Master Windu's Legacy

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Mace Windu paced the windowless dojo of the Citadel, a look of unwavering focus on his face. His guard was open, purple-bladed lightsaber swept to the side, as if to invite an attack at his center. But the Jedi was clever. He stood just beyond the reach of Vissica's large blade, as if daring her to push toward what appeared to be an easy kill. Wary, the Selonian drew back two paces, winding her body up as her greatsaber again hefted into a high guard.

"You're wondering if I'm taunting you?" the Jedi asked. "If I was, would that alter your view of what I am?"

The Selonian's only response was an annoyed growl. She inverted the grip on her weapon, taking a third step back as she lowered the blade back to drag along the ground. The Jedi sprang into action, opting for a quick strike with a fleeting opening at Vissica's neck. The Selonian denied him with force, slapping the Jedi's feint away with authority. Windu wasn't denied an ounce of initiative, using the Selonian's own aggressive motion against her to pivot back into a strike in the opposite direction, forcing the Imperial Knight to quickly drop to her belly to avoid decapitation. Vissica rolled to her back in time to intercept the anticipated killing blow, locking the Jedi Master out of his strike for just long enough. Her tail did the rest of the work, clubbing Windu's ankles out from under him to send the Jedi sprawling.

Vissica sprang up to two feet with liquid grace in time to find the Jedi Master finishing his own rightward flip.

Windu hadn't broken a sweat. He looked as calm as he did at the beginning of the fight.

"Vaapad isn't a shield against aggression, it's a redirection. Your aggression. Mine. Dark intent tamed by the light."

"I am uninterested in your lectures, I only want a demonstration!"

With a great heave, Vissica brought her blade around for an overhead cleave. The Jedi read her perfectly, sidestepping well in advance. Too far in advance. Vissica drew her arms in prematurely mid-swing, letting the momentum of the blade do her work as she clapped her guiding hand over the pommel, leveraging it horizontally to thrust.

Master Windu gasped, his eyes wide. He dropped his lightsaber to the ground, the blade extinguishing before the hilt could clatter on the floor. Vissica took a stride forward, pushing the blade through Windu's chest fully, before she leaned back to plant a foot into his belly, kicking his body off the length of the greatsaber's killing edge.

The Jedi Master fell to the floor, dying with his eyes open.


Or so it would seem, before the hologram disappeared with an electronic flicker, leaving behind a custom-built holodroid with a molten puncture clean through it's middle.

"Well done, Lady Vissica! That is your seventeenth straight victory against the Windu program. And in record time!"

Feeling no fulfillment, Vissica deactivated her greatsaber, clasping it back into her back-mounted scabbard. She turned her back to the PROXY unit.

"Oh dear, you seem to have destroyed my ambulatory drive mechanism this time."

The Selonian padded to the edge of the dojo, retrieving a carton of Imperial-issue nutritive from a shelf. She tore the lid off with her teeth, quaffing the beverage with disinterested haste.

"They say any fight you can walk away from is a good fight. Wish I could say that right now."

The empty nutritive carton crushed in Vissica's hand.

"Cease your prattling!" She threw the rubbish at the droid's head. "I do not come here for your commentary!"

The PROXY unit seemed unphased by the abuse from where it lay.

"Begging your pardon, mum, why do you come here? Clearly you do well in simulation."

Vissica tugged at the tuft of fur at her chin, unseen by the droid with her back turned.

"I am looking for an answer, but perhaps I am not even certain of the question itself."

[Anastasia Xivelle]

The applause came slow, languished and echoed through the mostly empty chamber. It's origins were the doorway to the windowless room and it's provider a simple human woman who leaned against it's edging as if watching the most mundane thing in the world rather than the Empire's prize Selonian Knight rebuke a PROXY unit for speaking too much. The Doctor had seen enough before that as well, though her expression had remained just as difficult to read, treading somewhere between bored and marginally impressed.

The Citadel was an alien place to one the likes of Doctor Xivelle, but given it was to be her new home she decided that getting to know it and it's denizens would be prudent, especially if she might end up treating them. She had never been a slow starter and the opportunity to observe the Selonian she had only heard rumors of seemed a decent place for Anastasia to begin.

The clapping slowed as she felt more than saw the Knight's attention turning on her.

"I've been told that's a rather difficult simulation. Though, if that droid is correct then truly repetition must marginalize the results by some measure. There's only so much PROXY can do versus the actual, isn't there?" The clinical voice carried the same weight as the applause and it was only after she had spoken that the Doctor saw fit to remove herself from the casual position she had been in to one more alert as her hands clasped behind her back. "Not that that's an invitation. I'm afraid I would prove a poor match to one with your... skills."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"It is not a competition."

Vissica's wiry frame twisted until the Doctor was in her field of vision. The Selonian's gimlet eyes narrowed as she drew breath out through her nose.

"Without the force as a weapon, one does not enter a lightsaber duel. It is only a protracted execution."

She saw no reason to unburden her thoughts to this interloper - this unbeliever. The Empire had many such secularist agents swelling it's infinite ranks. They were in some way or another useful to the Empress. But the Force was not a vocation. It did not speak its secrets to those without the means to hear them.

Still, the observer's presence gave Vissica pause. She blinked, her whiskers stiffening.

"Why are you here?"

[Anastasia Xivelle]

"Observation." The word was fired back with an almost robotic quality.

Ana's features softened, though only barely as her hands slipped from behind her to delve into the pockets of the pristine white coat that did enough of an introduction she didn't seem that part necessary to clarify.

"I've come to see what the Empress has done with her more unique assets while I have been away on other assignments. You Knights were unexpected given the supreme prejudges in which the Jedi and their like were dealt with. Not entirely, mind you. Only a fool does not make full use of what they have and the Empress is no fool."

Her attention moved away from the Selonian as the Doctor glanced to the room beyond and then let her gaze refocus on some of the architecture just outside.

"A far cry from the whole cloak and dagger rigmarole from just a few years ago." Xivelle's eyes darted back towards the Knight. "I must admit, I never believed I would see the day that the Empire would be so bold with your kind. I must say, it's rather refreshing."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"The truth is ill served when concealed in shadow." Vissica replied, herself thoughtful on the woman's musings. They weren't offered in a vacuum. Indeed what the interloper said revealed some insight into her own history of Imperial service. The Selonian squared her stance, looking down at Anastasia.

"The Inquisitors served their purpose. They hunted and killed forceful apostates at a time when their very existence threatened Imperial order. Now, order is maintained by the Knighthood. A visible symbol and a practical instrument at once."

[Anastasia Xivelle]

What an interesting notion, to not work with secrets, to not find the shadows and the lies more comforting than the blinding light of truth. The Selonian Knight was mistaken, however. Sometimes the truth was necessary to conceal; would the general public be at peace with the knowledge of what had taken place at the Black Archives? Would they find comfort in the truths of what was being discovered, researched, and implemented under their very noses? Would some of the Knights understand and view it the betterment of their order for that matter? No, there were truths that thrived unexposed until they came into full fruition.

Perhaps the Knight was correct though, the Inquisitors had served their purpose. Which made for the strange question of to whom did Anastasia claim among her fellows now? Surely not these Knights. Not most of them, at least.

"The truth matters to you, doesn't it? That's a rare trait. Perhaps it's a native flaw in human beings, to see it as such an easy thing to be manipulated or interpreted. It's a shame we don't have more like you, to uncover and know the worth of such things."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

The Selonian considered the Doctor's words, canting her head ever-so-slightly.

"A shame." she agreed. Vissica's wet nose crinkled. Something of the way this woman spoke gave way to a feeling of familiarity and awareness. Was she a part of the old Inquisitorius regime?

"Who are you?"

[Anastasia Xivelle]

"Doctor Xivelle," she offered by way of introduction, though her posture didn't shift. Anastasia was uncertain if Lady Vissica was one of those who would have preferred a handshake or not, though she hardly seemed the type. "I've been assigned as the resident physician here at the Citadel. Apparently someone must tend to the cadets from time to time."

Truth, she reminded herself. While not all could be revealed, there was enough now that could be said. An offering out of a feeling of slight respect for what the Selonian believed, then.

"Though, I can guess you may have discerned that I am - was - part of the Inquisitoriate. Not quite as hands-on as the others, obviously. I was more dedicated to research areas; attempting to discover the best way the Empire could make use of certain gifts that others have."

There it would have to be left. This new peace-time Empire enjoyed it's transparency but there was only so much that could be divulged without making things unnecessarily complicated.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"I do not know you." Vissica appraised evenly, in the sort of way that implied that her ignorance would fast disappear.

"Your research..." The Selonian paced, her whiskers quivering with curiosity "...you sought to enrich a candidate's natural affinity to the Force?"

It was more inference than grounded in fact. Lady Vissica certainly knew enough of the Inquisitorius to know where their priorities lay.

[Anastasia Xivelle]

There was something about the way that Vissica spoke the question that could not help but bring a small smile of satisfaction to the Doctor's lips. It wasn't all that long ago that such talk was almost considered treasonous, that speaking of wishing to have anything to do with The Force and those that could use it had been met with scrutiny and in a case she was all too familiar with - dismissal. Now though? A veil had been lifted and such individuals were no longer considered taboo. She had heard there was a certain level of propaganda to thank for that, but Doctor Xivelle had never put much credit towards it's success. Apparently she'd been wrong.

"Among other things."

It was now that she finally stepped into the room with the Knight, slowly, her hands still stowed away in pockets. The gesture was not threatening, at least she certainly hoped it didn't come off as such.

"But yes, I've been fascinated by how The Force seems to effect those that can wield it in such different ways, how some are barely capable of levitating a single object while others with far less training can cause mass devastation. I have my theories as well as those that may be implemented to correct such discrepancies."

The smile tugged a bit wider at the edges of her mouth. "Only the best for the Empress, after all."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica squared to the Doctor, giving her a nod.

"Only...."

This was an interesting topic of conversation. The Selonian's broad tail slowed its trailing circuit until it lay still on the floor.

"The best." she said, mentally elsewhere for a moment. Her doll eyes fixated at a point of the wall beyond Anastasia, but returned to focus a moment after.

"And your research? Has it met with a certain success?"

[Anastasia Xivelle]

"Some, though not nearly as much as I or the Empire would like," she conceded.

Anastasia considered expanding on that, on how her studies as mixed with other findings; how they had been capable of awakening and enhancing latent Force abilities in those who otherwise would have been oblivious to them, of how they had created perfect hunters against Force Sensitives by splicing genes of certain animals with those of their test subjects. It was not true success, though. The Doctor wouldn't be content until she had unlocked the very secret of granting an individual with no inherent gift the ability to master The Force. Or... perhaps to fully remove the ability from those who already had. The steps leading to that did have their uses, however.

Her hands left her pockets and spread open as her shoulders shrugged of their own accord. "As you might imagine, finding volunteers to further the research has been troublesome. Not everyone is so open minded when it comes to progress."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"If they are not, then they are being foolish."

She was not a student of the sciences, but Vissica certainly paid those who plied that trade their due measure of respect. What she knew of a scientist's methods seemed comfortingly-close to orthodoxy. Test a supposition, refnining it if it passes and discarding it if it does not, all the while comparing to an unmodified control. There was serenity of focus in such a method.

"Our oaths require that we die in the Empress's service, if it serves Her will. If that is a price we are willing to pay, then we must also live in Her service, in a manner that best serves the Empire. It would be folly to give one's self to the greater extreme and shirk the lesser."

[Anastasia Xivelle]

"Oh, I wholeheartedly agree," The Doctor replied with a slight nod of her head. "That's precisely why I'm quite happy to find myself back at the Citadel, especially with such renewed activity."

Footsteps and hushed voices in the hallway outside of the room seemed to highlight her point as a small group of cadets passed. Anastasia cast a glance over her shoulder at them until they were out of her field of vision and she returned her attention back to the Knight before her.

"With the shadows of secrecy peeled back, I'm hoping that those that now dwell here will be more open to assisting the research. And if not... Well, I'm certain that some of the less promising students could still prove useful before they are sequestered to less illustrious futures."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"I am interested to hear what you are proposing." Vissica stated flatly, placing her hands at her sides, just below her ribs.

"What are the details of your research?"