In the Forge - 10.045

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She was called Malleus, the Hammer. Used to bludgeon her Master's will into the soft metal of the galaxy, she was hard; unyielding. Beskar.

Lilaena plummeted down the cliff outside the Fountain Palace, her body bouncing off an outcropping and spinning her out into air. She slammed into the ground, rolling to a stop in a crumpled heap beneath some bushes. Rubble from the battle (http://www.sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?55383-Abandonment-10-045) above thumped heavily to the ground around her, a large rock rolling ominously toward her, only to stop just as it touched her arm.

She lay there, heart twitching uselessly, lungs empty, her eyes open and blank.

[A'na Eldhil]

Through her eyes I can see the sky through the branches and leaves of the bush we've rolled under. Her heart is in full arrest, chest crushed, bones broken - it would be easier to list the body parts that were uninjured, so I leave off cataloguing. I can still touch the Force even though my host's body is dying. If I can somehow shock her heart back into rhythm ...

There is something wrong with the sky. It is getting dark, even though it is midday. No, no, if Callidus comes down to check on the body I can still - I'm not done yet you little bitch!

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She opened her eyes slowly, and found herself in darkness. After a moment she sat up, trying to remember... how had she gotten here? The only sound was a constant and slow drip; it brought to mind caves and dank walls, and the darkness cleared like a mist, revealing a dimly lit cavern filled with stalagmites. She felt like she should recognize it, and the sense of deja vu didn't lessen as she took a step forward. Her head whipped around as she caught sight of something in the corner of her eye, but there was nothing there.

She walked toward the center of the cave, and with each step something returned to her. She was Lilaena De'Ville. She was a Je- she was not a Jedi. Her master was Darth Callidus, and she had... Lilaena paused mid step, straining against the recollection. She had tried to do something to him. It was blurry still, like trying to watch a holomovie through a wet window. A shadow detached from a rock formation, and straightened up, darkness billowing like a cloak around it.

Lilaena faced it, her hand dropping to her waist, finding her lightsaber there and in her palm. The shadow advanced, the darkness peeling back from it's face, and she exhaled shakily. "A'na..."

[A'na Eldhil]

"You join me in death, I see," spat the spectre. "Or you soon enough will." She clenched her fist, and Lilaena felt her chest convulse as though her dead master was gripping her heart. A'na looked down, and saw the lightsaber in her student's hand.

"You will not need that here, child." She waved her hand and the weapon melted away, leaving Lilaena grasping at nothing. "You are nothing. How dare you think you can stop me?" With every word her body grew and her voice became louder, until she was a giant booming down on her diminutive padawan.

[Lilaena]

Her hand closed into a fist, her fingernails driving into her palm as the lightsaber disappeared, and Lilaena stumbled backwards, tripping over her feet and falling on her butt. Somehow she was a little girl again, terrified and needing to please Master A'na. "Stop - stop please," she sniffled, crawling backward until her back was against a slimy stalagmite.

"Please? Please?!" A'na thundered down at her. "You are a worm in the dust compared to me, to what I am! To what I could have been! You let me die! And now you dare refuse me, and try to stop me from taking the power I need to take apart the Empire?! You dare assume that you know best?!"

A'na plucked the girl from the floor and held her up by the throat, Lilaena's legs kicking uselessly as her dream body choked. Then she cast the padawan to the ground in disgust.

Lilaena curled up, her body aching. Her chest especially hurt, as though someone had punched her right in the sternum. Something wasn't quite right. What had she been remembering when A'na had appeared?

[A'na Eldhil]

"Live, damn you!" shouted A'na, turning away from the crumpled girl and casting about with the Force. They were trapped in Lilaena's mind somehow, in the moment between life and death or some other metaphysical hell. The girl was defeated. If she could just reach beyond this illusion...

A'na grimaced, the sense of the broken body she was inhabiting washing over her, the lungs empty, the heart fluttering... She clenched her fist again, palpitating the cardiac muscle manually with the Force, and she could feel the body taking in an involuntary gasp of air.

[Lilaena]

It hurt, everything hurt, and it would be so easy to simply lay there and let A'na do what she wanted. She knew best, right? Lilaena wiped the tears off her cheek with the back of her hand, struggling back up to her feet. A'na... she was cruel. She thought only of herself. Lilaena hugged an arm around the stalagmite for support. A'na was a...a...

"Liar!"

[A'na Eldhil]

She turned around slowly, the cave melting around her, and stared at the girl. "Insolent bitch." The rock walls ran like hot wax, puddling on the floor. Behind them were the metal and industrial fabric bulkheads of a very familiar ship. "Perhaps you need one last lesson." A'na gestured and the solid wood rack that held staves and training sabers slid with a screech to the center of the circular room, replacing the stalagmite Lilaena had been leaning on. She cracked a whip of pure thought and split the girl's skin across her shoulder and arm as she tried to protect her face. "Don't give into the pain," she cooed, her face twisting with anger as she flicked the whip against Lilaena again, tearing through the cloth of her shirt.

"A Jedi controls their feelings," A'na sang out, the whip drawing a line across Lilaena's belly.

[Lilaena]

She curled up as best she could, then her wrists were yanked apart and were tethered to the rack. Face up, she could only see her master's face and hear the crack of the whip as it whistled through the air toward her. Lilaena opened her mouth to scream, the pain was too much, the soft flesh of her frontside unused to such treatment.

She opened her mouth. She did not scream.

Liar. She thought. Liar liar pants on fire.

[A'na Eldhil]

A'na hissed, drawing her arm back again for another metaphysical blow to the child. If she could batter her psyche down enough, and salvage the body, then it would be hers and that would be that. Lilaena was gaping like a fish out of water, her demise assured. The Jedi Knight's eyes glittered, and she cracked the whip through the air only to stumble back as flames erupted at her feet.

Her shadow robes caught on fire, and she tore them off, skin blistering and bursting at the heat. Speechless with rage, A'na thrust her hands like talons at her padawan, electricity arcing through the air to finish her off once and for all.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The electricity slammed into her hands as Lilaena drew herself up to her full height. The energy sparked and gathered into a ball of light as A'na continued to pour her rage into it, Lilaena gathering and shaping the attack in her palms.

"You told me I was a Jedi. You told me I was nothing without you. You broke me so you could raise me up, and then broke me again." She took a step forward as her old master redoubled her efforts, the air between them blue with energy, smoke, and the smell of burnt ozone. "You were everything to me, because you twisted me as a child to believe what you said was the truth.

"It was all lies!" Lilaena thrust her hands out, and the roiling ball of energy flew forward and splashed against A'na's body.

[A'na Eldhil]

A'na's mouth slammed shut on her tongue as the electricity tore through her body, muscles seizing involuntarily. This was not happening. She concentrated, trying to unfeel the pain, to bend the dream world to her whim again, and found it impossible. She flopped to the ground, sensing De'Ville approaching her, her footsteps ringing loudly in her ears. Then the snap hiss of a lightsaber igniting, a purple glow appearing by her face.

She struggled to rise, and found a boot in her chest, pinning her in place. "No..." A'na whispered hoarsely. "You may punish me but he is still there. He promised you unlimited power and then did all he could to stop you from attaining it. He has strung you along and you followed his orders like a puppy. You fool! And now he has killed you. You deserve to die for all the missteps and mistakes you've taken, squandering my teachings -"

[Lilaena De'Ville]

"You taught me nothing but fear and hatred," she said quietly, the tip of her saber wavering by A'na's nose. "You taught me how to follow. How to be a pawn. Yet you are surprised that I fell under the sway of another?"

A'na opened her mouth to speak, but Lilaena thought and the woman's mouth snapped closed again. "I will not be the fool any longer. I take back my life. If it is my destiny to die here it is my destiny." She pulled back her saber, her green eyes boring into A'na's. "I am done with you."

The lightsaber swung almost lazily through the air, and the darksider's head rolled free of her body. Lilaena stumbled as her surroundings quaked, the bulkheads exploding into white mist. Her body convulsed and she dissolved into nothingness.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Broken arm and collar bone. Cracked ribs. Fractured eye socket. Countless cuts and scrapes from her fall off the cliff.

Lilaena drew in a shuddering breath, the pain immeasurable. Sunlight warmed her swollen face and her eyes fluttered open, the blue sky blinding. Her eyes leaked tears as they fought to focus, but she found herself smiling, bloody teeth in a ruined mouth. She was alone.

The dark Jedi struggled to her feet, using a large chunk of masonry that had barely missed landing on her for support, the Force dampening the pain so she could function. Her arm dangled uselessly, and she tore her shirt to fashion a sling, her smile getting larger. Lilaena stumbled away from the cliff and the Fountain Palace, laughter bubbling up inside her.

She was free.