past him. Since De'Ville was using her suit's glowrod, Shaed was still wearing his goggles and didn't see the creature as clearly as he normally could.

He still wasn't sure if he should bother being intrigued by the "angels"... after all, he had seen the impossibly ignorant tourists that orbited the moons above devote their entire worthless lives to the intrigue. Some of them would probably even go to the length of murder, just to know what two people in the entire galaxy knew lived down here.

There were carvings and ground paste markings along these tunnels, which Banestone had made when he first set up his forlorn residence here. Most of them were rather crudely Sith and animalistic, but a few apparently sprung from his memories of his home world. Shaed shrugged to himself as De'Ville dropped beside him.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She pulled the helmet off, and tucked it under her arm. "Breathable air. Who would have thought." She didn't sound very amazed.

De'Ville traced her index finger along the carvings in the rock. "He is near." She felt troubled, but not in danger, and so her lightsaber remained on her belt and not in her hand.

Kar'h'tzen continued to lead the way, and De'Ville followed close behind him. Something flashed in her eyes, and she glanced down at her glowrod. It appeared to be working fine. Puzzled, she clicked it off, and allowed her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

De'Ville's light turned off, and Shaed pushed his goggles up so he could see better.

However, all they did was prove what his senses already told him... so he stopped walking. De'Ville, fortunately, saw him stop in the dim air before she ran into his back.

There was Banestone... sprawled out like any of the countless homeless scum of Coruscant's lowest levels. He didn't even look like he was breathing.

And to think this used to be a Master of the Force.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville stepped around Shaed, and knelt beside the huge figure sprawled on the ground. She placed two fingers on an artery, and stayed quiet for a moment...measuring...

"He's still alive, at least." De'Ville sat back on her haunches and surveyed the half durasteel alien before her. "Is there any way to get him to acknowledge us? I confess, you know more about the mind than I am capable of."

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

"...Noooo..."

The word drawled slowly through Shaed's lips as he considered.

"I do not know how to use the Force on him when he's blocking it... like he is. I don't even know how he does that. Yet he seems to be conscious of what goes on in this lovely comatose state of his. When he wakes more fully, and eats, he is quite a bit more lucid - but he also remembers much of what has gone on around him. I daresay he could rouse himself at any moment, if he really wanted to."

Banestone's massive body remained impassive.

"Or we could try and make him a bit more conscious by using... other ways."

Shaed would have to admit to his curiousity soon if this kept up. Just what did his Master want out of this meeting?

[Banestone]

*Banestone slept. And as he slept, he had a dream.

In the dream, there was a woman, and a boy. They were watching him. It almost made him feel uncomfortable, like he should know them. The one was almost like the boy he'd been training, and the woman he was with was like... an old acquaintance, perhaps. They were both filled with the darkest essences of the Force. He shut them out. The Force was no ally. It was no weapon. No help. Useless to wield, impossible to destroy.

And dreams were never worth remembering.*

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville snapped her finger in front of the cyborg's face, and then settled back once more. "Well. Banestone."

"Banestone!" Her voice reverberated around the underground cave, as she amplified it with the Force. "It is I, De'Ville! You came to me in a dream once, and now I return to you!" She stood to her feet and stepped back a little.

"Even in your current state, you are no slave to the Force. Bend it to your will once more!"

[Banestone]

*The dream continued. The woman tried to command something into action. A worthless gesture. She said something about a dream. That was something that should be amusing... dreams talking about dreams.

There was only one important thing Banestone had learned in these past long years. That one thing was that the dream made the awakening pointless. Absurd. Why awaken, if one could dream... forever?

The woman tries to goad him into overcoming the dream. This dream is certainly a long one.*

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She knelt at his head, facing the rest of his prone body, and clasped it between her hands. Lilaena had never laid hands on Banestone before, and it was an odd experience. "Return to the Sith Order, they... they deserve you." There was a mischievious glint in her eye as she spoke.

De'Ville looked up at Shaed. "If he was like this when you knew him, then how on earth did you get any training done?"

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

"You misunderstand," Shaed replied. "He only started to become like this after he'd completed the bulk of my tutelage under him. Then he began sending me on missions of sorts, to prove my advancement. I can't even guess what he did during those times, but obviously something happened. I think he went to his home planet, wherever that is. I don't think he enjoyed the experience. So now, somehow, he is in denial of his own right to exist. In denial of using or even being a part of the Force, although what that has to do with it is beyond me."

Shaed shrugged. Yes, his Master was probably right. The Sith did "deserve" to have such a useless relic. Maybe he'd drag them down with him.

"Eventually, as he regressed more and more into this state, I took his last sane words of advice and looked around for Vjun. There was - and is - nothing more for me, here."

There was a telltale gleam of light coming from around a bend in the tunnel. Not much, meaning the thing was a good ways down it still. But it wasn't moving... were they being eavesdropped upon? Shaed found that possibility extremely amusing. They weren't even as smart as Ranats. Then again, the angels didn't seem to have much in the way of lives. But he'd never noticed one hanging around for no apparent reason... maybe it was just a reflection from some light fixture of Banestone's, set up a long way off. He doubted De'Ville could see the faint extra light around the corner.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville kicked Banestone's body, the flesh side, not the durasteel side. "Get up you worthless lump! I knew you were nothing the day I met you. One day...one day I will be stronger than you. And I was right!" De'Ville lifted his arm and let go of it, watching it drop to the ground. There was no muscular response to the movement.

"I tire of your games, Banestone. You wish for death, but are too afraid to take your own life." She flipped her saber pommel into her hand and ignited the jaded amythest blade, banishing the shadows to further corners of the cave.

The smell of ozone tickled her nose, and she swished the blade through the air, bringing it into an elaborate defensive posture. Then she laughed.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Shaed took a long step forward, reached down, and wiggled one of his fingers into a tiny crevice on Banestone's durasteel-and-wire upper arm. He barely felt the pressure switch click under his nail, but the hatch that snikt open as a result was obvious enough. Shaed stood straight once more, as he manipulated the object within the surprisingly large storage space (yet still well-concealed - the artificial arm was as thick and strong as the real one, if not more so) through the Force, wiggling it out - seemingly gingerly. Soon it floated in the air, in front of the dark alien's face, loosed from his arm.

Ah. But he wasn't watching... was he.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville knelt at his side, deactivating her lightsaber and clipping it to her waist. She bent down, examining Banestone's durasteel leg. As Shaed delicately removed the Sith Master's lightsaber from the compartment in his left arm, she lightly touched the cool metal, tracing a carefully mended line.

"This is where I cut you..." She almost purred, her voice was so soft. "I almost beat you then, and I was a mere apprentice..." Abruptly she stood to her feet, and took two steps back from the prone body in the darkness. "Kill him." De'Ville looked at her apprentice in a sudden whitish glow that apeared from a side tunnel.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

It was dark.

Rather, it was light. De'Ville's saber no longer lit the passageway with the harsh, dim glow that was almost unique of lightsabers. The... thing... around the bend was not being very discreet anymore, and Shaed noted a subtle change in his master's inner demeanor as she apparently noticed the second light source. And then... it was gone. Maybe they were smart.

...Kill him...

Lilaena De'Ville took another step back into her darkness.

Banestone appeared unmoved by his doom.

Kar'h'tzen Shaed willed the cyborg's lightsaber into his hand. In the blink of an eye, the slender Dark Jedi thumbed the device on. Energy, focused and transformed through a hidden Sith crystal, coalesced into a beam of sinister red light with a hiss. The handle, fashioned mainly from the skull of some creature he'd never laid eyes on, felt smooth and cold against his bare palm.

He held the lightsaber down, next to his side, and slightly behind himself as he took a measured step back. Hm. Should he say something? The situation seemed to warrant that gravity. Banestone had once been a being of power, who commanded respect, after all. Shaed looked down at the saber, brought it up in front of his own face with a flourish.

"I think I'll be keeping this."

With a second flourish, the young man who was half human whipped the lightsaber down and out, and continued the motion in a horizontal sweep through Banestone's upper face.

The half-machine being didn't seem to have been touched at first, to eyes still dazzled by the recently-passed light of the malevolent weapon - now held down and angled behind Shaed's other side. Gradually, De'Ville could see that there was a slightly less dark line on the other Sith Master's face, standing out against the inky darkness of his skin. It was some deep shade of red, furrowing uninterrupted through where the eyes and bridge of the nose had been. Her Force senses told her the horrific gash was some three inches deep. Which also told her that the being was no longer resisting the influences of the Force - she was able to manipulate and sense it, even inside his own body, just like normal.

Banestone's rigid and immovable muscles slowly went slack, and his immense body began to topple over backwards in silence.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville nodded once, and verified that the alien had been killed. Pulse, gone...breath, negative. "Let us get out of here. These lights are giving me the creeps." She walked away from the body, ignoring it now that Banestone was no longer even pretending to be alive.

She stood under the hole they had dropped through, and gathered herself, using the Force to leap through the hole to the next level.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Shaed turned around, switching off Banestone's lightsaber and tucking it into one of his coat's many deep pockets. Then he followed suit, though he only jumped with his normal strength - enough to get his arms up on the floor of the next level and haul himself up the rest of the way.

They walked back to the ship. There seemed to be no sign at all of the creatures that inhabited this place, this time.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

As they settled into their seats and she keyed up the repulsors, De'Ville shot a glance at Shaed. He seemed calm, relaxed. It was a good thing. If he was nervous, or seemed regretful about slaying his former master, then he would be totally unfit for....for things.

He knew much, and had learned much from Banestone. The raw knowledge would be tempered some more, and forged into something formiddible that the Jedi might cower at his magnificence. And De'Ville smiled, knowing that it was she who would unleash him on the galaxy.

She closed her eyes briefly as the ship moved towards the Devil's Advocate. Banestone's eyes gleamed at her from her mind, and she imagined them closing...never to open again. Those inscrutable red eyes were finally silenced.



fin