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II: Planetfall
"I do not waste my teachings on the weak."
– Adas, legendary King of the Sith
Weiss stood over Dalmec's shoulder with her arms crossed, staring at the yellowish-brown planet that steadily took up more of their view. The ship raced to a point in its northern hemisphere; Weiss raised her eyelids as she witnessed the smooth transition from outer space to a more familiar sky.
"So like I said," Dalmec opened, "when we land, just take a look around for a bit. Get sort of a feel for it; take it all in. Kar'yith is, uh, interesting."
She nodded, nervously squeezing her suitcase and the few belongings she now had.
They landed in a crowded, run-down hanger, having to take a less pristine spot near the middle of its single floor.
Weiss stood on the ship's ramp, looking at the bustle before her. It was gritty and frontier. A technician in dirtied clothes dragged a thick, black tube to a ship in front of them. On the far right, a group of rugged men laughed loudly as one of them playfully kicked a meter tall machine. The machine slid backwards and then jolted back to its original position, revealing wheels underneath it as it bent backwards to stop. It was apparently a robot, and its finish was just as dirty as the rest of the locals. Far in front of her, the hanger's open mouth ranged from the floor to the ceiling, towering above the busy scene. Entering ships drifted slowly above their heads, filling the space as they searched for empty areas to land.
Behind her, Dalmec opened a compartment and started retrieving tools. "Gotta do some work before we go anywhere else," Dalmec told her. "Take your time."
"Thank you." Weiss couldn't think of anything else to say.
Too wary to go anywhere without her suitcase, she stepped off of the ramp and onto Kar'yith. She weaved through the informally parked ships and their attendant groups, heading for the hanger's giant entrance. When she got close, she saw that it led directly to a wide, unpaved street.
There were a few vehicles, strange machines that hovered above the ground and sported sun-beaten paintjobs. The majority of traffic was by foot, with people spread out all over the street and groups congregating at shops and storefronts along the sides. Weiss walked out into the throng, raising her arm to shield her eyes from the burning sun. She walked for a few minutes, taking in the sights around her and processing them. Then she stopped. This was fun and all, but it was probably better to stay closer for now.
As she turned around, a ship slowly floated out of the hangar, hovering far above the ground. She tilted her head; from the side it looked very familiar. She watched it climb vertically and then blast higher and higher into space.
She moved intently when she reached the hangar, trying to remember the scenery she had passed to get out. She recognized a large, brick like ship with tattered red trim along the edges of its unfurnished skin; then a petite, sporty craft composed of little more than a single person cockpit mounted on a wing; then a roughly saucer shaped craft with much of its internal workings exposed. She moved quickly between them, stopping occasionally to look around.
Suddenly, she saw it. Her gaze fixed on it, orienting her head accordingly. It was the black tube. Her stare traveled along it, stopping at the ship its nozzle was attached to. It was the same ship that had been right in front of her when she had first looked out over the hanger.
She walked over to the tube and came to a stop after she stepped over it. The area in front of her was empty. Dalmec and his ship were gone.
She stood and blinked her eyes aimlessly, processing the information. Then she clenched her fists.
He had betrayed her. He had abandoned her in this place, completely out of her element. Once again, she had been taken for a fool. Once again, she had made a mistake. Once again, she had failed.
She felt her fingernails dig into her palms. She seethed with rage, shivered with it; she allowed her entire body to shake with it. She felt the skin on her face tighten, felt the muscles in her neck and abdomen tense. Her thoughts lost any chronology or cinema; she didn't think of anyone or anything in particular to hate. There was just anger.
She was so furious she felt her aura around her.
What?
This surprised her enough to bring her down, but she quickly put the thought aside. The other, sober emotions had arrived: the despair, the helplessness, the disappointed apathy. Shaken, she turned and looked around as she analyzed the situation.
She couldn't really be mad at Dalmec. He had very obviously only wanted the dust, and Weiss was very obviously a bargain he hadn't thought through, and a liability he wanted to get rid of as soon as possible. That he did it in such a rude way, well, what could she expect?
No, she should have seen it all coming. She had blundered into yet another disaster, always thinking she was outsmarting everyone else. That was what really made her mad.
Weiss shook off the post-emotion nausea and spent the next hour talking to people in the hanger. They spoke a language that was alien yet barely comprehensible, as if this place and Remnant had once shared a common tongue that had diverged over millennia. Both parties would have to repeat themselves several times, their sentences getting simpler with each progression. None of them had ever heard of Remnant. Eventually she had given up trying to get someone to transport her and tried to buy her own ship, wondering if she could somehow make it back herself. She discovered Dalmec hadn't been lying: lien cards were worthless here.
The escapade ended with Weiss standing just outside the hanger, holding her suitcase against her stomach with both hands. She looked at the city in front of her. It was mostly composed of squat, light brown structures for kilometers on end. There were only two or three skyscrapers in the distance, not enough to dent the brilliance of the large sun that hung just above them. It wasn't a shantytown, but it was close. She took a deep breath and audibly exhaled, not caring who saw the defeated expression on her face. Then she started walking.
She walked aimlessly for hours, through the endless streets and byways. She could barely speak the language; she had no money and nowhere to go. She only stopped to eat some of the food she had brought for her trip, and to sneak a drink from one of the water spigots attached to most of the buildings when no one was looking.
By nightfall she had inadvertently migrated to the edges of the city, where there were fewer people and water was easier to find. The outskirts hosted numerous large corrals with animals she didn't recognize, and scattered pipes with spigots sticking out of the ground to refill their water trowels. The areas were bounded by short fences that projected force fields on proximity; they activated for the animals but allowed humans to pass. It was easy to get in and drink from the faucets, and Weiss somehow managed to avoid trouble with either the owners or the large animals.
She kept walking all night. Groups of vagrants mingled around everywhere she went, watching her as she passed them. It was too dangerous to stop and rest. She had already tested her aura and semblance, and she was still more or less defenseless.
The second day went the same as the first. Weiss was tired, and this time her movement was liberally punctuated by stops to sit down against shaded walls. She finished her food early in the morning, having only packed enough for a day when she left her father's estate.
She noticed the individuals around her more this time. Many of them weren't humans. Some were robots, coming in every size and form imaginable. Others were…faunus? Aliens? They were much more standardized, almost always humanoid and bipedal, with two arms and legs. Their faces and heads, on the other hand, ranged from vaguely human to grotesque. She also realized that seeing a human was rather rare. That scared her.
Weiss was hungry and exhausted when the sun started to set. She was wandering down the side of a winding road, hopelessly gutted in the center and frequented mostly by hovercraft. As the last natural light faded away, it started to rain.
The other pedestrians seemed to start hurrying. Even the ubiquitous vagrants dispersed, leaving the street deserted. She couldn't figure out why, until she noticed a burning sensation on her head. She stopped to hold out her hand in front of her, collecting the raindrops. They stung as they hit, forming small puddles that burned the skin under them. The rain was acidic.
Weiss forced herself into a jog, searching for shelter. There were no buildings nearby; this area of the road was bordered by valleys on either side like a bridge. She kept scanning the area around her, including the trash scattered along the roadside. Up ahead she saw a large object shaped like an igloo, rising far above the line of trash it was in. As she approached it, she saw that it had been some sort of large sphere, probably a container. It was cracked neatly along a circumference, and one half had found its way to this road, lodged partially into the dirt.
The metal half-sphere was angled so that its torn edge was above the ground facing towards the street, and buried on the other side. It could make a good shelter. Weiss scrambled towards the opening, squinting to see what was inside. It was empty and relatively clean. She pushed her suitcase in first, then kneeled down and climbed into the ad hoc entrance. It was just large enough for her to comfortably crawl in on her belly. Once inside, she started pushing up clumps of dirt to form a small barricade where she had entered, to keep the puddles of rain and the trash they carried from coming in.
After she was confident in the little wall, she settled into the depth of the sphere. She had about a cubic meter of space, giving her enough room to comfortably curl up. She didn't lay down, instead taking an upright feral position against the back.
Just imagine. A Schnee. Homeless and sleeping on the side of a road. At this point, the thought was almost funny to her.
Her skin continued to burn. She wouldn't have been able to fall asleep if she wasn't so exhausted.
The next day began when she finally decided to drag herself out of the sphere. She didn't know how long she had slept, but the day was already bright and clear when she woke up and she had sat in the ball for some time afterwards.
She examined herself as she straightened up and stretched. Her clothes were no longer white; instead they were covered in dirt and matted by the acid rain. Only her knee length boots were not ruined, since they were covered in a smooth plastic that just needed to be rinsed and wiped. She was thankful she didn't have a mirror to see how bad she must have looked.
This day followed the same pattern as the last, except she wasn't exhausted and felt the hunger much more strongly instead. She had to rest often, spending more time crouching somewhere than moving. She would start getting dizzy if she pushed herself more.
She noted that hardship could make social graces – even those ingrained over years – fall away in record time. Three days ago, Weiss would have felt terribly self-conscious if she sat down on the ground behind a busy sidewalk, watching the people pass her. Now, the social inhibition barely registered. She didn't care.
She had been on the lookout for any sort of charity or homeless shelter, but hadn't seen anything remotely recognizable as such. Her other plan was to try and get back to the spaceport, hoping she could find someone to take her back to Remnant with another try. She had no idea how to find that or anything else, however. She had tried to talk to people over the days of drifting, but none of them wanted to take the time to try and decipher the language gap for this strange girl.
It was all beginning to blur together. She lost track of her wandering, eventually ending the day in the middle of a long, wide alleyway. On the right she found a large, rectangular metal sheet, like the door of an old shed. She dragged it a short way to the wall, then left it flat on the ground. She assembled some pieces of junk and used them to prop the sheet up on one side, forming a small cove. After finalizing the arrangement, she laid down on her back and wiggled herself under the sheet, resting her head on her suitcase. There were others in the alleyway, but they were some distance away and didn't seem interested in her. She got comfortable as best she could, and closed her eyes.
On the fourth day, Weiss didn't go anywhere. She had given up on the pointless wandering, too weak to continue in any case. She just sat in front of her makeshift shelter, staring at the graffitied wall on the other side of the alley. She was dizzy and disoriented, symptoms of hunger that were not helped by the sun beating down on her.
Half of the day passed. She hadn't moved, except to shift her weight when she started to get sore. Her mind was still very hazy and she didn't want to do anything else. She barely noticed the man who came up until he sat down directly in front of her.
He set down a circular tray of something strange – she realized it was food – and a glass of clear liquid, then pushed them towards her.
The man crisscrossed his legs on the ground, resting his hands on his knees like some sort of monk.
"I felt you through the Force when you arrived here. You were very hard to miss," he said with a disarming smile.
Weiss scrutinized him, forcing her mind into a more lucid state. He had a worn, well-built face. She could make out the outlines of long healed scars in several places. He looked to be about forty-five, but she wasn't sure. People with difficult lives looked older than they were, and this man certainly bore the hallmarks.
He wore a sizeable dark cloak around his shoulders, connected around his collar bone by a thick piece of woven string. She couldn't see what was under it, but it was open in the middle and he appeared to be wearing wrapped pieces of fabric underneath.
He nudged the food towards her again, aware than she hadn't moved.
"No thank you," she replied, pushing the tray back slightly.
She had lived a privileged life, but she knew want went on in the world at large. The food was probably spiked to knock her out. Maybe someone had been watching her.
The man was unfazed. "You are very strong in the Force. I first sensed you days ago, but I waited and observed. It was soon clear to me that you haven't been trained; your mind is open and undisciplined. I could feel your fear and despair. I could even discern your hunger."
Weiss wasn't really listening. She just wanted him to leave.
"I said no thank you. I'm not interested," she said in a louder, harsher tone.
The man didn't move. He studied her, making eye contact when she looked towards him.
Without a word, he raised his arm towards her, spreading his hand out towards the ground. The stones and trash in between them rose into the air, without anything touching them. They stopped at a uniform height just below his hand, and then arranged themselves into a spiral pattern centered under his palm. He turned his hand mostly upright and they followed, maintaining their position rigidly as if they were fixed into one piece.
She stared at the display, a realistic model of a spiral galaxy that slowly spun around an axis perfectly parallel to his palm.
Weiss decided she was hallucinating.
"I sense immense potential in you," he said. "I can train you. Show you how to manifest your power."
He moved his hand, and the objects making up the galaxy rearranged themselves into a tidy, three-sided pyramid on the ground.
"Try to lift the pyramid's capstone with your mind," he said, in the imperative.
The tone and the unusual request itself caught her off guard. She was still dazed, and the absurdity of the idea made her go along with it.
She stared groggily at the small, coarse rock that crowned the formation, concentrating on it and trying to lift it. It budged a little bit, sliding to the side of its platform and almost falling off.
"Try to focus on it with your hand; use your limbs as a conduit to direct your strength."
Still in a stupor, Weiss raised her arm and clenched her fingers in the rock's direction, like she was trying to pinch it. She tried again, and this time lifted the rock neatly above the pyramid. Guiding it with her fingers, she moved it to one side and let it fall.
"Very good," he said.
Weiss snapped out of it. Am I intoxicated? Did I eat some of the food and don't remember? She blinked several times, bringing herself back to clarity. She immediately glanced at the tray; all the food was there. The pyramid was still there as well, without the rock at the top.
"I am really not interested," she said again. She projected her voice strongly, but her tone was half-hearted.
She vaguely tried to formulate a plan to fight him if she had to.
"I can provide you with food and shelter. Not much, but reasonable living space and a private room. We will train daily. You have great potential."
"I'm staying right here," she said, having enough street smarts to turn down such an offer from a stranger.
"It makes little difference if you live here or not. We will train regardless."
The cloaked man rose to his feet, looking down at her. For a moment she tensed, preparing to make her move if she had to. He turned away and was out of her sight as quickly as he had appeared. She looked and saw him walking down the alleyway. He had left the food. She was determined not to eat it.
As the sky grew dark, Weiss was curled over in pain. Her stomach was cramped and her appetite was unbearable. She could feel her body beginning to starve. During a short reprieve from the pain, Weiss sat up and looked at what he left. Her attention focused on the cup. She hadn't had anything to drink all day, maybe she would just have the water…
She picked up the cup and held it to her nose, sniffing it. She couldn't smell anything unusual. Slowly, she brought it to her lips and took a sip. The clear liquid tasted like the water she had been drinking elsewhere in the city. That was the best she could do. She drank, hoping it would make her feel better.
It made her feel worse. The solitary water amplified her stomach's pangs for solid nutrition. She huddled on her side, pondering if she should eat the cloaked man's food. She hadn't eaten in more than two days, despite heavy physical exertion. The consequences couldn't be worse than what would happen if she did nothing.
Time went by slowly as she waited for the cramps to ease. It was too painful to move with them. When the opportunity arose, she sat up and started to shovel the food into her mouth. She knew consuming it so quickly would probably make her stomach ills worse in the short term, but she didn't care. She had to eat.
The food was unlike any from Remnant. She thought it seemed bland, though she wasn't really bothering to taste it. When she was finished, she crawled under the metal sheet, hoping to fall asleep before the cramps came back with a vengeance. She was not so lucky.
Early the next day, the cloaked man returned. He brought another platter of food and a full glass of water. Yesterday's meal apparently hadn't been poisoned, so Weiss accepted this one, although not with any enthusiasm or thankfulness. She was concerned that he had come back, but she didn't think about it very much. She was still coming to terms with her situation.
He stayed, sitting in front of her, for about an hour, and then left abruptly. He returned twice more to bring her lunch and dinner, repeating the same pattern each visit. Before he left, he would always reiterate his offer of shelter, and she would always decline.
He never asked her about herself during the meetings, nor did he discuss his own background. He only wanted to play with the telekinesis. She would ignore his instructions and requests at first, until he started to perform small feats and displays with the objects scattered around. It was like a stage magician entertaining a child, but she couldn't figure out how the trick worked. Eventually curiosity would get the better of her, and she would follow his directions to try herself.
She would always be able to follow his lead, moving bits and pieces of junk around with her mind, sometimes several at a time. Every time, it pushed her from disbelief to excitement.
After he left the last time, she caught herself feeling eager to talk the cloaked man tomorrow. She wanted to ask him questions and play with her newfound abilities more. She squashed the inclination quickly. She didn't want to let him think she had any interest in his games, or his consistent offer.
Her mindset shifted away from curiosity and back to paranoia as she remembered her circumstances.
Weiss knew very well what usually happened to homeless runaways like herself. This could very well be part of some trafficking ring or similar endeavor.
She looked around her ragged camp. The sun was setting, its dim light reflecting off the various scrap metals strewn throughout the dirty alley. She had built a small fireplace the day before, but she was still sleeping under the metal sheet. She didn't know how long she could live like this.
She had honestly thought about trying to find a club or brothel. It was better than being lured in or waiting for a gang of thugs to kidnap and sell her. At least she would get some money if she did it herself.
The better option seemed to be the cloaked man, if it didn't lead to the same place anyway.
After their midday meeting the next day, Weiss tried to use the abilities he had taught her by herself. Holding both hands out, she tried to lift a large hubcap across from her, on the other side of the alleyway. It took a great amount of strain and several false starts, but she was able to lift it a short way off the ground and slide it through the air towards her. She had displaced it little more than a meter in total when she was done with the exercise, but it was more than enough. She finally accepted the telekinesis was real, not some hallucination the man's presence brought.
'Fascinated' would be an inadequate word to describe how she felt about the ability. She wondered restlessly about its nature. When the man returned for dinner, she inquired more about it, but his answers didn't make much sense to her.
That night, she concluded that the ability was this world's equivalent of a semblance, except everyone could use it. Since she couldn't use her glyphs, she wondered if every planet had a unique way of expressing semblance, something determined by the planet's own conditions and energy. She wondered if someone native to Kar'yith would acquire a new semblance if they went to Remnant, and lose their telekinesis abilities.
Most people in Remnant don't have a semblance, would they be able to pick up telekinesis here? Or only someone already so endowed?
It was a complicated question, and it led into another. Semblance was tied to aura, and everyone had an aura, but most were too weak to use it. Weiss pondered if everyone in Remnant had a semblance too, and most just never unlocked theirs. If so, could they use telekinesis here, but only to a very limited extant? Just enough to lift tiny things? For that that matter, what were its limits? Could a strong user lift a vehicle? A building? Even more?
The cloaked man had explained it in a very odd way. He called it 'the Force.' The Force wasn't the telekinesis ability itself, but it caused it or made it possible. The Force was everywhere. Weiss didn't really understand it, but she reasoned that Kar'yith had an energy field of sorts that allowed those on it to lift things with their mind, and it was called the Force. Did Remnant have its own version of the Force, which gave people their semblances?
Yet another question was her aura. Weiss could still raise a very weak aura around herself, like she could on the ship, but it was an effort and she had to concentrate on it, much like when she lifted things. In fact, it felt like she was using the same Force for her aura.
Weiss forced herself not to ask any questions or seem too interested during the cloaked man's three visits the next day. Sometimes it was hard to hide, however. Her skill with the Force was progressing, and he pushed her forward. She was able to hold rocks motionless in the air for several seconds, or fling them against the alley's walls.
She had so much to ask, but she cautioned herself again. She had to be careful.
That night she contemplated the Force again, as the sun set far above her. She sat facing a wall, cleaning Myrtenaster with a relatively clean cloth she had salvaged from the ubiquitous waste. Her back was against the main portion of the alley way; but her thoughts kept getting interrupted. There was more commotion tonight than usual.
A group of five young people, all male from their voices, were loitering around a short distance away. By now she knew who was usually in the alley, mostly other transients who kept to themselves and stayed away from her. This group didn't belong, and they made her uneasy.
They hung around for some time, long after she was done cleaning her weapon. She wasn't comfortable, so she kept it in her lap, studying it.
She tried to ignore them and focus on examining her sword, but her gut feeling kept getting worse. Based on their voices and laughter, the group was slowly getting closer to her. She was started to become afraid.
She forced herself to focus on what she was doing, nervously running the rag along the same length of the blade as the dusk started to take the last clear visibility away. Hopefully they would leave soon.
She froze when she felt a rock hit her.
She looked behind her at the group. They were all young men, mostly humans, wearing utilitarian outdoor clothes that were hard to make out in the dark. They were staring at her.
She turned around and went back to wiping Myrtenaster, tightly gripping its handle with her sword hand. Her heart was beating rapidly.
Minutes past. The group resumed their loud chatting. Weiss kept scrubbing the thin blade.
Another rock hit her. This time she didn't turn around. She had never been so terrified in her life; she could feel her heart pounding against her chest.
Another minute passed. A third rock hit her, immediately followed by a fourth. Weiss looked and saw the group walking towards her.
She turned and stood up, holding her sword towards the ground.
"What do you want?"
None of them said anything. They just kept coming. Weiss took a few steps back, but they were closing the distance.
The closest one lunged at her.
She reacted right away, shifting to a two handed grip and swiping Myrtenaster horizontally above her head as the man got close. The blade met flesh, cutting his face from left to right.
Without her carefully positioned glyphs, she lacked the power and force to drive her sword through armor and bone. But she was still a trained swordsman, and her blade had a sharp edge.
The man yelled in pain, holding his face and veering away from her. By now the others were almost there, having broken into a run.
Weiss stood her ground, adrenaline pumping through her. She picked out one of the men in the middle of the group and shifted her body to the side, digging her opposite foot into the ground in preparation to sprint.
She lunged this time, using her sword like a lance. She aimed for the middle of her target's neck, but he dodged just in time to avoid having his spine severed. It still wasn't fast enough; she caught him with her blade's sharp tip, driving it all the way through the extreme side of his neck and then ripping it out through the thin layer of skin that momentary entrapped it. It was a flesh wound, but a very deep one.
The others had surrounded her during her maneuver. One of them came from behind, holding both of his hands out to grab her. She spun around, using the movement to build momentum for a smooth slash. Myrtenaster intercepted one of his hands, leaving a deep gash in his upper palm. He broke off, leaving her to deal with the other two.
They surrounded her on each side, hunching into grappling positions. If they coordinated a rush they could overwhelm her, so Weiss struck first. She turned and faced one of them, in a quickly thought-out ruse. When she sensed the one behind her moving in, she threw herself backwards, resting her sword over her shoulder and anchoring it with a tight two-handed grip. She collided with him, as did her sword. Its hilt violently pushed away from her shoulder, the attached blade being pushed from behind. She knew it had penetrated since she heard him make a deep shriek. It didn't make him break off; instead, he wrapped his arms around her upper waist.
The man in front of her rushed in. Weiss pulled her legs up, kicking with them both in unison. Her heavy boots struck him in the chest, with enough force to halt him but not to push him back. He grabbed her legs and pulled them up towards him, taking a few steps back. The man behind her unclasped his arms as her lower body pulled the rest upward. She immediately seized the opportunity, twisting herself around and pushing Myrtenaster's hilt up near vertically, with its blade still going down into the man behind her. She used every core muscle she had to raise her torso into the air as she did so. For a second, she was suspended horizontally – held up on one side by the one holding her legs, and on the other by her implanted sword.
Her entire body weight was forcing the blade in – she could now see it was lodged just under his shoulder - and he cried out in pain. He pulled back, grabbing the blade and pushing it out as he moved. Weiss fell down and hit the ground on her chest. She squealed in pain with what little air she had; her body was still twisted at the torso and it felt like the displacement had ripped tendons. She knew she had no time to think about it now.
She rolled her upper body, untwisting herself and finding her bearings. She noticed one of the men was charging in, coming at her from the direction above her head. It was the first one, the one whose face she had originally sliced. He was bent all the way over with his arms held under him, like an ancient predator. When he was close enough, she jerked her body around and held her sword at a near skyward angle, like a bayonet fixed in formation to stop a cavalry charge. Her movement was too quick to evade. Myrtenaster went into his mouth and pierced his palate, driving into his nasal cavity with his own momentum.
On Remnant, she had killed Grimm by driving her sword up through their skulls. She realized this wasn't much different.
He screamed as he scrambled to get it out, and she obliged by pulling it back. He turned and ran away. Weiss straightened her torso and slashed at the arms that were still holding her legs. She saw her sword shred the man's sleeves, but she didn't know if it went farther than that. He let go and joined his comrades, abandoning the fight.
Their prey was too much hassle.
The group ran away down the alley, some of them screaming wildly, others occasionally looking back at her as they ran.
She stood up and watched them. She felt…strange.
Weiss expected she would feel great relief, the surge of emotions someone would feel when they were grateful to be alive, having just fought desperately for it the privilege.
Instead, she felt the Force. It was malevolent. She – and it - were angry. Rageful. She wanted to chase them. To hunt them. To kill every one of them.
The feeling only lasted a few seconds. Then she collapsed, gripping her stomach. The pain was unbearable; she felt like every muscle from her ribcage to her legs had been shredded. At the back of them all, her spine burned with even the slightest movement.
Weiss hadn't slept well that night. She had been afraid the group she had fought off would return, and had only managed to fall asleep after some time.
The cloaked man came early in the morning, as usual. He placed her food on the ground and sat down, as he always did. But Weiss had decided today's session was going to be very different.
She ran her eyes over him. He was wearing the same simple clothes he always did, although they were unfailingly clean and well washed. His face was battered, but his demeanor was not hostile. He didn't make her feel uncomfortable, despite his aloof, enigmatic attitude.
She couldn't discern his intentions, or anything else. He was always neutral. Not in a guarded, political way – she could recognize that anywhere – but in an odd, uninvested way.
"Your offer. To give me a place to live. What do I have to do in return?" Weiss didn't tell him about the fight, or the damage it did to her.
His face offered up a slight smile, very briefly.
"You will be my apprentice. I will train you in the ways of the Force, and provide for your physical needs. You will follow my direction and learn."
She sat silently. Most of his statements raised more questions than answers, and this was no exception. She wished he wasn't so cryptic.
"...and what do I get out of it?"
"The Path of Power."
Weiss craned her head. "Power?"
"Strength. Freedom. Self-direction, self-actuation. The tools to do whatever you wish."
Weiss was silent for a bit. "You can offer me this?"
"Ultimately, the Force will offer it to you."
She sighed. "I don't need a self-help seminar."
"You doubt the Force?"
"I doubt it's nearly strong enough to give me all that."
He quickly surveyed the alley and stood up. There was no one else around. He turned and shot his arm out towards the opposite wall.
The wall threw itself to pieces, and then the structure behind it, and the wall behind that, as if an unseen tsunami crashed into them.
Weiss' eyes widened as far as they could go.
