The cold metal walls of her enclosure. The tinny sound of a voice coming through a voice box. Amber flashes of blaster bolts. The hum of a practice saber. The warble of the force field being hit with a deflected blaster bolt.
Nikkitis was trapped in a memory from when she was fourteen, her mid-week training session in full swing, her Twi'lek tutor standing off to the side with her arms crossed, showing her detached observation. The bright green of her tutor stood out in stark contrast to the greys and whites of the walls and crunching ice and snow.
This is a dream. I know it's a dream. I just have to control it somehow.
She remembered this day. It was the first day she'd received a real injury, the first time she summoned the Force, her first time passing out from Force exhaustion.
She allowed herself to go with the flow of the dream - for now - and waited for the right moment, the summoning of lightning. She braced herself to feel the cut of the vibroblade, deep enough to expose her bone.
Can I alter the dream, exert myself now over myself from then? If so, now's the moment.
She pulled all of her pain, in that moment and in her current reality, into a tight ball within herself and unleashed it with unrelenting fury on the entirety of the training grounds. She tried not to focus on the fact that she could feel blood seeping down her leg, the blade pulsating through her, cutting through her flesh with ease, but the scream roared through her anyway, leaving her hoarse. It felt like her skin was being burnt through, but she knew none of the benefits of the heat was there. Her mind was split in two: between her original thoughts, and the memory of this pain. She had to focus, though. He was here somewhere, most likely in the form of her tutor. She could feel him, lingering, waiting: The Emperor.
The façade of the droid in front of her fell, everything else, even the practice saber in her hands, turning to ashy dust and floating away to nothingness, leaving her staring down the Emperor on a gray and uneven platform. The pain shifted from impossibly realistic, down to a foggy memory in mere moments, much to her relief. The blood wasn't on her leg anymore, and though her heart remained thumping so hard that she could hear it, she could breathe and think again.
"Very clever," the Emperor crooned. "You waited for exactly the right moment. I knew I chose right when I made you my Wrath."
"I no longer go by that title, Valkorian," she spit back.
She reflexively reached down to her sides for her lightsabers and was glad to find them both resting in their usual location on her hips. If this was the case, she was back to her full power. She reached out with the Force, trying to find another living being nearby to connect to, but found herself alone with the Emperor. Then the memory of Darth Marr's ship came to her. Chasing down the odd probe. Meeting the Emperor. Killing the Emperor. The sensation of being dragged somewhere. The coldest cold she had ever felt. Then nothing.
Carbonite. It must be. How long have I been gone? Does my crew know?
The weight of her lightsabers in her hands felt so realistic, but she knew it was false. Trying to play with the odd not-quite-void she was in, she tried to will her lightsaber blades to change color from their usual golden orange to a brilliant turquoise, finding her attempt successful for a time before she felt the Emperor exert his will over her.
So I have some control, but not much. Why is the Emperor here though? How is he in my mind, my memories? I killed him!
The world under her began to morph, forcing her to focus on not losing her footing. She found herself staring down a corridor, and heard her companions talking and laughing in the distance. She wanted to run to them, to tell them she was alright, but that corridor shut itself off to her before she could make any headway.
The Emperor chuckled in a humorless manner at her apparent distress.
"You've grown lazy from the comfort of knowing your little friends are there for you, that they have your back, Wrath. You'll soon remember the pain of being alone, or perish before my power."
She tried to reach out again, tried to call out to her companions in the Force, pushing and pulling harder than she ever had, but felt something within herself instead. It was a small area devoid from the Force, save that of...
A non-Force-sensitive... Oh, no. I'm... pregnant... aren't I?
She pushed outwards with all of her might, trying to make an oasis within her mind, a place the Emperor could speak to her, but not be able to touch her. She needed to think.
What happened to pregnancies frozen in carbonite? In all of her books and discussions with her training droids, doctors, scientists... This had never come up. Had this never happened before? Was this never tested? It was probably never even considered before.
Well, there's nothing I can do now. I'm trapped. Malavai, where are you?!
Another spike of cold stabbed down her spine and she shivered. The Emperor was still calling out to her, but she didn't care anymore. She tried to focus her energies on protecting what she suspected was her baby, and keeping herself calm. She couldn't know for sure without testing, but she formed a Force cocoon around the tiny void, sat, and meditated.
Eventually, the Emperor went away, and the memory of him existing in her mind at all began to fade to the point of virtual non-existence.
"Don't try to move," a familiar female voice said to her. "You're dying."
The sound of her voice was that of one who was trying to soothe someone while attempting to do the same to themselves. The cold lingered, nausea hit her with a vengeance, and she felt like she'd been used as a training dummy by the entire Sith order for months and months on end. She could barely process anything but pain.
"I may have your cure, but I'm not going to lie..."
Nikkitis opened her eyes to find a very fuzzy outline of Lana Beniko leveling a medical gun to her face.
"This will hurt."
Ah, f-