Vitiate's long game required certain sacrifices, and right now he was about to sacrifice his position as Emperor of the Sith. It helped that he was tired of the role to begin with, helped that this corroded and depressingly dismal failure of an Empire was hardly beloved. It lacked Zakuul's brightness and refinement, sagging under the weight of the foolishness it lacked the strength to overcome.

Well, that was a very broad, general statement. His current Wrath—a superb union of training and ability, but certainly more dedicated to the Empire than to him—was one piece of this stagnant cesspool worth keeping. For now. And she was safely out of the way. Give her a taste of real power, let her experience the high ledge upon which he had placed her. It would distract her comfortably—so much in the name of 'when the Emperor returns' and with those four words she'd get her way quite often. He doubted she was really his creature. She was just clever enough to recognize him as a threat to the pathetic Empire she served so rigorously. Best to put an eye on her at some point. But not quite yet.

And for everything an equal and opposite. Here, then, stood the opposite: Rhiabe lacked Hellanix's rigid and precise control, but her strength went beyond even the Wrath's. Rhiabe was simply afraid of it on some deep level, and therefore chronically failed to make best use of the gifts the Force had given her. And she never would learn to trust that strength, tainted as she was by her experiences with him, with the Sith, with the Empire.

Part of him rather wondered if he shouldn't contrive to give her to Arcann—though perhaps without using that word. If he'd earnestly considered his sons' futures, he would have probably inclined towards arranging a Sith wife for Arcann—Nox, perhaps. A Sith could handle that temper or, if she couldn't, simply return fire. Or lightning, in Nox's case. Perhaps it might be better to match him with this Jedi. There was something about her unending persistence, her stubborn refusal to accept that she was outclassed, just as she had been the last time they met.

Vitiate tapped the maelstrom in the Force that hung about Rhiabe as if giant dynamos hummed and whirred in the room. If she could get them to turn the other direction*—so to speak—he might find himself with some difficulties. But she lacked the knowledge and the discipline to negate another's Force abilities by meeting them in an 'equal but opposite' fashion. That was advanced study, and even Thexan had trouble with it.

Somehow, he didn't think Thexan and Rhiabe would mesh well. Thexan needed someone who could rouse and encourage mind-fogging passions, not someone who would respond all too well to the 'patience and temperance' her own Order supported to begin with.

If only Hellanix was a little younger. She could keep Thexan occupied, and put opposite Rhiabe would gently encourage a wedging-apart of him and his brother. Thus would their formidable united strength be halved, rendering them even more manageable.

That was part of being immortal: one played to the Schrodinger's cats of the universe, so many plans that seemed to have broken or been abandoned when, in fact, the criteria needed to trigger them, to make them useful, never occurred.

A lot of cats did seem to be surviving, despite his expectations. He had yet to cross this Jedi's twin, but suspected that she'd be one whose wings needed clipping. Kill her outright though, and Rhiabe might just find a way to tap that formidable latent power and apply it. It might just release the rancor from its cage, and that would never do.

If she were to team up with Hellanix, say, or form a triumvirate with Nox as the third point… that could be problematic, even for him.

Ideally, a way should be found to send Nox to the Dread Masters. They could take her into their fold or simply kill her. Either way, one less potential problem to worry about. It was lucky Vaylin, on the other side of the galaxy, hated and mistrusted everyone. If she didn't, and if the two ever met, Nox might be able to show her how to harness her abilities, to use the fear-anger-hatred cycle to devastating effect just as Nox did herself.

But Nox lacked ambition, was of a childish mindset, petty and unimaginative. Her main concern was keeping herself above the flood of people who wanted to harm her. It made her an unreliable ally, and surely Hellanix would know that, would refuse to put too much confidence in her.

So many flaws in these girl-children his failed Empire produced. If he hadn't known that some generations bore more promise than others, he might have wondered if the Empire's gene pool wasn't trying to overcome its own limitations.

He knew better, though.

He could sense Scourge skulking, knew he could reach out and snuff the man's life with but a single twitch of power. Immortality was one thing, but Scourge's was the result of his, Vitiate's, own efforts.

Rhiabe came at him again, lightsaber blazing in her hands, eyes glowing like yellow suns in her green face.

He could smell the fear mingled with her sweat, could sense the agitation, the fear of failure… and the hatred that fear inspired. But, unlike Nox, she hadn't mastered making fear work for her. It still debilitated, still hampered her, still hindered her efforts.

Yes. He had struck just the right blow against this prospective problem, created a being in a state of limbo, swinging back and forth between the Jedi and the Sith, pushing away at both, unable to stop her own momentum. Someone that damaged could never be a true threat to him.

But she could still serve her purpose, the purpose he'd been guiding her towards: she could provide him with a dramatic exit.

-V-

Author's Note: I needed a reason why the Sith and Jedi had so much trouble fighting the Zakuulan Force-sensitives, something beyond the fact that they were just die-hard fanatic zealots who never quit until they're dead or dismembered. So I considered how the Sith and Jedi represented opposite extremes, whereas Zakuul was by an large a gray-area of Force users. I also considered Newton's Third Law, which states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Therefore, if Zakuul could be considered balanced—Light and Dark, each in its place—whereas the other two Orders represent imbalance, then it would make sense that Zakuul's Knights could identify this about their opponents and 'push in the opposite direction' of a Force-sensitive opponent's attacks, on a more intrinsic level then the usual throwing around or lightning or debris represents, in order to lessen the impact of or completely negate an opponent's Force-based attacks. That would definitely give Jedi and Sith alike a problem they couldn't cope with, because neither side really appreciates balance.

I'm sure it will come up later, I'm pretty sure we'll see it in action later, but since we won't see much of Zakuul's philosophies and the like until several volumes of this story later…I thought I'd explain it here.