I felt a dark shake in the Force when I woke up and rose from the bed. I looked around and I was in the same room as in my nightmare, of becoming a Sith Lord, Darth Venison. What's strange about that nightmare, my memory before it has faded. I only remember Rakine's attack on me, effectively losing my antlers, and Zandin, my home, has turned against me. All but Rooda. And I left her there. I went to Hoth and met the Sith Lord Darth Sorin, and he has become my master. Everything else is a blur, shrouded by the Dark Side.

I got up out of the bed, and I looked at myself and saw I wasn't naked anymore. I had a small white suit on, that covered my forearms, torso, and down halfway down my legs. There was a hole in the back, allowing for my tail to stick through, out of the suit. A zipper ran down from my suit collar down to my stomach. I looked around to see what was going on. I got up to check my reflection in the mirror, and there was nothing unusual. I turned to the door, Force pushed it open walked out of the room. I walked down the hall, but I can't help but wonder. Why would Sorin stay in this large facility by himself? I would expect a "Cowardly Sith" to have some form of protection and bodyguard. I guess that's where I come in as a new and young apprentice. I noticed a mark on the floor of the hallway, carved in the shape of an arrow. And with curiosity, I decided to follow the arrow.

"Master Sorin?" I called out as I followed the halls and arrows to another training facility. I opened the door and saw a bunch of weapons scattered throughout the room. I walked over to a table and picked up a gray curved lightsaber. I pushed a button, activating it, and a long crimson blade stuck out. I picked up the other curved lightsaber on the table, it looked like the other lightsaber's twin. I looked at both pommel ends and noticed both of them had a unique end piece. I stuck the pommel ends together and the lightsabers started connecting inside. I set the weapon down and thought.

"That looks almost like Rooda's lightspear. With blades at each end."

Rooda. I remember when I last saw her. I left her on Zant after I stormed off in a blind rage. I knew I must go back. I know what I'm going to do when I get back. I'm going to steal back my loincloth. It was a sign of my power on Zant. I will keep it always as a reminder of how fierce and powerful I was.

I felt my master's presence through the Force as he entered the lightsaber room behind me.

"I see you have found the Lightsaber Crafting Room." He chuckled. "This is always an important part of Jedi and Sith training. The lightsaber is traditionally a weapon-"

I grab my head and start to groan in agony.

"I can't stand the sound of that word. Forgive me, Master. That word is what removed my power on Zant." I looked slowly to him.

"I understand." He nodded, but barely seemed to care. "How better can I say it? It is a rite of passage. Does that sound better?"

I nodded slowly.

"So, it is a rite of passage from Apprentice to Lord or Master. This is usually the last step of the training but, you have already built your own saber before." He pulled my darksaber off the belt of his robe, and with the Force, he gently set it in a glass case. "Darksabers are exceptionally rare. Its black crystals are very rare, and only synthetically made. How did you get your hands on a black crystal?"

"The debris of a crashed starship outside our village in the desert. The cargo in it contains many colored crystals, most likely smuggled or stolen."

"I see. Well it better stay here so there's a guarantee no one would steal it.

"So it stays here for safekeeping?"

"Exactly." He closed the case. "I'm sure everyone is looking through the galaxy for a weapon like that. Men will kill for it."

"I understand, Master." I picked up the S-shaped saberstaff.

"That was my old weapon when I was a younger Sith. The crimson blades glow darker than your standard red blades."

I turned a side of the saberstaff on and I examined the blade, nodding. I turned it back off.

"Now, since you are a Zan-Deer, and the first one to become a Sith, I have built these while you were unconscious." He picked up two metal stubs and a metal plate. The same base of the antler-sabers in my nightmare. I backed away, bumping into the table.

"Antler-sabers." I thought of the pain that I felt in my nightmare, when my antlers were cut out of my head and those metal stubs were implanted into my skull.

"Yes. I thought since you lost your natural antlers, this might serve as a better replacement."

"How long did it take you to make those?" I asked.

"Only about the fifteen hours you were unconscious. I used to be a skilled lightsaber craftsman and mechanic."

"You said these would replace my natural antlers?" I continued to think of the nightmare I had of my transformation.

I know how horrible it felt. The pain that I felt in my sleep. As if they were already implanted in my head. I know if I'm to become a strong and powerful Sith Lord, I would have to endure the pain and get through with it. I sighed and said with a grin, almost hissing with my Zan-Deer fanged teeth.

"It's perfect." I walked over to my Master, and held a stub in my hand. "I must fully remove my old antlers." I turned and showed him the back of my head and pointed to the base of my head, where the antlers barely stick out. "These will be implanted in the back of my head, after the antlers in my head are surgically removed." I turned back around. "These antler-sabers are a brilliant weapon, and since you have had experience in the Force to stop people from dying, it will guarantee I survive the antler transplant." I fear I've gone mad, but I know I will soon tolerate pain. Then if I lost something it wouldn't affect me. "Let's do it."

Master Sorin stares at me in horror and twitches.

"All right, Lord Venison," he held the antler-sabers in his hand. "If this is what you want," I nodded.

"It is what I want."

"You're a difficult one to understand. Then follow me to an operation room." He walked out of the lightsaber room. I Force pulled the crimson-blade saberstaff to me and I take both halves apart hold the lightsabers in my hands, before walking out and following my Master to the operation room.

He walked down the hall to an elevator and beckoned me in. I stepped in next to him and I notice him look at the lightsabers.

"You like the lightsabers don't you?"

I nodded.

"They're better than just one blade. And if they were used by a Sith Master and they still work, it proves how worthy a weapon like this is." I looked at the lightsabers. "And they connect into a saberstaff."

"Indeed they do. You're a very good learner, my apprentice. And such a fast learner too. You will rise into a very powerful Sith. Maybe even more powerful than me." He looked at me. "I told you how I was too aggressive and I shocked my former apprentice so much I broke him. Now his Dark Side is very vulnerable to possession. An awesome and terrible power." The elevator opened and he walked to the operation rooms. "That's why I stopped ruling through aggression. I learned to calm my mind and that is why I'm going so easy on you."

For reasons unknown, I find that very hard to believe.

He entered a room and set the antler-sabers on the operating table. "But now that you want to perform this action, I'll have to inflict tremendous pain just for this operation to work."

"I have felt the same pain before." I sat on the operating bed and adjusted the headrest, laid flat on my stomach and stuck my face through the cavity in the headrest. "I had a dream about my physical transformation to the Sith. I had these antler-sabers implanted into my head. I actually felt the pain. And we Zan-Deer can adapt to pain pretty quickly."

"Very well." Master Sorin walked over to me and with the Force, shackled my neck and head, wrists, waist, and ankles to the operating bedside. I only stares at the floor, expressionless as Master Sorin took the lightsabers from my grasp. He set both of them on the table and grabs a small lightknife off of the table. He carefully held it close to the back of my head.

"Ready?" He holds the blade of the knife perfectly still as I still stared at the floor. I feel a metal plate being pressed on the back of my head.

"Yes, Master-"

I stop myself as the lightknife's blade sinks into the antler base on the left side of my head. I only groan as the blade melts my antler at the base of my head. I hear him grab on of the antler stub when I hear the metal clinging on the operating table. He sets the knife down and reaches for one of the metal antler stubs. I feel the cold metal antler stub being pressed onto the back of my head against the bony antler just under the skin. The machine slowly starts drilling into my antler under the skin and I start groaning. The drilling gets faster and web it penetrates the back of my skull, I scream in pain. The stub stops and tiny metal rods cling into my skin, muscles, and skull, fastening the stub into place. I am screaming when the stub expands in my head from the top of the head to the behind my ear. I feel the humming of the machine vibrate as it starts fanning out and the four branches emerge from the machine in my head. The emitters protrude and the machine's purring stops.

"Did it work?" I asked Master Sorin and he steps back.

"Time to find out." He rubs his hands nervously.

I remember in my nightmare the antler-sabers are powered by conscious anger. I start to think of Rakine, when he first chopped my antlers off my head. I start breathing heavily, making fists in my hands and I hear and feel all four blades emerge from the left side of my head.

"It works," Master Sorin says with an emotion if relief as the blades shrink down into my head. "These antler-sabers are fueled by the emotions of the user. So your anger, fear, aggression, and hate ignite the sabers. It's a communication system now links into your head, physically and mentally." Sorin walks back up to the table and grabs the lightknife. "Ready for the right side?"

He walks around me and the operation bed to my right. I nod and he sticks the lightknife against my right antler and it melts down to my skin layer, ready for the next stub's drilling into my head. He places the stub on my antler and starts drilling in down to my skull. I'm screaming loudly in pain again as the stub stops drilling and the rods sink into my head, attaching itself to me internally. The stub expands into the same machine and the four lightsabers begin to grow out of the back. Once the emitters finish forming, I try again to power the finished antler-sabers. I thought angry thoughts and both lightsabers activated at the same time. Master Sorin released me from the operating bed and I deactivate my antler-sabers. I kneel down to my master.

"Thank you, Master, for the antler upgrades." I look up to him as he hands me my new lightsabers.

"All ten of your blades are given the crimson glow, so your blades all match." He walked off to a wardrobe, Force opened it and motioned me to him. "This is a wardrobe of many Sith outfits. You can take your pick. I doubt you want to stay in that small white uniform." I looked down to my suit and looked back at the wardrobe. I picked up black leather boots, black elbow-length gloves. Black pants with black shirt, a black belt for my lightsabers, the black tunic with tan ribcage design and a long black cloak. The same outfit I wore in my nightmare.

"This is perfect." I looked at Master Sorin, only nodding as I started putting on the Sith outfit over the white uniform. First I equipped the shirt and pants, then the tunic, the gloves and boots, and finally the cloak. And once I let the cloak rest on my shoulders, the cloak's large cape covered my whole body, giving the illusion that I'm a walking cloak.

"Lord Venison," Master Sorin grinned at me, "you look absolutely terrifying. It just needs one more thing." He reached in the wardrobe and pulled out a container of black dye. The same dye made from the spider venom of a ticking desert spider. "I got this from spider venom on Zant. I've visited your system many times in the past. How do you think I recognized your species once I first met you?"

I nodded.

"What is the dye for?" Then I remembered. My image finished with black dye surrounding and covering my eyes and marks from the front corners of my eyes down to my nose. "I know what to do." I found a mirror in the wardrobe and took some dye from the container. I moved my fingers in a circular motion over my eyes, forming the rings and covering my eyelids in the black dye. I ran both my fingers from my eyes down to my nose and finished the black rings around my eyes.

"Darth Venison," Master Sorin looked at me again, "you are the most dangerous Sith Lord I have seen in a long time. I know you'll be a worthy warrior in the Sith archive."

I grinned, showing my fanged teeth.

"I have an idea for you, Lord Venison. You should return to Zant and show them what a real warrior looks like." He chuckled.

I nodded and walked to the door, looking back to my Master.

"I will return for the rest of my training, Master." I walked out and took the nearest elevator up to the top, where my ship stayed up at the entrance of the cave. "I will show them what a real warrior looks like." I opened my cloak and looked at my lightsabers attached to my belt. "I'll really show them." I'm going to steal back my loincloth. It was a symbol of my life as a "Zan-Deer Warrior", and I'm going to keep that with me.

I reached the top of the elevator shaft and I ran to the cave entrance, my cape flowing behind me as I ran out. I opened the door and ran through the snow to the entrance of my ship, it was buried in snow. I held out my lightsabers and stuck them in the snow, the snow glowing the crimson glow and melting into the blades. When the snow all melted away, I opened the door to the ship and entered, I started a round trip back to Zant. The ship lifted off the snowy ground, snow falling down the sides of the ship's outer hull, and when the ship faced the sky, the ship entered light speed and headed straight for the Zant system.