I will remake you. So when I look upon you it shall be like a mirror. Then I shall let you die.
The fool's spine is cracked; not enough to kill him but he is starting to lose consciousness. No matter. This one is adamant. He will survive as long as he can, without hope or purpose.
That is admirable. With the Force Lord Sion lashes out, ripping open the fool's skin in great gashes. Fresh blood slides over sweat onto his face. He is laughing. Delerium. Or perhaps the pain is making him stronger.
He drops the captive to the floor. Their lightsaber fight was pathetic, barely an exercise for the Dark Lord. But perhaps he can be used to hurt the Exile. And the Exile can be used to hurt Traya. Spinning around, Sion cuts an inch into the fool's chest with the tip of his saber. The scream is good.
The Force sustains Sion's body. By rights now it should be dead. His grip on life requires an effort, but he barely notices it now. It has become second nature. Enduring agony has become like breathing to him. Mastery of the dark side is like a language.
The Exile's presence is disturbing. The tranquillity of it enrages him, gains him strength. But presence is the wrong word to describe it. She is like a blissful silence, flowing gently toward him and his master. It is extraordinary. It should not exist.
They are different but alike.
He shall protect one from the other. He no longer knows which.
Darth Traya is returned, despite her being cast out from this place, despite the Force being ripped from her grasp, despite the loss of her hand. And she has taken command of Sion's academy, his minions. And once again, his mind.
She was a far greater teacher than he has been. He prefers to use the weaker ones as assassins and servants. Now perhaps she will make them more powerful. It is a good thing.
He has been ordered to wait here. Lord Nihilus is dead now, so the remaining master and student have come together. It is better this way. It was Revan's way. One to embody power, he had said, and the other to crave it.
Traya is power. A blind exile who defeated the Lord of Pain with words alone. A pathetic Jedi historian who birthed the darkness within Revan. A disfigured old woman whose dark side controls armies and men.
She is watching him now, he knows. Peering into his thoughts. Inside his head, eroding whatever thoughts she chooses. He is powerless. He wonders what she is thinking.
Just as Revan was, Sion is her chosen apprentice. He thought he had outgrown her, defeated her. Now that Nihilus is no more, he has been proven wrong. He has tried to overthrow her, and brought her only disapointment. Perhaps now she is in his mind, she knows that he can never defeat her.
The Exile comes to her.
Perhaps the Exile shall bring Traya's death. There is a power he cannot comprehend within her emptiness.
Or perhaps Sion will destroy them both.
There is a twitch, not of his doing, at the back of the Dark Lord's thoughts. He does not understand what it means. He does not know what Kreia would have him do. Why is she here? Why pit the two apprentices against one another?
He has never understood. He does not see as his master does.
And perhaps he can never even hurt her. Kreia sees without eyes, wields blades with one hand. If Sion ever truly injures her, her revenge will be glorious.
Perhaps... the Exile is that revenge.
She has regained the Force. She embodies power.
The dark side flows and eddies inside him, pools in the painful gaps of his greyed skin. It animates his muscles and powers his resolve. Without thinking, he cuts fresh gashes into the fool on the floor, snapping and bending him so that perhaps he will understand. Breaking the skin.
He has little time for this. He must prepare himself for her.