A/N: Sorry for missing my last usual update; I had to focus on final exams for my classes then. As always, I thank guest reviewer Mogor for leaving behind feedback for the last chapter; it's much appreciated!
Chapter 25: Khaalida
Ezra walked up to a glowering Victoria, who scowled from her place at the Ghost table. The rebels were finally on their way to the planet of the Dark Magicians, Khaalida. They'd be exiting hyperspace in a bit, though. But Ezra wanted to get a few things out of the way first. "You know, you didn't have to come with us," the young Jedi began as Victoria gave him a withering glance, before returning her gaze back to the table. "If it really bothers you this much, you could have just stayed on Atollon. We're going to be fine."
"No, you wouldn't be," Victoria said coldly, her dark green eyes narrowing at the table. "Because you'd be dead before you even got on the planet if I weren't here. So, no, I did have to come to make sure you...rebels...didn't go and get yourselves killed right off the bat. I'm not going to let him kill anyone else if I can help it, even if I doubt any of you have any chance at all against them."
"Uhhh...right," Ezra said awkwardly as silence threatened to descend on the two Humans. But he still needed to talk to her. He'd been trying to talk to her ever since he'd found out she was actually Rex's daughter, but...she kept brushing it off. But now...he had a chance, and he wasn't going to let it pass by. "You know...you should really talk to Rex. He...he really wants to get to know you."
"He knows enough." Victoria said shortly in a tight voice, not moving her gaze up from the table. "And he doesn't get to know any more."
"Why not?" Ezra said incredulously. "He's your father!"
"And that's supposed to make him entitled to my life?" Victoria said angrily as she jerked her head up to Ezra's blue eyes. "Please, don't make me scoff. Just because he's technically my family in blood doesn't mean he actually is. He has no right to anything in my life, least of all, me!"
"But...but he's still your family!" Ezra sputtered, trying to think of how he could get Victoria to see that. "Don't you see? You have another chance to have a family again...and you're just wasting it!"
"Not...my problem," Victoria said icily, raising her eyebrow at the other Human with a challenge in her stare. "He stopped being my family the day he chose his brothers over Rebecca, and that's his own fault. He's not about to get another chance unless I deem it so, and I certainly don't see that happening anytime soon! So drop it!"
"I...I can't," Ezra said desperately, shaking his head as Victoria gave him a warning look. "I can't just stand by and watch you refuse to have a family again! I can't just stand by and do nothing about that, especially when I see how much it hurts Rex! Don't you know how many times I've wished I could see my family again? So how can you throw away a chance like this, to be happy again?"
After a few minutes of silence, Victoria sighed, her gaze softening slightly as she spoke. "I suppose that it is unfair of me to take my frustration and anger out on you, especially when...you just don't understand. I...apologize...for that, but, like I just said, you don't understand, Ezra. Because you only remember your family as perfect, you expect all families to be like that. Unfortunately, they're not. Not when the family has always been broken from the start. My mother, Rebecca Storm...she could never get over Rex after she met him, even when she had been engaged to someone else. And when I came along...she could never forget him, even if she wanted to. I suppose it's no wonder that she began to bury herself in her work for...as long as I can remember, even before she formed a rebel cell. I just served as a bitter reminder of someone...she didn't think she could have. Now, I'm not a complete idiot," Victoria said as she held her hand up to keep Ezra from interrupting. "I'm not so deluded that I'm blind to the fact that Rebecca probably did what she thought was best, considering the circumstances, and I do realize that she loved me, in her own way. It just...wasn't enough." Victoria sighed as Ezra spied vulnerability flashing through her green eyes. "I wasn't enough."
Ezra dropped his gaze from Victoria's as he looked down at the floor, sympathy coursing through him at the girl's words. "I'm sorry to hear that," he began, raising his eyes back to Victoria, "but...I don't see what that has to do with Rex. He's not Rebecca."
"Maybe not exactly, but there's a reason they were attracted to one another in the first place," Victoria said matter-of-factly, a deadened look coming into her eyes. "They are two very similar people. If Rebecca could only see Rex when she saw me, then it can be reasoned that he will only see me in the same way. He'll only see me as Rebecca, not me. And I won't have a relationship like that start up under false pretenses. Not again. That will only end in more broken hearts."
"You don't know if Rex sees you like that, though," Ezra pointed out reasonably. "You've barely spoken to him since he found out, and even if he is like that, I'm sure you can talk to him about how you feel, and straighten everything out."
"But it isn't just that, Ezra," Victoria said, flipping her dark ponytail over her shoulder. "Even if I wanted that, it's too late for me. It's been too late for five years. In that time, I've learned many things, and become a terrible thing. One thing I realized is that one should never let themselves get so attached to people, because, not only will they not be around forever...but family is a weakness that is easily exploitable, and it's not worth it."
"That's not—" Ezra began to argue, but Victoria interrupted him, raising her eyebrow skeptically.
"Not what? Not true? Please, Ezra, you can't possibly be this naive about something so obviously close to your heart. I mean, think about it. If the ones you love are what drive you, your enemies can easily predict your moves by threatening them. And sure enough, when that happens, you come running to save your family every. Single. Time. Then you fall into the trap, and one day, there won't be a way out for you. And your enemies will win." Ezra still opened his mouth to argue, but Victoria spoke over him, standing up from the table. "You still don't think that's true? Well, then, how about this? Since you've joined your little rebellion, how many times have you almost let your enemies win because you were focused on your friends? How many of your friends have been in danger, and you've always tried rushing in to save them? How many times have you put yourself at risk because of that fact alone?"
Ezra wanted to say that his friends didn't make him easily exploitable. He wanted to say that he hadn't let his judgment get clouded if his friends were in trouble, and he wanted to tell Victoria how wrong she was. But...he couldn't, because...that would have been a lie. There had been times when he'd put himself at risk because his friends were in danger. Things might have turned out fine in the end, but...he couldn't deny that the Empire had almost gotten them because of that.
At the silence from the other Human, Victoria shook her head as she began to move past Ezra. "That's what I thought, Ezra. But don't feel too bad. It never would have worked with someone as broken as me. Now, seeing as we'll be exiting hyperspace soon, I need to start cloaking the ship with my magic so those magicians don't blow us out of the sky."
Victoria looked out at the city from her place hidden in the shadows of the forest, her dark cloak's hood pulled up over her head so her features would be difficult to discern from a casual glance, her sharp eyes missing nothing, even through the pouring rain. For five years, this planet, this city, had been her life. Her home...and her prison. Beside her, Violet coughed uncomfortably, saying, "So...are we going to do this, or what?"
Victoria gave the other girl a withering glance as she turned her attention to the other rebels that were also cloaked and waiting behind them. Except for the Lasat, of course, as someone as conspicuous as him would draw too much unwanted attention. So, he had to stay behind in the ship with the droid.
Channeling the strong, competent officer she'd once been under the Dark Magicians, Victoria said in a tough voice, "Now, remember this, all of you. Once we leave these woods, you are to follow my lead and only my lead. Don't follow me all at once. Come out of the forest in groups of two only. Numbers of more than two people are an immediate cause for concern among the Dark Magicians. See, you people don't know in the slightest what you're dealing with here, but I do. And I can guarantee that if you don't follow me, you'll all be found out and slaughtered in seconds by the Dark Magicians. Does anyone has anything else to say?" She directed a gaze filled with warning at the rebels, daring them to argue with her.
When they stayed silent, she nodded in satisfaction and...ventured out into the open, tugging her cloak further down over her head as rain poured down from above. She could sense the other rebels following her as she walked down the muddy path, with Violet falling into step just beside her, but she didn't look back at any of them. Instead, she focused on seeming as inconspicuous as any of the other citizens stumbling about, hunching her shoulders and keeping her head down, trying to keep from looking at anybody else.
Though it had been several months since she'd stepped foot back on the planet, Victoria Storm didn't have to look around to know that nothing had changed. Not only could she sense the pain and anguish around her, but she was pretty familiar with this part of the city. She'd patrolled it and hunted down potential saboteurs many times during her time as a lieutenant. The right hand of the Dark Magician King...a time when she had such power over others she'd never had before. It had been exhilarating to know that though she was so young, she had risen through the ranks so quickly, almost like a dream. She'd had everything she'd wanted back then...before it all disappeared.
Anyway, like she said, she knew these streets like the back of her hand, and could tell someone exactly what it all looked like, even if she was on the other side of the galaxy. The small, insignificant buildings the citizens lived and did business in...were utterly pathetic, with their broken roofs, busted windows, and distinct lack of any aspect of cleanliness. And the people...Victoria knew what they looked like, too. Garbed in their dark cloaks, hoping to evade any sort of notice whatsoever from the Dark Magicians, they shuffled along quickly yet meekly, heads bowed to the ground. And of course, let's not forget the seemingly endless string of illnesses the citizens always seemed to be infected with. Always. Whether it was a regular sore throat, cold, stuffy nose, mumps, measles, varicella, broken bones, fibromyalgia, hemoptysis, and the ever inevitable disease of death...these people always seemed to have had all of them at at least one time or another. And yes, the citizens were also quite emaciated and fragile, but the Dark Magicians had taught that the citizens deserved it for being so inferior to them, for daring to be weak. As if the way they were born was any fault of theirs.
Beside her, Victoria could sense a strong anxiety emanating from Violet, and grit her teeth together, wishing she could speak freely to the other girl. As it was, she hissed with annoyance, "Keep it together, Violet. Don't blow this for the rest of us, or you'll live to regret it."
"It just...I know I've seen it before as a shadow spirit, but...it's different, somehow, when you're actually here." Violet whispered quietly back, tugging her own hood further over her head. "Before, I couldn't do anything because I was just a spirit, but now...now I can. And...it's horrible."
Victoria rolled her eyes dismissively. She supposed that it was a rather big shock for someone unaccustomed to impoverished communities, but after five years of living on Khaalida and seeing the same things every day, she'd become utterly desensitized to the horrors that happened. Especially when she'd had her fair share of perpetrating those horrors. "Don't bother getting ahead of yourself, Violet," she said with narrowed eyes. "You're nothing now, remember? Without your magic, you are utterly worthless to stand up to these people, no matter what you think you have to do. So hush up, and let me find what I'm looking for, all right?"
"What...are you looking for, exactly?" Violet said cautiously as she looked back, presumably at the other rebel groups. "I mean, you didn't exactly tell us other than to follow you."
Victoria sighed as they walked into the city center, which was in just as terrible a condition as the rest of the city. Except for the statues commemorating important magicians who had contributed to the cause of the Dark Magicians in unique and 'inspiring' ways. They were spotless, carved from only the finest stones on the planet. They were so well-maintained they didn't even have any cracks, even if they'd been there for hundreds of years. "If you must know, Violet, I'm trying to remember where a contact of mine lives. If you want to know anything about anything, he's your guy. He was quite useful during my time as a Dark Magician, keeping the...peace, you might say."
"More like the fear," Violet quipped back as she watched the cowering citizens around them. "But why would this guy talk to you? I mean...you're not even a Dark Magician anymore. What would keep him from turning you over to Daku?"
"One simple reason." Victoria said simply as she paused for a moment, looking over the buildings in the city center. "He has never so much as seen King Daku, but he has seen me. Met me, learned to fear me...oh, he'll tell us what he knows. He'd do anything to keep his loved ones from becoming...well, let's just say the results wouldn't be pretty. Even if I'm not a Dark Magician anymore, plenty of people can and will still fear me because they know me, unlike Daku. And—watch out, you imbecile!"
Lost in looking at everything around her, though there wasn't much looking at, Violet had unknowingly backed up towards one of the statues, almost bumping into it. Victoria quickly grabbed the other girl's wrist, jerking her away from the tall statue as she hissed angrily, "Focus, Violet! Do you want us to get killed by the Dark Magicians? Those statues are never to be touched, so stay away from them!"
Spying the rebels starting to group together, Victoria glared at them and shook her head vigorously, subtly pointing over to the darkened alleyways between the buildings. Reluctantly, they did so, though she could sense they weren't happy about it. Well, tough. They'd just have to get used to that. They were in her domain now.
Violet Storm smiled a little sheepishly, raising her eyes to look at the statue. "S-sorry, it's just...it's a lot to take in, you know? Especially when this is your first time in...twenty years, at least...seeing this place when you're alive." Looking up at the tall statue, Violet's brow furrowed as she studied the face of the statue, and Victoria internally groaned. Right...this was that statue. "Is that...is that me?"
Slowly, Victoria reluctantly followed the other girl's gaze up to the statue's face, showing the intricately carved face of a young woman with a permanent, angry snarl etched onto her face, clutching a familiar sword in one of her hands. In short...it was Violet Storm during her time as the murderous Pyra. It had been a bit of a surprise to realize that the Dark Magicians had erected a statue dedicated to her...not-dead relative when she'd first gotten to Khaalida, but she'd soon come to understand, if not appreciate and respect, the logic behind it. "Of course it's you, Violet. Did you really think these Dark Magicians would forget the holder of the First Dark Magician's Sword? I thought you'd have at least realized that."
"But...but I was never a Dark Magician!" Violet said desperately in a low, quiet tone. "I...I promised to destroy them all! Why would they ever honor me after that?"
"Because they are very clever, and very ingenious people," Victoria said callously, having heard of the story over and over again in the Dark Magician ranks. "Despite the fact that you technically never joined them, you were still a practitioner of dark magic unlike any other thanks to the power of the very founder of the Dark Magicians. And you broke apart the most dangerous and hated family to any Dark Magician: the ever-infamous Storm family. What Spero started with ripping apart your father, you pretty much finished by murdering your own mother, not to mention forever scarring your sister in a life of unimaginable pain and sorrow in a way that would allow her to be easily manipulated by Daku. How could they not honor what you did? To them, you're a hero. And when they thought you were permanently out of their way, the Dark Magicians were free to use your legacy however it pleased them, so the fear of Pyra would never die."
"That...that's horrible!" Violet said, her voice breaking as she clutched her head for a moment.
Victoria merely looked on with a raised eyebrow before saying coldly, "That's the Dark Magicians for you. Always twisting whatever they can to suit their needs, no matter if it's true or false. That's the reality for you, V."
As Victoria studied the other girl staring at the statue with horrified disgust, she also saw Violet's look slowly transform from anguish...to pure rage. "First, he took my father from me, leaving me with the memory of that last horrible moment of his life," she said carefully, rage coloring each word as she pushed her glasses up her nose. "Then, he goes ahead and manipulates me into becoming as close to one of them as you can get without taking their stupid oath, resulting in me losing my own mother and sister to that...animal!" Violet growled as her scowl grew worse, causing her to strikingly resemble her statue. "He's been chasing us our whole lives, just waiting for the perfect moment to kill us, or control us, and he never stopped until he thought our family would never try to rise up against him again. And we...we thought he would forget us, so we forgot about him. But Daku never forgot."
"...right," Victoria said, studying the buildings again, before spying what she was looking for. "Anyway, I've found the trail to the contact's house. Go into the alley and tell the rebels to follow me. Then we'll get back into our groups of two."
"Groups of two and one, you mean?" Violet said pointedly, raising her eyebrow at the other girl, even as a flash of uncertainty crossed her eyes when Victoria looked at her incredulously. "I didn't say anything earlier, but...we have an odd number of people without Zeb. Everyone has a partner...but Rex. He's all alone back there."
"What concern of that is mine?" Victoria said, barely able to believe that Violet actually thought this was supposed to be important. What was wrong with her? "And don't tell me it's because he's my...my family, because he's not. I refuse to accept him as...that."
"But it's true." Violet said insistently as the other girl scoffed. "You can't...you can't go on ignoring this forever."
"Watch me." Victoria said shortly in a hard tone, her focus shifting to the trail. "Now, go tell the rebels to get back in their groups. I'm sure they've conversed enough in the safe vestiges of the shadows long enough."
"But...Rex...would still be alone—" Violet began again, and Victoria whipped around, sick and tired of the other girl's utterly pointless concerns.
"Then go ahead and be Rex's partner, all right?" she said exasperatedly. "I don't care! It'll give me a break from your idiocy, anyway, so go ahead!"
After a moment of hesitation, Violet nodded and walked briskly into the alley the rebels had trooped into, leaving the other girl alone to her thoughts. Fine, let Violet prefer Rex over Victoria. She didn't care. In fact, she didn't even really know why she allowed herself to put up with them.
They were both wastes of her time.
About an hour or so later, Violet watched with rapt attention as Victoria finally stopped up ahead, turning to beckon to the others to hurry up. "Looks like she's found her contact," Violet said to Rex, trying to start up a conversation. Since she'd decided to partner up with the aged clone, he'd been...pretty quiet. She didn't think he meant to be hostile, so maybe it was because of something else. Something that had nothing else to do with Violet Storm. She hoped that was it. It was...still a bit strange between them. Maybe it always would be, to be honest.
As it was, the captain merely hummed as he stroked his beard, walking to catch up to the other rebels, who were clustered around Victoria. Violet and Rex made it just as Victoria pulled her hood further over her head before knocking firmly on the old, wooden door she'd stopped at. Violet peered around the other rebels, trying to see more clearly as the door opened, and light poured from inside the home. She couldn't see whoever had answered the door, though.
"Whatever it is you want, we can't help you," a man's voice said tiredly as Violet tried to stand on her tiptoes to see. They were in a rather narrow alleyway, after all. "We're struggling enough as it is, and—"
"Oh, you'll let me in, weasel," Victoria said as Violet shifted around enough to see the other girl flip her hood fearlessly off her head and look at the man severely. "After all, we both know you're all too good at helping when the opportunity presents itself. So let us in."
"Uh..." Violet discerned a fearful tremble in the man's voice before he cleared it, saying, "you...you're back! That's...so...great."
"It is, isn't it?" Victoria said, raising her eyebrow dubiously. "Now, let us in before someone sees us, you little rat."
After a moment, Violet guessed the man must have moved out of the way, because Victoria walked through the door, and the other rebels followed, with Violet bringing up the rear. Once she was inside the home, she honestly could say she didn't really know what she'd expected the inside of a...a dump, basically, to look like. Maybe she had fooled herself into thinking that there was no way the citizens on Khaalida would have let the insides of their homes look as bad as they did outside. Well, she had been wrong about that. The inside of the building was twice as bad as it looked outside, with dirt covering absolutely everything, terrible cracks decorating the floor, walls, and ceiling, and a young child was lying on the floor nearby, shivering as he coughed harshly. There was absolutely no furniture in the house.
Violet was brought out of her attempt to study the home as the man, who she guessed had been the one to open the door, coughed uncomfortably before saying, "What...what brings you here, Lieutenant Shadow? It's...been a while." He was just as emaciated as the others the girl had spied outside, with long, dirty red hair, tattered clothes, and dull blue eyes.
"So it has," Victoria said as she crossed her arms, tilting her head at the man. "I suppose...I just came to see how things have been going since I...left. Are the Dark Magicians as ruthless as ever?" At the man's nervous nod, the young magician said, "Good, good. And what about the information about that one place? Out in the forest?" The man silently nodded again, and Violet saw the faintest traces of a smile on Victoria's lips before she spoke once more, this time asking (more like demanding), "Then the coordinates for it. Give them to me, and I'll heal your son of whatever he's got this time."
"Th-thank you!" The man said desperately as he frantically took up a writing utensil and scrawled on a scrap of...paper?...before quickly handing it to Victoria. Taking the note and nodding in satisfaction, Victoria walked over to the shivering boy and kneeled down, her palms hovering above him as her head tilted toward the ceiling. Violet saw a faint golden glow emanate from her fingers, and the boy instantly stopped shivering, lying more comfortably on the floor. Despite herself, Violet smiled for a moment. It was good to see that Victoria was doing at least a little bit of good with her magic. After a few minutes, Victoria dropped her hands and stood up, turning to the rebels.
"All right, let's go—" she started, but was instantly interrupted by a terrible commotion outside. Rushing to the boarded-up window, Violet peered as best she could out the slats to see what was happening. Her breath caught as she saw screaming and crying citizens running past the house, followed seconds later by two black-clad figures riding large beasts, who quickly overtook the runners. Wanting to look away, but finding she couldn't, Violet watched in horror as the Dark Magicians took out their whips (old whips, made of leather instead of modern energy) and cruelly struck the people without even getting off their steeds. The people continued to scream as they were struck again and again, and as the blood flowed from the whips, Violet was struck with a memory of her father...getting torn apart as she cried. It was a fuzzy memory, but she never dared to forget it. The wrath of the Dark Magicians.
"We...we have to help those people! They're being tortured!" Violet desperately said to the rebels, who nodded in agreement. She went to open the door, but was immediately jerked back by Victoria, whose eyes were blazing angrily.
"You forget the purpose of your pointless little mission, Violet." The other girl hissed darkly, her gaze slanting towards the rebels. "You are here to strictly observe and study, not fight. That's not what you're here to do, and you'd never have a chance anyway."
"But...but we have to help them!" Ezra called out stubbornly, and Violet silently agreed, refusing to dwell on the fact that the cries of the citizens had abruptly stopped. She didn't want to think about what that might have meant. "They're innocent."
"And you'd get slaughtered for daring to interfere," Victoria said in a calloused tone. "One of the first rules you learn here on Khaalida: you can't do a thing to help anyone. The sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be for the duration of the time here. Those magicians...they might as well be unstoppable to you, because you're nothing compared to them. Besides, those people are as good as condemned already. So just shut up."
Violet twisted her ring around on her finger as Victoria's words rang through her head, biting her lip, realizing something. She did believe that she was supposed to help take down the Dark Magicians, but...how was she supposed to do that on a planet where they held all the power, made all the decisions? Just how daunting was this whole thing going to be? And what else would she have to give up before it was over?
A/N: Now, for those who are familiar with my update schedule around this time of year, you'll know that I usually take off updating my stories for the rest of December and some of January for Christmas vacation. So...this will be the last chapter of the year, but I'll be working as much as I can to finish up this story when I come back next year. Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
P.S. Leave a review down below of what you thought, since they are always food for a fanfiction writer's soul!