Rast had hoped that he would have time to train before he was tested, but now it seemed, the test had come early and he had failed. Qiron emerges from the dust, his eyes seem to reflect the red glow of his lightsaber. He looks like a venomous serpent, coiling, readying itself to strike.

Qiron slashes at the ground as he approaches sending tiny particles of glowing red glass to be carried off by the wind.

"So weak, Dreyden. So weak. I will tell Seventh Sister that you put up a much better fight than this. If for no other reason than bringing back the head of one so easily bested as a trophy would be more than a little embarrassing."

Qiron raises his blade to deliver the killing blow when suddenly, the blasting wind stops. There isn't even a breeze. There is an eerie, quiet, calm. The dust and sand suspended in the air around them begin to fall to the ground and the thick veil it casted begins to dissipate. Qiron turns to see the twi'lek girl approaching them, walking slowly.

"Before I take your head, maybe I'll make you watch me give the girl her first lesson," Qiron laughs, "What do you think, Dreyden?"

Rast screams, suprising himself with the sincerity of his plea, "Zamila! Get back to the Cat with, Jez! Get out of here!"

Rast was ready to face death but he wanted the two women to go on, to survive. He hasn't cared about anybody like that since that beautiful young mirialan broke his heart.

Rast jumps to his feet, hoping to buy them a few moments to escape but Qiron notices and force pushes him to the ground, "In a minute, Dreyden. Be patient. I am going to play with your girl a little first."

"Have mercy, please," Zamila pleads, in her hands she holds a small pyramid shaped object.

"Where in the hell did you find a Sith Holocron," Qiron snaps, "No. Don't tell me. It will be so much more delightful to make you talk. They all talk eventually. Isn't that right, Dreyden?"

"Get out of here! Go," Rast pleads, knowing full well the methods of information extraction Qiron refers to, having suffered them himself.

"Please, sir. Have mercy on us," Zamila cries placing the holocron on the ground in front of her.

Qiron steps towards her, his lightsaber humming as he swings it back and forth through the calm, still air. Zamila drops to her knees and lowers her head.

"Mercy is weakness, little girl," Qiron sneers, "that will be my first lesson to you."

Qiron inexplicably stops several meters before the girl. He seems frozen, like an insect trapped in amber.

"I wrote that lesson," Zamila says in a voice not her own, smoky and sinister, "and it is going to be your last."

Qiron's lightsaber powers off and is torn from his grasp. The weapon floats in the air and spontaneously disassembles into its constituent parts. The components all fall into the sand except the small red kyber crystal. The crystal begins to emit a bright red light that turns pink and finally white. The now clear crystal flies into Zamila's open palm and she places it in the pocket of her old flight jacket.

The twi'lek girl stands and paces in front of the helpless man. Even her walk is not her own. He had heard of possession before, but thought it was only stories.

"You like to drag defenseless women out into the cold to freeze," The Voice asks through Zamila.

"I… I… I saved her! She was dying! We got a distress call from some droid. They dispatched me and I saved her life," Qiron declares.

The possessed twi'lek stops her pacing and leans in to face Qiron. The smile on her face was similar to one a person would have when talking down to a small child.

"I see. I see," The Voice replies, "Maybe you are only lacking the proper context."

"I will tell them I missed you. That I didn't find you in time," Qiron pleads, seeming to understand a measure of the power he now faced.

Zamila raises her hands and Qiron is hoisted high into the air. Rast is frozen in disbelief. He doesn't know what to make of what was happening. He had no idea how Zamila had found a holocron, let alone actually use it, but it was obviously behind what was happening. The wind begins to blow as it was before and they are pelted with sand and dust.

"I'm going to see if I can provide you with the proper context," The Voice says bemusedly.

Zamila's hand swipes as if she were trying to shoo a small insect. Qiron's clothes are torn from his body as if they were made of paper leaving the man naked in the blasting cold. The helpless man shakes violently like a leaf on a tree and cries out. Zamila stares up at the man and bites her lip.

"P… P… Ppplease," Qiron tries to speak.

"I can't hear you, Qiron Naz" Zamila cups a hand over her ear cone, "You're going to have to speak up!"

"Ppplease! Mercy!"

"What was that?!"

Qiron screams over the howling wind, "Mercy! Have mmm...ercy on... on... meee! Please!"

"I thought mercy was weakness," The Voice replies, "Do I look weak to you?"

"Nnnn… Nooo!"

"Hmmm," The Voice moans with satisfaction, "It's been so long since I've been able to play."

Qiron continues to yell out as his extremeties visibly begin to freeze. Zamila strokes a lek and her closed eyes flutter.

"You see," The Voice says, "It is like the sweetest music. The finest meal. It sustains me. It makes me strong."

Zamila pinches the air and swipes her hand as if to pull aside a tiny curtain. There a disgusting tearing sound, like the quick peel of spacer's tape from a vinyl seat. Qiron's skin is torn from his body as effortlessly as a blanket is pulled from a bed and is carried off in the maelstrom.

The man shrieks in agony. It is unlike anything Rast had ever heard before, and he hoped to never hear again. It is guttural, animalistic. He is nauseated by the scene and has to look away, but the image of the screaming flayed man would be burned into his mind forever. He looks at Zamila and the look on her face is one of pleasure. It is almost sexual.

"You see, little Zamila," The Voice says over the screams, "Plenty of predators will toy with their prey. Qiron here forgot one of nature's most fundamental laws. There is always a bigger predator."

Rast's hate and animosity for his foe had all but vanished. All he had for Qiron now is pity. He was so afraid of whatever entity had power over the twi'lek, but he couldn't handle it anymore.

"Zamila," Rast yells out over the wind and screams, "End this!"

"Zamila is not in at the moment," The Voice says coldly.

Rast stands there facing her, fearful, unable to move. He had no idea what she would next. Moments pass. The screams slow and eventually stop as shock finally and mercifully sets in.

"This isn't fun anymore," the voice says with disappointment. Zamila sticks out her bottom lip like a pouting child. She makes one final motion, like threading a needle, and Qiron's entire skeleton is pulled from his body, while the rest of him drops to the ground in a soggy twitching heap of flesh and viscera.

Zamila collapses to the ground as well. Forgeting his own fear, Rast runs over to her, not exactly sure what to do. He considers leaving her on the desolate rock, but decides to take her and to leave the holocron in the sand.

Jedi and Sith holocrons were ancient repositories of knowledge. Leaving one behind now, especially considering how unprepared for a fight he really was, was not an easy decision to make. Whatever entity that possessed the young twi'lek came from that thing, and it wasn't something he wanted to take off this world.

He didn't want anyone else to recover it either, but even touching it was not something he was willing to do. The sand would cover it soon anyway. Rast lifts the unconscious girl and tosses her over his shoulder.

As Rast walks towards the Black Cat he spies his new lightsaber sticking halfway out of the sand and he concentrates and pulls it into his open hand. Was it worth it? He asks himself.

Rast finds Jez lying face down in the sand near the ramp of the Black Cat. He sets Zamila down and rushes over to her. She is still alive but her pulse is weak and thready. He hoist her onto his shoulders and carries her aboard the ship and into a bed before heading back out to do the same for Zamila. He had hoped to enlist the assistance of the LOM droid, but the black parts scattered about the main living area tells him everything he needed to know about that prospect.

Rast fires up the ion drives and engages the repulsor lifts. In moments he has the vessel streaking into the upper atmosphere and then into the black vacuum of space. Both of his friends were in dire need of medical attention and there was only one spot in the whole of the galaxy that he knew of to bring them to that would not land them into Imperial custody. Strange to even think the word friend.

Rast plugs the coordinates into the nav computer, grateful that a Star Destroyer wasn't lying in wait to thwart their escape, and launches the Black Cat into hyperspace. Rast only hopes that the old hospital ship, once the property of the Galactic Republic, was still in operation where it had been before his little nap in carbonite; in orbit around an uninhabited world in Hutt Space.

Alone and uncertain in the cockpit, Rast begins to weep. It was all too much. Had his desire for vengeance killed two innocents, both of whom helped him when he was in need? Was his desire for the power to settle a score with a woman he once loved a worthwhile goal, or was the cost too high? What and who was he willing to sacrifice for this end?

He witnessed the pure awesome, terrible, power of the darkside. Was this something that he actually wanted? Burdened with doubt, and tortured by emotion, Rast sobbed for the first time in years. The only thing he wanted in this moment was for his friends to be okay.