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III: Ordinary Beings
"We Sith are an unseen opposition. A phantom menace. Where the Sith once wore armor, we now wear cloaks. But the Force works through us all the more powerfully in our invisibility."
– Darth Tenebrous
Darth Phage looked up, closing his eyelids halfway to block raindrops. The clouds far above were heavy and laden, almost blackened by the amount of water they carried. The storm wouldn't stop anytime soon.
He and his potential apprentice were more than halfway through a three day camping trip to one of Kar'yith's northern landscapes. Vastly different from the level southern hemisphere, the north was dominated by forested mountain ranges. They weren't true mountains; Kar'yith never had a lively tectonic history and was a mostly flat, rainy planet. None of the formations were tall enough to have a snow capped peak.
Few could even stand out as more than jagged hills covered with trees, but the topography made for good hiking nonetheless. The bulk of this land was uninhabited, which meant the air was much less polluted and the rain was only mildly acidic.
Both of them stood on a flat natural outcrop, overlooking a green valley below. They had come so the girl could practice Force techniques that were too boisterous for their dwelling.
She had complained the whole trip, and wasn't intent on stopping now.
"I'm freezing! How I supposed to do anything in these conditions?" She hunched her head into her shoulders and rubbed her arms, forgetting the exercise.
She wasn't wrong about the temperature. Phage could have easily used the Force to keep himself dry, but he wanted to test his own endurance. The rain was cold, and the wind didn't help, but he didn't shiver.
Such minor sensations were meaningless to a Sith.
"Can we at least go back under the trees?" she asked.
"Stop wasting time. Focus more on the Force and less on physical distractions." This type of exchange wasn't new, and Phage never gave in to her whining.
Angrily, she spun and flung her arm forward to its limit, palm up. She unleashed a wide Force push that almost flattened the large bushes beside them, but they quickly sprung back up.
"Good. If this situation is making you upset, take advantage of it. Use your anger to call upon the Force."
She sighed. "My anger is gone, now I'm just cold."
"The discomfort is good for you. Either ignore it, or use it as motivation. Again."
"What kind of teacher makes a student train in these conditions?" she griped.
"One who's dealing with a pampered student."
"What if something happened? What if I slipped, or I fell the wrong way, or-"
"I suppose you'd have to deal with it, Miss Schnee." There was only a little bit of mockery in his voice.
It was enough to vex her again, and she rapidly punched at the air with her palms. The Force pushes she launched were weak, but they came as a barrage, knocking down the bushes as soon as they popped back up.
"Now why can't you do that all the time?" He didn't need to add the grin, but he did anyway.
She went back to her previous pace, flattening the shrubbery after a minute or so of preparation. She didn't try to hide her discontent, but Phage wasn't motivated enough to press the issue. Instead, he walked over to the edge, trying to look at the scenery through the pouring torrents.
The rain proved impenetrable for his eyes, and he didn't bother using the Force to assist. Instead, his idle thoughts turned to why they were both here.
This girl...she had so much potential. She radiated untapped, barely disciplined power. She had – according to her – experience in everything from war to financial engineering. She was quick, perceptive, smart.
But most of all, she was spoiled. Or so it seemed.
"Tell me about your father," he said suddenly.
"My father?" she replied, surprised.
He walked over to her so they could talk over the rain.
"He's the most important businessman and industrialist on Remnant. My—his company controls-"
"No. I mean your relationship with him."
She narrowed her eyes. "It wasn't good. That's all I want to say about it."
"Didn't you say you had a supportive older sister?"
She looked away wistfully. "She wasn't around when I needed her."
"So no role models," he said, mostly to himself.
"Role models? Is that what this is about?"
"It seems you were given money in place of discipline. Or parenting in general, for that matter."
She clenched her fists and glowered at him. "I will have you know that my father was quite the disciplinarian."
"Doesn't seem to have helped."
"Why? Because I prefer a refined lifestyle instead of climbing all day and training in the freezing rain?"
"You can barely prepare a meal for yourself."
"Because I never had to! How is that my fault? And what does that have to do with my parenting?"
Phage waved his hand to dismiss the conversation and returned to his previous position. He clasped his hands in front of his chest and pulled himself into the Force. He rarely meditated, but now was a good time.
He could feel her usage of the Force to ensure she was still practicing, but he ignored her otherwise.
For a Sith, choosing an apprentice was a crucial matter.
An apprentice could be a tool, a slave. They could be sent to accomplish missions or perform research to free the master's time. Although a Sith diluted his power by sharing it, giving it to a trusted individual also sworn to the Sith allowed the benefit of two minds to consider problems without risking too much. But far more important was the duty to the Sith Order, to the Dark Side.
No Sith wanted to be killed, to be replaced. But the reality was that most could not escape death, could not become gods. Almost all Sith could extend their life by swathes, especially with access to the right knowledge. But raw, base potency in the Force was much harder to increase, and that was the real goal. The ancient Sith, numerous and divided in ideology, used magic and tricks to preserve their spirits more or less forever, but eternal sleep with no power was rather pointless, in fact humiliating. Hence, the ancient Sith had by and large either created their own idiosyncratic tricks, in search of something better, or foregone the process entirely and died when their time came.
The Dark Side required sacrifices in exchange for its power. With the humble knowledge of their own mediocrity in mind, the Sith Order took apprentices they knew may one day succeed them. This, Darth Phage reasoned, was the sacrifice they made to the Dark Side. In time, over generations of apprentices becoming greater than their masters, incarnations of the Dark Side would arise – Vitiate, Sidious. In exchange for their part in this process, the numerous Sith along the way would experience the immediate power of the Dark Side of the Force – the ability to tap into the connection between the universal Force and their own emotions: the ability to truly feel, to truly live as a sentient being.
Taking an apprentice was one of the most important events for a Sith, perhaps second only to killing their Master and taking the mantle themselves. Traditionally Sith Masters would delay for some time, a decade or more, following their own designs and enjoying a life unencumbered. But knowledge, somehow, begs to be shared, if only as a boast of how much one has. The desire to teach is strong.
The ideal Sith apprentice is the ideal Sith, but young and without ability. She should have a fundamental desire for power, a primal entitlement for it, even if she doesn't blatantly show it. She should have a deep seated rage, perhaps from real or imagined injustice, perhaps from nature, which would espouse her to the Dark Side. A serious applicant for the mantle of Sith Master should be intelligent and perceptive. And, of course, she must possess great raw power in the Force.
The list of disqualifiers was long. A powerful yet unintelligent person was useful but a dead end, and unsatisfying to train. Some people appeared to lust for power, but this was merely a façade they created in harsh circumstances. Some people were strong in the Force and wanted power, but were too fragile in one way or another to become a worthy Sith.
Taking the wrong apprentice could be disastrous: a decade or more of a Sith Lord's time and effort wasted on a corpse. Every Sith Lord would fight his utmost when the time came. In vanity and primal fear of death, most masters would have concealed some knowledge or trick which they would reveal at that time for an advantage. But as tempting as life is, the idea of an apprentice actually being killed at the last moment was quite distressing. The Sith Lord would have to start all over again.
The Jedi Order would abduct children, as young as possible, to train them before they had any knowledge of the galaxy and its realities. This was the only way to make sure the students would reject their own personhood for the Jedi's absurd logic of self-denial. The Sith preferred to find candidates who had already experienced the cruelty of the galaxy and had come to their own conclusions on it. This was the best way to see the candidate's true personality, and their potential. At the same time, a being too old and too knowledgeable was unideal as well. Their worldview would be too well developed; they would have their own ideas about things and would be set in their ways. Occasionally, beings of similar power had met in the master/apprentice relationship, and inevitably it failed. Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma were the archetypical example, but there were many more. It was best to find a young adult, someone who had enough time to perceive the galaxy and demonstrate their potential, but who could still be taught.
Weiss Schnee, so far, looked like a good prospect.
She was powerful, incredibly so. She was smart, when she allowed Phage to see it. She came from wealth and seemed spoiled, but on closer inspection her pompousness could be a front to cover up insecurity. The giveaway was that she could act entitled, but didn't display any hesitation to work and improve. She wanted to prove herself. She was whiney, but not weak. Someone truly spoiled would break down and give up under the stress of her training. They would curl up and plead for mercy under such a new and harsh experience. But Weiss Schnee was already used to it. She groaned and complained, but she wasn't overwhelmed. She was just annoyed at having to do it.
He could work with that.
Exasperated, she threw both hands directly into the air, conjuring a dome-like wave that pushed the falling rain above her to all sides. Standing a couple meters away, Phage was splashed.
She cupped her mouth and quickly apologized. Had she done it on purpose, he would have punished her severely. Instead, he just shook his head.
Weiss couldn't hide the mix of fear and disgust on her face, though she also didn't try. The tentacled creature on her plate continued to move, its appendages dangling off the edges. It was a delicacy called Mon Calamari – or maybe it was from a place called Mon Calamari, she wasn't sure – and the only reason Weiss pressed on was because it seemed quite expensive.
Phage and Weiss were in one of Kar'yith's higher end cafes, though Weiss thought all of them had a similar atmosphere. Going out to eat and talk all day was common. Phage always seemed to have many things to do, but he could always devote the lion's share of time to their escapades. The details of exactly what allowed him to have so much free time were still beyond her.
Over the past four months, Weiss had concluded Phage's magic monk persona (there wasn't really a better way to describe it) was real, and not just some long con to exploit her. Their arrangement was fairly simple. She had a room in his rather uninspiring, dirt floored, farmstead-esque residence that was also directly off a major (also dirt) road in a densely populated city center (Kar'yith, Weiss reasoned, had no law or structure and thus no zoning to ensure tasteful building arrangements). He provided food, market trips for unfashionable clothing when needed, and covered all expenses of life.
Her end of the bargain was to learn and train, along with a series of household chores she had to do. Phage represented the 'Sith Order,' a secret society of ambiguous purpose other than exploring the Force. He assured her there was much more, but, naturally, it was all a secret. Weiss, he had explained, was essentially on a trial run to join the Order.
She didn't enjoy the training. It was grueling at best, and Phage's teaching methods were often…harsh. But she enjoyed the monastic, focused lifestyle. She had spent her childhood planning how she would get away from – or perhaps fulfill - her obligations and live her own life. Things weren't very different when she finally made it to Beacon. Remnant's chaos consumed her planning, and her family issues were always one step behind her. The pressure of the Schnee name, of course, couldn't be escaped at all.
The difference was nice. Every day, the same slow traffic commenced outside her window, going back and forth along the wide, sandy paths in a leisurely droll. Kar'yith's people didn't live in fear or learned resignation, always preparing to hear of friends and loved friends massacred in border towns or in transit between the Kingdoms. It was like a place frozen in time, a screenshot from a rustic Vacuo fairy tale about a world without Grimm.
That peace extended to Weiss. Her new situation reminded her of the stories her mother used to tell her when she was little, about heroes who retreated to some secluded place and lived a simple life, learning profound truths or acquiring great power in the process.
She had no burdens here. No big goals. No one knew who she was or cared to find out. She wasn't worried about whether her life would revolve around her father in some way or another, or whether she would survive Remnant's hellish conditions long enough to find out.
The separation from Remnant felt a bit like a death. This place was just so different, so new, so quiet. Thoughts of getting back were always at the back of her head, but for now they stayed there. She had a peaceful, serene life, physical factors aside. It was very relaxing, and somewhat liberating.
Nevertheless, she was still trapped. She was aware of that. The simple structure Phage provided was intoxicating in a way, and sometimes she wondered if she was lazy for going along with it. He made it clear that she could leave whenever she wanted. But, with no ability to find her way around the world outside, there wasn't anywhere for her to go.
And what Phage offered was fascinating in its own right. The things he taught her were real, and she was learning. She was growing her powers, yet in an entirely new format. The 'Sith' didn't seem very impressive at first - recruiting homeless runaways in shantytown alleys – but what Phage showed her behind closed doors was undeniable.
Darth Phage flicked the green holographic rectangle in front of him to the right with his finger, causing the next in line to scroll forward. This one detailed new agreements between the corporate cartels that dominated Mid Rim hyperspace routes, trying to collude for mutual profit. The exact terms of the contracts were unannounced, but Phage had seen the development coming for some time. The galactic conglomerates behaved on a pattern; they would only work together in mutual corruption for so long before they turned on each other once more, and after costly price wars and legal battles the process would repeat. He swished the bulletin to the right.
Galactic news was always uninteresting for an erudite who kept up with it, because one knew what to expect. Most people in such a position would inject thrill into the activity by gambling and investing, but Phage merely stayed informed, as tedious as it was.
He glanced at the time. Weiss should be ready by now.
Phage's residence on Kar'yith was little more than a few small rooms connected by hallways and a larger, domed one – the 'arena.' All the floors were dirt. It was modest, but normally enough for his purposes.
After all, who would expect to find a potential apprentice here?
Phage saw the girl carefully set a cup down with the Force as he entered. It was good she had been warming up. Without a word, he waved his hand in front of him, lifting a collection of crude constructions previously along the wall over to Weiss. He arranged them in a row in front of her, and she scowled in recognition.
They were makeshift pole stands, each one composed of tires and other objects forming a base for a thick, upright rod. Their tight grouping only allowed a small amount of space between each one.
She picked up a blindfold that rested on top of one of them and drew her sword to begin the familiar exercise. It was simple. Blindfolded, she would use the Force to guide her blade between the rods without touching them, going all the way down before she carefully raised it and moved to the next gap.
The point of the exercise was to improve her coordination when using the Force. Phage subtly shifted and rearranged the poles throughout the exercise, sometimes making them shake and otherwise making it more difficult.
The original exercise they had done was very different. She had stood in the middle of the large room, blindfolded, while he raised rocks along the walls into the air and pelted her. She was supposed to use her sword to intercept and deflect them. It only took a few days of bruising for him to accept she was woefully unprepared for that, and he had invented this method instead. Sith training could be a learning experience for everyone involved.
As she started, he looked past the girl's movements and into the space, his thoughts turning to her curious identity. He never pried because it didn't really matter, but her backstory was very interesting. From the various explanations and odd questions she had provided, he had confidently determined she hailed from a prominent but abusive family and had trained at some sort of combat academy for a brief time. The rest was less than clear. Her account of the academy seemed to indicate it was for Force users, but her descriptions of the feats she and various others could perform were beyond all reason.
With barely a motion in his hand, he tilted one of the rods towards another just as she was bringing her blade between them. She let out a faint grunt as she avoided it, halting her sword and adjusting it before she slid the weapon down.
There was one anomaly that was especially peculiar – two Force techniques that she collectively called "aura." One was Force healing, a reasonably simple skill that many Force sensitive individuals had learned on their own. The other was more unique.
The girl was able to project a Force shield that contoured to her body like a fitted glove, even in movement. It was pitifully weak – barely able to stop a thrown stone – but the fact she could use the technique at all gave some credence to the rest of her story. But still, she was clearly never trained legitimately, and she had barely understood the Force when he found her.
He had felt her raw, unrefined potential when she arrived on Kar'yith, but he didn't know how long she had been transient before then. Considering how thin she was, he suspected it had been at least a few months. He guessed she had been thrown out of this combat academy and abandoned by her family. Perhaps she was embellishing the stories to impress him, or perhaps her experiences had traumatized her to the point she believed them. It mattered little. The girl could sort out her past herself, in time.
He shifted a pole again, and this time she wasn't quick enough. Its rugged edge caught her lower palm as her hands moved past it, leaving a bloody gash. She sneered, baring her teeth in frustration.
He resumed his musings. Her privileged background was apparent everywhere. She walked and moved with a posed grace, and had been trained in a formal fencing style that was developed enough to be mildly useful. When addressed with direct authority, her demeanor became shy and subservient, whereas a poorer, hardened girl would become confrontational. It had been a challenge to originally decipher her strange dialect and the thick accent that carried it, but he had devoted both of them to the task and they were now mutually intelligible. She spoke in a well-heeled, schooled manner when she wanted to be formal, and carried a sizeable vocabulary to go with it. She was also capable of phrasing ideas and concepts in a careful, political way, or aiming her words to try and persuade an audience.
She started to slow down. She was shifting her wounded hand around, changing her grip as she moved her sword. It was evidently bothering her.
Besides those hints, she was no different from any other young runaway. She carried a mature cynicism that jarred with her background. It had taken her months to start trusting his intentions and feeling comfortable. She seemed to enjoy the rigid, structured life he gave her, once again unusual for a privileged girl. He could tell her life had been very stressful before. Now that her fear subsided, he was beginning to see more of her personality come out. It was melancholy, but not defeatist. Quite the contrary; she was quite determined and spirited.
Finally, she stopped the exercise, leaning her sword up against one of the poles. The flesh wound was no longer just distracting her, it was consuming her attention.
"I didn't tell you to stop."
"Wait. Let me try to heal this."
Immediately, Phage wanted to lift her a solid meter off the ground, to hold her up by her jawbone with the Force. She would grimace as the rest of her body slowly swung under her, its entire weight pulling on her spine. He would progressively choke her, just to make things a little more panicked, a little bit worse. The idea here would be, with so much stress on her spine, jerking her body could kill her. The only safe way to address her predicament would be to stay calm and still, and she had to overcome her discomfort to do that. She had to fully accept the pain – she would suffer beautifully until she did.
He dismissed the idea. He knew there was no point in torturing her. He had responsibility as well. This girl's well-being was entirely in his hands, and he controlled every aspect of her life. It would be easy to go too far, to abuse her beyond what was necessary. A Sith should use the Dark Side, not be controlled by its worst excesses. He forced the Dark Side's sadism down like wrestling a beast to the ground. It was not out of any meaningless morality; it was to reassert that he was the Master, and the Force was his tool.
Besides, he didn't want to scare her away.
As she rather pathetically tapped and blew on her wound, Phage approached. "The world around you will always try to control you, to ensnare you." He tilted his head up, studying the ceiling as he spoke. "It will rarely force you to do what it wants. Instead, it will convince you, trick you. Your senses will undermine you. Your mind will betray you. A barbed fence will halt you with minor pain; the tearful, pleading eye of a defeated enemy will deter you with abstract emotion. The world will always turn your feelings and sensations against you, to deny you."
He stopped and waited until she looked up, signaling her full attention.
"None of it exists; not the world, not your interpretations and reactions to it. There is no ambiguity; there is only passion. There is no hesitance; there is only strength. There is no obstruction; there is only power. There is no denial; there is only victory. There is no purpose in life. No meaning and no goal. There is only the Force!"
Drawing on the rise he had purposely given himself, he reached out with the Force and healed her hand. By itself, the Dark Side was usually incapable of true healing, but it was good enough for a flesh wound.
She examined it, unsurprised at the display. "But didn't you say I should take advantage of pain and negativity, and use them for power? So shouldn't I want to always experience emotion? Immerse myself in it? Wasn't that the point of the Sith?"
He shook his head. "You're still stuck to external, structured ways to look at life. The Dark Side is not some kind of top-down order you can pull an answer for every situation from. Social beings like humans are weak creatures who like to follow rules, even if they don't realize it. So they anthropomorphize the Force. They make it into a ruleset they think they have to follow. Look within yourself instead. Do you want to feel pain, right now? Do you want to be distracted, right now?"
"No."
He nodded. "Then don't. There're no hypocrisies, no logic traps. The Dark Side is about doing whatever you want, whenever you want. Remember that."
