It had been a year since the events at the Sith Academy, and Callista still struggled with the haunting memories. She had been accepted back into the Order following the battle at Illum, yet at what cost? The vivid memories of the battle there and the loss of life wore on her soul.
She had been at the Temple now for a year, and felt trapped. She knew that her punishment was light compared to some, mainly because what Master Karrde had said was quite true. The Order would indeed need her skills and those of the other healers far too soon. This was evidenced by the Council tasking her with teaching several healing classes. These kept her busy, not to mention the personal time she took each evening to practice her saber technique.
Her routine was a hectic one, but one that she settled into with little complaint. She enjoyed teaching very much. Working with Inari and Manna again was a wonderful experience, as she had learned from both of them as a Padawan. The young students reminded her very strongly of herself at that age, and brought back a flood of memories, some happy, others dark.
It was difficult to push the memories away and focus on her lessons. When she finally did reach her quarters that evening, it was to fall into an exhausted sleep. Though she did sleep, it was not restful. Her dreams were filled with the memories of that day back on Corellia when her life had been irrevocably changed.
Skidding around the corner, her heart stopped. He was back, with a vengeance. Just seeing him again was enough to make her guilt rear its ugly head once more. Pushing it aside, she focused on the fight. He turned to look at her, his lip curling with contempt. "We meet again, Jedi..." His momentary distraction cost him. Mark struck his back hard, causing him to stumble. Mephisto caught himself and spun, striking towards Mark's knees. His saber flicked out, deflecting the strike.
Callista pulled both sabers, activating them as she launched herself at him. Focus, Callista, don't let him mess with your mind. He grinned as he saw her leap at him. "Back for more?" he snarled, as they met in the center of the room…
Mephisto arched back until his head practically touched the ground, his clothes singed by the near-contact of the blades. Bringing his blade across his body to ward off an attack, he launched his leg out and caught Callista in the shin. She whipped the leg away, lessening the strength of the blow, then jumped, spinning to catch him in the ribs. She heard one of his ribs crack as she landed in a crouch.
Mephisto hissed from the impact, clutching his side as he held up his saber to continue the attack. As he moved to strike towards her midsection, however, he hesitated, and from behind Callista a second blade hummed to life, spilling more red light into the room. She whirled, facing the new arrival while still keeping Mephisto in sight. So, it begins... she thought, sparing a glance towards Mark. The new arrival moved around them to confront her Master.
"Deal with the target," Mephisto said, nodding towards her master with his head. "I'll finish off this little one." Having brought the pain of his wound under control, Mephisto whipped out his blade towards Callista's throat again……
The other Sith, meanwhile, was having far better luck with his adversary. He drove his fist into Mark's damaged shoulder, before backing up and gesturing for his opponent to attack. Mark's face crumpled as he fought the pain. Clenching his jaw, he raised his saber in front of him, the green glow reflecting from his gray eyes. He charged his opponent, sweeping his blade around to strike at his legs.
Surprised by the vigor of the attack, the Sith didn't have time to fully dodge the strike. A deep cut into his left leg sent him to the ground, in pain but still holding his blade high to continue the attack. Sensing his partner's agony, Mephisto disengaged Callista to attack Mark from behind….
Callista sprang at him, attempting to hold him back. Mephisto spun and grunted again from the pain of the movement, but as he met Callista's attack he hooked his foot around Mark's leg, knocking the old Jedi off balance. The other Sith wasted no time seizing this opportunity, and thrust his blade directly towards Mark's chest.
The speed of Callista's leap worked against her as she leaped at Mephisto. He whipped around, backhanding her across the face with the butt of his saber. She went flying across the room, landing in a heap. Struggling to her feet, she wavered slightly.
Mark whipped his blade around, but he was too slow. The Sith sank his blade into Mark's chest. Callista crumpled again as Mark's agony rippled through their connection. NO! she cried out in her mind. She could feel Mark in her mind. Be careful, Padawan, do not fall into their trap. Be strong for me... His voice faded as she saw him lay still.
Mephisto, breathing hard, smiled in triumph. "This is the end, Callista. All things must die in their own time, and like your Master, your time has come." He seemed to have trouble focusing his eyes on one spot, but still he managed to raise his blades in preparation for a finishing blow…..
In her mind, she backed away from him, and was jolted back to wakefulness as she fell off the bed. Her heart pounding, she rose swiftly and made her way to the nearest training room. 'Perhaps some saber work will help me to center,' she thought. Her bare feet made hardly a sound on the cool stone floor as she moved slowly through a kata.
Something was obviously wrong as she sank deeper into the flow of the Force. It felt darker, almost purposefully clouded. The feeling was all too familiar; it was the sensation that surrounded the Sith. She tried to shake it off, blaming it on the memory of her dream and pushing deeper into the kata.
Yet as she continued, her mind drifted off to visualize Mephisto as the unseen foe she was fighting. When his blade moved in her mind to intersect with hers, she could almost feel the contact on her blade, smell the burning ozone. As this clarity intensified, her gaze turned outward - how could this be? Mephisto was in front of her, his blade parrying and thrusting in tempo with her own.
She stumbled backwards in shock, her face pale. He stood in front of her, his body as whole and unharmed as the day she had healed him. Her blade dropped, so great was her shock. Only her instincts kept his blade from slicing into her shoulder. A startled gasp escaped her as she stared fixedly at the man in front of her. He was dead... "How is this possible?" she whispered.
Mephisto continued to move through his side of the kata as he replied. "Death is no deterrent to one who has the Force on his side, least of all a Sith. You know the power available to you through it - if you cease to limit yourself." She bit her lip, remembering her time at the Sith Academy, and the subsequent death mark on her head. "I know of what you speak, and it only leads to ruin..." She struck hard at him, her violet blades flashing in the dim light.
He laughed; a harsh sound that seemed to fill the room. "Ruin? The only ruin this power brings is the ruining of your former self; your weaker self. Embracing the Force as you WILL it to be, rather than letting its will dominate you, your desires are made manifest. Anything could be yours."
She paused for a moment, his words touching a nerve. The memory of the first time she saw him rose in her mind, and she shuddered involuntarily. "I won't be controlled by anyone or anything…"
"And I would expect not! Why, then, do you cloister yourself in this Jedi Order? The Sith embrace freedom! Your only master will be yourself!" She looked him square in the face. "Why do you have so much interest in me?"
"Are you so sure it's me that has the interest in you? Or is it the other way around? I see the darkness that still lurks in your heart, yearning to explore those deep and hidden secrets of the Force that are so often shunned. Why deny it?" That really threw her off. "What would you have me do, then? Leave everything I know?" She stared at him.
"Rubbish! I would have you expand what you know! Move beyond the limits that you and the Order have constructed for yourself! Feed that spark within yourself and let the Force show you what you are truly capable of." She lowered her blades slightly, considering that for a moment. Her head came back up, and she looked into his eyes with a strange intensity. "I am willing...Master." She choked slightly on the last word, but it felt strangely appropriate.
"Yes, of course you are. Feel it within you. Don't hold back on me! What are you afraid of, killing a ghost? Step into the penumbra of the Force with me." With this Mephisto raged forward with a vicious volley of attacks.
She raised her blades once more, sidestepping his strike and whipped her blade out so fast, that it crashed against his, riding it to the hilt. She could actually feel the heat of his crimson blade... Mephisto's eyes narrowed in apparent glee as he continued his onslaught. "Yes, that's it. Fight me. Hate me. Use your emotion, it's a valuable tool. The first of many you will tap into."
She brought her blades down from a high guard, her left foot whipped out, swiping him off balance. The Force swirled around her, and a momentary thought towards the council flitted across her consciousness, but she pushed it aside. The anger and pain surrounding the death of her Master came boiling to the surface, and she did not hold back.
"Yes...Your pathetic Master. Struck down like some lazy Padawan. I enjoyed witnessing HIS death. Not worthy to use the Force, in my opinion. Let it flow. Let it consume you." Mephisto flicked his blade around in the air, beckoning her to engage him again. She leaped at him, her attack fuelled by her anger. The violet blades whirled around, the left one coming perilously close to Mephisto's face.
"Strike me down. Strike down this feeble shell the Force has manifested and accept your birthright as master over it." Mephisto smiled and met her attack with equal zeal.
She was sweating, her breath ragged in her lungs from the ferocity of the fight. She felt a shift, and it was as if a veil had lifted from her sight. The Force pulsed around her like a living thing.
His movements were swift, but they were in sharp focus, as if he were moving in slow motion. She sensed his intent before he moved, and ducking around his blade, swept her own down towards his wrist.
The blade sliced cleanly through tissue and bone, cleanly severing his hand and cauterizing the wound all at once. He gave a surprised, low cry even as he brought his other hand around and, shifting the currents of the Force, returned his blade to his hand. "The next step would be to keep your emotions from overcoming you. Pain in particular..." Though hindered by the loss of his hand, Mephisto continued to twirl his blade in attack.
"Please, allow me to see you demonstrate." With that and a slight re-angling of his blade, Mephisto slipped through her guard and grazed her left shoulder, then twirled away with a menacing smile and a beckon with the stub of his wrist.
She grunted as the pain spread through her shoulder, and slammed up her pain block. Straightening, she raised her blade again. Her left arm was stiff from the damaged nerves, but still manageable. Light on her feet, she lunged at him. Twisting his body off to the side, Mephisto narrowly dodged the attack and countered with a kick towards her midsection. "Push harder! You have more in you than this!"
She leaped backwards and came in at him again, the blade in her left hand a tad slower than the other as she swiped at his ankles with it. The other blade whipped around, raking across his stomach. Again Mephisto grunted, but remained standing. His face curled into a grimace as he dove for her again.
She flipped away from him, landing a few feet away, her blades held ready. It was then that she noticed the tang of ozone. His blade had sliced clean through her long braid, and it now lay on the floor between them. Her blonde hair fell loose to her shoulders.
"You'll really have to work harder at this, my dear little apprentice. What if it was your neck I severed? MEAN every attack! Strive for the killing blow!" He threw his body at her, blade aimed to intercept hers' as his body knocked hers off balance.
She backed up stumbling, and landed hard on her back. She whipped her legs around, throwing him off balance. Her blade scythed upwards, and she followed it up, driving towards his neck. The scarlet tongue of flame arced up to defend Mephisto's neck a second to late. Her own blade slid along the back of his neck, and he flopped to the ground, his spine evidently damaged.
"Yes, this is the goal. You now have total domination over me. Strike me down, take your prize, and take what you want! Let the Darkness of the force, the totality of the Force, flow through you and you will be free of the Council, free of the Order, free of any confining obligation to serve a weak-minded galaxy of whining fools." She hesitated for a moment, her blade steady against his throat. The violet blade hummed loudly in the sudden stillness.
"Ha. You can feel it, can't you? The need to take my life and claim what you want? For what I've done? For what I am? A single strike and your domination is made manifest. The Force will bow to your will and teach you as you command it to! All you have to do is let go of the Jedi net that entangles you." Her mind was in turmoil. She closed on him, her blade trailing across his collarbone. The thought of killing him...again, was anathema to her.
"Oh, come now! A hair's breadth away from limitless power and you hesitate? What are you waiting for? What are you afraid of? Freedom, freedom from the Jedi and your old life and everything that has ever hung around your neck and weighed you down is yours, if you just reach out and do as you wish." She wondered privately if he would return to haunt her again...and then she squared her shoulders.
"Decide, it's all I ask. Make up your own mind."
"I don't want to kill you... not like this..." She paused for a moment. "How is it that I can see you, but others cannot?"
"My interest is not in them. This shell you see, it exists more so in your own mind than in reality. Some bumps and bruises had to be projected into reality, of course, but the overall effect has been almost entirely hallucinogenic. A trial within your own mind, if you will. A test of your readiness." The wounds certainly felt real... She continued to stare at him. "And am I?"
"That remains to be seen. Ask yourself that question. Are you ready to give that fire within you true life?"
Callista paused for a moment, her blades in ready as she pondered that. She had worked hard to reach the place where she was now, at the cost of much of her own youth. He gazed at her as she stood there, seeing the battle raging in her mind, and in the Force. Grinned darkly, he reached out with the Force and yanked a memory to the fore, forcing her to watch it over and over.
She convulsed at the violence of it, falling to her knees as agony and pain rolled off her. She looked down, and instead of seeing the floor of the training room, she was staring at the blood-covered floor of her Master's house. She could hear fighting in the background, and looked down to see her own torn and blood-spattered robes. It was happening all over again, and there was not a single thing she could do to prevent it.
Her master fell heavily to the floor, the blood-red saber protruding from his blackened chest. Her mind screamed, and she felt herself rising to her feet as anger rolled off her, making the Force boil. She stormed towards her attacker, her strides carrying her swiftly towards him. It was then that she stumbled over some unseen obstacle and looked down, the vision dissolving as she did so.
Mephisto lay at her feet, holding the blackened stump of his wrist and gazing up at her in triumph. "Yes..." he hissed. "Use you anger, revel in its power!" She stood over him, gasping for breath against the strength of her roiling emotions. A new memory rose then, unbidden before her eyes. It was of her, surrounded by family...yet she had never had one...as far as she was concerned. The only family she had ever known was the Order. Some family they are, she sneered as the memory played out.
Her family, if they could even be called that were seen berating her as a young child, and always trying to hinder her from bettering herself. They called the Jedi evil, and made her go to church for her 'sins'. Yet the only sins she had ever committed were those of letting them run her life...It shifted again, to her early years with her Master. She stumbled backwards in shock.
He lied, He LIED to me. "All those early memories were a lie?! Do you mean to tell me he 'rescued' me, and then changed my memories? Well, he got me out of one situation, and into one that was hardly any better..." Her anger rose again and she rounded on Mephisto, as he lay grinning triumphantly at her feet. "You knew...you knew and you made me think it was all MY fault!
His grin changed, from triumphant to malicious. "Of course I knew, if you think otherwise, then you are sorely deluded. Let me direct your attention back to the time we first met..."