Four Spots in Time

(Three times Nihilus didn't change)

(And one time he did)

Jedi

His time as a Jedi was spent either training hard or being reprimanded. He didn't mind the reprimands, it only made doing it again more thrilling and exciting. He had no particular interest in Revan and Malak, their looks, fame or skill, it didn't interest him. While the girls swooned and the guys fumed, he watched dispassionately from the sidelines, unnoticed and wanting to stay that way.

Perhaps it was that initial disposition towards disinterest and his overall lack of passion and flare that would affect his later overall personality as a General and then his name Darth Nihilus. Or maybe it was the death of all he cared for, not that he cared for much in the first place that strongly. The pain still hurt, and the pain still killed him even after he died.

General

Others viewed him as cold and calculating, spending lives to win the day and feeling no remorse afterward. He would have preferred rational and detatched, it was better than being to sentimental and weak to make the hard decisions that needed to be made. Thousands died, dozens of ships were lost in every battle he fought but in exchange planets were saved and billions survived as a result. He wasn't cruel, he was simply willing to allow his men's death in the name of victory. Revan and Malak were their leader, his leader or so they believed, atleast over everyone else. He tended to stray away from orders, in favor of more pragmatic options. He may have been hated by both Republic and Jedi troopers alike, but that didn't stop him from becoming an Admiral in only four mouths into the war.

Then his parents, his entire family died on their home planet in the mid rim. The blow killed him, made him into a husk, turned him into a dead man living.

His fleet earned the name Death Row, not because of his enemy's own losses but his own. every new trooper that was drafted to his fleet never lasted more than two months before they were replaced again. He couldn't count the amount of times he had avoided a demotion because of disobeying orders because of him earning the Republic a key or really any kind of victory pyrric or not. He was unstoppable, the plague of the Outer Rim and the Mid rim. Every battle he fought, he won whether through tactics, cunning, or adaptibility. By the end of the war, he had seventeen battles under his belt and no losses.

He would have been a Hero at the end of the war, instead his ship was dragged to the surface of Malachor V by the Mass Shadow Generator and he was left for dead. The blow of Revan's betrayal didn't hurt him like it should have, instead it only felt like a small prick in his heart, overwhelmingly miniscule. Instead he was possessed with a feeling of nihilstic loathing. He wasn't a sith Lord yet, but in every other way Darth Nihilus had already been born.

Sith Lord

Being a Sith Lord was no different than being his regular self, nihilistic and uncaring. Their names reflected their inner selves. Sion, at his core was in pain, hence the Lord of Pain. Traya at her core, was betrayer who knew what it felt to betrayed and was ready to return it ten fold. And him?

He at his inner soul, was driven by nothing but his hunger and with little to no purpose. His soul was torn asunder, his emotions had been drained out of him so quickly, and his losses had pulled all feelings of companionship and closeness from his husk of a body to the point he had forgotten what it felt like to be close to someone. Passions were weak, emotions were distracting and unnecessary, and all they created was suffering in the end. He would know, he had first hand experience. Now he was but a husk, and a shell contained within robes and a mask that lacked the self control to rein in is rampant hunger. The others feared him reguardless, for reasons typically associated with fear, including his rather. . . featureless appearance.

So, he was Darth Nihilus. Forever silent and above the common man, apathetic to their plight and unwilling to help in any way. In many different ways, he was different from what he had once been.

But if he was so different. . . why did he feel the same from before.

Redemption

Perhaps redemption wasn't the right word to describe his purpose for being where he was.

Or maybe it was, he didn't really understand much about anything anymore. Perhaps rehabilitation was the correct word in this situation, or not.

The afterlife wasn't what he'd expected. What he'd expected was fire and brimstone mixed in with the tortuous screams of the former Dark and Sith Lords. Stereotypical? Yes. But then again perhaps that was an unfair comparison compared to what he was now experiencing. No, instead of all that he was now surrounded by simple pallad grayness, further surrounded by evil doers of all stripe. They spoke, but he found they usually had nothing interesting to say, the usual stuff that was said by vengeful, imprisoned villains:

"The Force itself will pay for this," Marka Ragnos had screeched loudly to no one in particular one day, his demonic eyes narrowed in hatred, "I will not be denied!"

Mostly, he had just nodded and ignored him, overcome with boredom. Perhap this was the force's plan, to redeem them with boredom and unrealized dreams of vengeance. Nihilus understood that this was not meant as torture, but simply a way to wait them out. To make their animosity bleed out of them over the years for as long as was required. Whether it worked was rather obvious, as every sith lord he'd ever heard of was still trapped in there.

Honestly, the idea itself was a very bad one, but he saw the point of it and why he was determined to change. He had no interest in staying here, and thus he needed to change everything that him the miserable husk of a man. His attitude, his mannerisms, and his overall lack of caring for. . . anything.

Which meant the Nihilus in 'Darth Nihilus' had to disappear no matter what if he wanted any hope of leaving to see his family again or his friends (Not that he had many to begin with).He would mediate fo as long as it took until he reached enlightenment, after all, he had all the time in the galaxy to figure it out.