Darth Plagueis, part seven : How Obi-Wan secured himself a second Sith teacher, determinately ignoring every sign of his mentor affiliation
"My master was a seer", the twig confessed in a beckoning whisper, effortlessly catching his attention. Lately, Plagueis had mused what name the padawan would be given, if his master was still alive. Something linked to his wordcraft, surely. He was very good. Better than Sheev at his age, certainly, and still pliable enough to learn. His progress since their first encounter a year past was visible. The Sith did not acknowledge him as an apprentice or even an acolyte, but did not begrudge the padawan the knowledge he weaseled out of their meetings. The Muun bore the responsibility of their continuation and still called upon the twig when he was planet-side.
It had taken him some time to understand the dangerous game the padawan was playing, flaunting just enough to catch and keep his interest, ensuring his survival by dangling revelations. Careful to frame them in such a way that violence would serve no purpose in acquiring the truth, and timely in dropping tidbits at a regular enough interval it was not a tentation. A quick little thing with the most unusual surviving instinct Plagueis had ever witnessed. Too reckless to live long, surely, without either of his masters to shield him. Dooku had nearly been wrapped around his padawan when he visited following his liberation, the twig dutifully fussing over his Jedi master. Each aiming to compensate loss by clinging on a reminder. It explained why, while not unintelligent, the boy had started their dangerous acquaintance. The Sith did not wonder as often as he did in the past whether he should snap the twig neck and be done with the risk. He watched approvingly the calculated soft tone of his voice, the body language deference and eagerness, all little clues conveying the twig desire to please. Sheev had been the same at that age and, sharing a specie, the twig ruthlessly coasted through such remembrance.
He had instinct, in a way. Not careful enough to steer clear of danger, but daring enough to ingrate himself rather than be offed, and enough perception to pinpoint similarity to his first master. Enough talent to calculate a gamble and walk away from their meetings alive and wiser each time. A quality Plagueis shared and today inkling on this other Sith line promised to be interesting. He tilted his head on the side, silently conveying his desire to hear more, tea swirling in his cup. The twig tea, which he had brought in after a few meetings of poking at his shielding then at Plagueis tea, then, with a total lack of survival instinct, at estimating how much tea he could ingest before he lost control of his words. Not a lot, considering human frail stature. At the conclusion of his process, the twig had offered his own tea, a finding of one of his forebearer and a surprising trade. The twig had evidently gauged him by then and shifted the play to a mercantile exchange, one that Plagueis had accepted with some amusement.
Unsurprisingly, the twig was too canny to attempt a poisoning and the mixture he had proffered instead sharpened focus in hard corners. Dichotomies useful to drive one Sith forward in a fight, with the risk of recklessness, but the reward of greater acumen in the Force. No hindrance for any Sith worth their salt as the assortment only increased a daily fight Plagueis had led for decades now. A benefit, even, as it reminded of its existence and as such diminished the risk of unthought action. A remarkable assortment, certainly, which led to an interesting discussion about biochemistry, midichlorian and dosing. The twig had known very little and listened raptly, highlighting once again his shortened training. That brew was a cunning invention proving Leia talent and barely a few generations later such knowledge had failed to reach what was at most her student student, or maybe her lover student.
That particular conversation had left a strange aftertaste in Obi-Wan mouth. He had originally dished out Leia tea because he was sick of having to watch the quantity of tea he ingested and of the pointed looks of the banker on his tea cup. He could have chosen Luke's, but that blend would have done nothing to crack out the Muun shell unlike Leia's unbalancing effects. It proved to be a miscalculation, because his host revealed an iron will, not once wavering under regular sips of Leia blend while he expounded an extensive knowledge of the art of drugging other beings. The Magistrate knowledge in that domain was not unexpected, because Obi-Wan dodged drugged haze with various success since their third meeting, but the depth of it had left Obi-Wan floored. Obi-Wan had switched a few powders in his time as Han student, dutifully followed the biology courses of the Temple, analytically dissected the impact of each blend of tea on himself then Jedi volunteers. He had not established link between esoteric aspects of the component and their efficiency related to Force-sensitive, analyzed to a molecular level a midichlorian or hypothesized on relation between recurrent component effectiveness in relation to inner Force currents amongst the body and differentiation between species.
He had spent most of the early evening flight to the Temple putting down the barebone of the Muun dissertation, the meal-time the aspects Obi-Wan needed to research because he had never heard of them beforehand, and when Master Dooku had filched him from the Archives to tuck him into bed, Obi-Wan was busy ascertaining which references he should borrow to develop his comprehension of the expounded knowledge. Three months later, Obi-Wan was the cause of another of Master Windu headaches, the subject of suspicion from the Temple guards, the partner of conversation for an enthusiastic healer and a bored but highly intelligent archivist, a sometime hailed in the corridors by Shadows toxin expert, and aware that roughly a third of the Magistrate knowledge about Force-sensitive body chemistry and drug impact on them was undocumented in the Temple. Obi-Wan easily shrugged off the shivers, because those were usual as far as the Muun was concerned, and channeled his fear productively in their next conversation. Magistrate Damask, when he finally politely ordered Obi-Wan presence to his building, was a brick wall until the padawan dished out Luke tea.
The second drug the twig presented was far less interesting than the first. Leia invention could be weaponized against nearly any being, but Sith and Jedi, whose conditioning about controlling emotion ensured them an immunity. It was a little marvel, whereas Luke invention would probably be decried even by Jedi. Some prodding of the twig led him to discover this blend was a teaching tool, to ease the newly turned into the Dark Side without the berserker phase Sith Apprentices experienced. A stealth agent, to sum it, of little interest for the Muun and probably the reason why the twig had so easily parted with it. It was also a not too discreet ultimatum demanding the developed answers of a long list of questions lest he would not disclose more interesting blends surely in his possession.
Maybe those guts and near instinctive settling into his role were what attracted the twig master in first place. The padawan had the determination needed to become a Sith and knew, without being aware of what he was, that he needed to improve, to further his abilities, lest he be killed. An apprentice without a master, stubbornly staying on his path despite not knowing where it laid or even was. Admirable in a way, and Plagueis itched to know how far he could go without a master, what sort of Sith he would shape himself as. Hego Damask had bargained a child from the Dark Side, in exchange of the child the Dark Side had took from him. He had raised Sheev and accordingly slated him as Tenebrous heir. He did not intend to gift another child to Bane line, not when it had taken much and given little excepted for his youngest and sole adopted child, one that even now Plagueis could feel Tenebrous shadow stealing from him. But the twig was not Bane child, but whatever line Han Solo had belonged too, and he would never be reached by that shadow. Plagueis would be but an imprint, a mention in a lineage that would not warrant to include further than him. Let the child have his pride in his mixed line, keep his belief in an inexistant balance, those were his, or maybe his line's, and certainly not Plagueis whose own beliefs he would keep for himself.
"In the domain of finance?" he asked, more a smokescreen than a true inquiry. He had monitored for decades the stock market and unless Solo was a small player making little waves it was more probable he had simply not dabbled in Plagueis chosen field. It was nevertheless an expected query by a banker but he was unsurprised to be met by the shook of the padawan head. "In the Dark Side. He had an impressive range of divination both in frequency and time-length." Plagueis reached forward, unable to stop this gesture and not too bothered by the interest it showed. By now, the twig surely knew, and would not have dangled that particular revelation without purpose. "What did he see?" he whispered, watching with the barest impatience the twig frown and hesitate before he sighed and said "An Empire. A Sith Empire, rising in less than a human life-time and crumbling in a quarter of that length, leaving only devastation in its wake". His body stilled, mind racing over the implications of this revelation. It rung true in the Force, a sound of victory for it surely meant the success of one of his plans. Jedi dead to the last, living kins rulers over all and past kins avenged for their spilled blood. But to end in the quarter of a century? To which fall, to which retribution would it expose both Sheev and his kin on Muunilist?
"How?" he whispered, mind racing with questions and implication their answers would bring. Infuriatingly, the twig gave none: "How did it rise? In the shadow of a looming war and the Republic incompetence. How did it fall ? The Emperor forgot excess of fear stall fear altogether." The twig chose to answer, revealing nothing much as was his whim but one Plagueis was unwilling to play around with, this time. "What of mine?" he barked, referring to both Muunilist and his kin, Sheev and his line. "Does the future matter so much for you, that you would plight your mind with its inevitability?" The young Sith replied in a bargain Plagueis would have applauded was he not so invested in a straightforward answer and had the twig not believed that future could be changed. He gestured toward Plagueis cup "have some" while his words still echoed. A threat and an offer ringing along the falseness of his statement and a trade he should not have attempted to make with his superior in the Force. Hego Damask had no care for the mixture invented by a weakling and spat as much. The twig did not react otherwise than checking his defensively pulled shield, his face cool and his eyes wary. "Luke insured the death of two Sith as his trial, both arguably more experienced than he was at that point" he rebuked and gestured to the tea in an ultimatum. Darth Plagueis had no care for whom that so-called Sith ancestor triumphed off, they were dead and gone in the same shadow that was now looming on his kin. He discarded the weakling mixture in a snarl, his presence rushing forward, tearing at the shielding. A maze of mirrors and mist and treacherous currents leading in endless useless circles which would have left him dizzy had he actually tried to follow them to their source after breaking the thin veneer hiding them from perception. Weak shields. No strength at all, merely misdirection and once past their illusion it was easy to reach down.
A sharp light blinded him, hard and merciless, unforeseen and strong. A strength unexpected from what at until then been a clumsy talented con-man. It collided with his own shielding, pierced its way through in a spiderweb of cracks, savagely slithered under then shattered its first layer of shielding before dissipating as quickly as it appeared, crashing uselessly on his second layer. His fingers squeezed harder the parasite neck when his back erupted in fire. Glowing blue-tinted sparks and he forgot the Sith remote. The twig had taken bringing him with him so frequently that its buzzing became usual and as such dismissed. He batted the offensive thing away with the back on his hand, but the remote did not bulge under the Force-push, steadily pouring out a torrent of Force-lightning. Crushing it did not prove more effective – the care put in building that thing was honestly impressing. His other hand fending off the stream of lightning, he pulled down his mask to bellow away the thing, imbuing his voice with the might of a Force howl echoing in his frame. The remote slammed into the wall in screeching protest, part of its shielding wavering – was that thing sentient ? It was emoting, how utterly fascinating – before it redirected its output from the stream of lightning to its shielding, the rage muting at the sparks puttering out.
The twig use of a Force-push to send him careening on the same wall was unforeseen, he was losing track of his opponents… The remote unleashed another stream on lightning from right above his head, which he shielded with difficulty, unbalanced by the pieces of furniture aimed for his head. A powerful outburst of the Dark Side staved off the remote back into its confine, along with another armchair and surprising his opponent by his yelp. For a heartbeat he had the time to consider the situation, the sprawled form of the twig rising on his forearms, his devasted reception office, the angry screech of the remote extracting itself from the wall and the senselessness, the danger of it all. He recalled to himself his Force presence, the telling thrum of the Dark Side betraying his allegiance – attacking a Jedi padawan in the middle of his office, what foolishness... – a truth that could not leave this room.
A brutal tug down unraveled another layer of his shields, the same one he had stretched outward previously then retracted with an added parasite. How had the human done that ? How had he mimicked his own Force presence so well Plagueis had not instinctively felt the dissonance ? He wavered on his feet at the unexpectedness of the attack, a blink sufficient for the twig to rise to its pitiful height, the tea pot hovering between them. "Drink ye damn tea, you evidently lack the control to do without" he spats, anger disforming his face, in a lowlife Corellian pronunciation which eased into a high class Coruscanti in the lapse of a sentence.
The human hand was clasped around the hilt of his lightsaber, his stance ready, and the remote hovered in an expectant immobility near his head. Plagueis could have slaughtered them. Hiding the fact would be unpracticable, but the deed would be easy. Keep the remote encased in a wall long enough to cut down the apprentice then seal it or blunder through its shielding, the only difficulty would have been to shield the fight from the Jedi by keeping track of his output. Easy and useless, for the twig knew what he was without ever forming the concept in his mind, knew how to behave and certainly better than to warn the Jedi of his own existence, of a mimicry of the Dark Side so perfect it told of intimate experience. The shards of the apprentice shielding laid around him, tattered and whimsical, illusions bouncing senselessly one on another, concepts such as finite not simply abstract as they were usually in the Force, but inexistant. There was no distinguishing Obi-Wan Kenobi from his shield.
Carefully, he took the handle of his floating tea cup and sipped the brewage, studying the kaleidoscope in the Force. The twig shielding had always been too responsive to be a built then maintained but ultimately extern structure. That his shield were imbued by his sense of self was always an evidence but from what he saw Obi-Wan Kenobi was his shield. He had not hidden behind a construct, he had built himself as a defense. Flickers of hums, flashes and imprints chimed and bellowed, decreasing into slow echoes. He had perceived them during the fight and dismissed them as a poorly aimed attack. But it wasn't. It was actually the human sense of self. A sense where he could not be discerned, hidden behind the presence of others in what should have been the very definition of his identity. What an horrifying fascinating craftmanship it was.
The echoes he felt now, uncovered by the lack of the protective layer he had skinned off, they were all Plagueis's. All things the twig had perceived of him and was now placing forth. The rest not so much hidden as not currently in use, faded behind familiar patterns. Terribly accurate analysis of Plagueis and marveling use of his opponent. The twig was an imitator, he understood that from their first meeting, but he was also a collector. Dissecting, flaying then wearing the very essence of those he had studied. He wore Plagueis like a glove, trains of the very thoughts he was currently entertaining in the privacy of his mind currently reflected in their base idea on frayed threads. He had only needed to know the tone of Plagueis sense in the Force to play his tune with what he already knew of him.
He could probably do so to others. That boy would be able to mimic any being, Force sensitive or not, he became sufficiently familiar with. That is what his master saw in him, Plagueis realized. Another way to immortality that did not revolve around transfer or supplanting but by imprinting. A replication of self. An utter impossibility from what Plagueis knew but as much as he hitched to study the phenomenon, the implications were far more staggering. What limits did that boy have ? To which heights would the Sith soar with him ?
Exhaustion hit him, encouraged by the flavor of the tea. It did not come as a surprise. Mania hadn't been something he had to concern himself with for over a decade and he had grown complacent. His act had been senseless, driven by the Dark Side and not by reason. He had lost control, the type of loss that made even experienced Sith vulnerable to any more rational than them at the time. He could have killed the twig, but in his state, the apprentice could have gotten lucky. And then, what would have happened to his kin? Unwarned of the danger, or unaware of its nature if his haste had silenced the only way to know what would befall on them.
"I still want that answer" he voiced, sitting on the couch, cradling the empty cup in a hand. "And I want your shielding technic", the apprentice snapped back in guarded anger. A reply quick enough he either had not given it any thought or much. It must have frustrated him to only peel two layers of his shields and not wreck his mind. That boy was a Sith to the marrow of the bone. And one who could craft the future to his wish if allowed to spread his wings. His master death had clipped them, but Plagueis wanted to see what he could become, wanted an hand in crafting that future even if only as a mentor. He eyed the bristling human, envisioning the sheer possibilities. His imagination came short. What a monster, he thought, reclining on his couch, what a marvel.