Daughter did not lie. It was not in her nature. And yet, for the first time in her existence, she withheld the truth.

Time did not pass here as it did beyond. Here, they did not age, they did not grow. Seasons passed in a day, night cycled as Father willed it.

She'd felt it first seventy four of Father's night cycles ago. An… intrusion. A pressure in the back of her mind, a weight of another's will, like her Father's when he commanded something of her. But this weight held no command. It was simply… there, then gone again, pressing in and out of existence seemingly at random. An oddity, but one Father made no mention of the next day, nor Brother, so she said nothing. Then it came again, night cycled after night cycle, presence lingering longer than before each time it appeared.

On the forty sixth day, she heard it, a faint energy reverberating into her mind, taking shape and forming a soft cry of, "Daisy."

Again, she watched Father to see if he heard it, again, he gave no indication. It was not uncommon for him to withhold information, particularly from Brother. She would follow what he thought best. Surely he knew by now. Nothing escaped Father's notice here, he controlled every aspect of the Force, she and Brother included. Surely he felt the intrusion more keenly than even she.

The voice returned. Now It came on a schedule, though it had no bearing on the time as Daughter experienced it., she could sense the routine. Thrice a night cycle, the pressure would mount deep in her skull and the energy of another would carve itself room within her to rest. It would offer and urgent call for "Daisy", wait for a time, and then recede. The routine became something of a comfort. It had been so long since she felt the energy of someone beyond… simply sharing the Force with them brightened her existence, lending her strength to match her Brother's concerning ascent in his own power.

On the seventy third day, Father let the chosen one in, and in the crack he'd opened to Mortis, another came through, though not quite so literally as the chosen one himself.

The Force of the intrusion nearly knocked her from the monastery's spire, her own energies suddenly screaming, vibrating, teeming and bursting as they rebounded with another's, moving frantically within her as the vessel. She clung quickly to the rooftop, newfound strength pushing her fingers through the plate, crunching it in her first.

"Who are you?" She asked the buzzing inside of her. Somehow, she knew it was a who.

The buzzing did not answer.

Daughter took a breath to steady herself, eyes fluttering closed. The Force guided her free hand out, stretching into the empty air. With another breath, she released some of the pressure within herself.

The glowing outline of a young woman rose in the space Daughter willed. She twisted around, shimmering limbs leaving a faint trace in the air, as if surprised to find herself in this space. A delayed beat, and the surprised filtered into Daughter's own consciousness, though distant, transmitted from somewhere far away.

"Who are you?" She asked once more.

The young woman's shimmering, golden outline regarded her. "Kora." Her arms crossed. "Who are you? Where is Daisy?"

"I am Daughter." She tilted her head. "I do not know Daisy. But I have heard you calling for her."

Kora's irritation washed through her, and she swung a wide arm out at the space around them. "How am I here?"

"I do not know. But your energy feels like mine. Do you feel me as I feel you?"

"Like there's a second brain in my skull? Yeah. Got better when I appeared here." She gestured at her glowing form.

Daughter hummed. She did not feel emotions as those beyond did, the Force ebbed within her, strong emotions swept away in its tide, but this being's energy added a sharp clarity to the churning tide. She was… curious. "You called to me. Why?"

"I wasn't… Look, I wasn't aiming for you specifically. My sister, Daisy, she disappeared. The nerds built a thing to track her, and I'm able to… I don't really know. You said you heard me, though." She shrugged her shimmering shoulders, then took a step forward. "I can feel her here, Stronger, now. She's in your universe, somewhere."

"You are not?"

"Doubt it."

Daughter felt her Brother, prowling close to her tower. He could know of this, another universe to escape to. It was his nature. She must protect him from it. "I must go. It isn't safe. Call for me again, later."

"Wait-" a shimmering head stretched toward her, blurring, faint golden shimmers falling to the ground, losing all shape as Daughter released her will.

Kora's energy returned the next night cycle. Daughter willed her into shape once she confirmed her Brother was off with Father, surely discussing the future of the Chosen One in their midst. Daughter had… reservations. Father believed in this Chosen One, Skywalker, a human who was fortold in prophecy to bring balance, but Brother had searched for those prophecies. He'd found the Sith's version of a grand Sith'ari. He'd confided this to her, his dreams and ambitions to seek out this Sith'ari, this Chosen One, that perhaps, if they were one in the same, they could share them. Daughter wanted little part in it,

Daughter knew the prophecies, neither brought balance. Surely Father saw that balance did not come through absolute control. One savior imposing his will for one side of the Force or the other did not bring balance.

And yet, as she willed Kora into shape before her, she couldn't help the distant idea of this woman from another universe being the Chosen One of prophecy. Perhaps there were always meant to be two, both the Sith and the Jedi gravitated to the number. One for her Brother… and one for her.

She pushed the thought away. Today would go as the Force willed it. She would not let old fanciful ideas from beyond twist her nature.

"Kora."

"Daughter." She huffed. "How come I can only appear when you want me to?" This being was impatient. A common trait among chosen perhaps?

"I am the only one of my kind who can feel you. I suspect no one else in this universe can, if my Father cannot." She eyed the shimmering form. "I suspect you're energy is too weak to form across this distance." She saw the way the flecks of golden energy bristled, buzzing faster, a moment later, agitation, anger flickered in the back of her mind. She savored the feeling, brief as it was before she let the Force sweep it from her. It was not her nature to yearn… "I can feel you, when you reach for me, and I guide you into shape, though I am not powerful enough to reach back."

Golden shimmers settled into a soft, lively buzz, down from the frantic beehive of movement. "So I'm stuck with you… great."

"Yes," she said simply. "Did you intend to reach for anyone you could find until you located your sister?"

Kora's embarrassed silence answered for her.

"I am trapped here. But my Father has let others in. I will ask them."

"Thank you."

Daughter inclined her head. She intended to keep speaking, she had many question to ask, but her Father's call pulled her will, and Kora's shimmering form dispersed once again, even if the energy in her did not.

Daisy did not panic easily. She was trained better than that. But waking up weightless, floating in something cold... Flashes of an empty field of stars and the wreckage of a ship surrounding her played in her mind. Her breath came quick. Her powers pulled in a tight bundle around her. Something had her by the face, the neck, trying to pull her back. She wrenched herself forward and pushed with a yell.

Her body hit a hard floor, and something sliced into her palms as she caught herself.

The pain grounded her, the horrible sunken, full feeling in her ears fading. She could hear a frantic beeping somewhere. Yelling. Then warm hands were on her and... She felt her before she even registered what she was saying.

Breha... Breha... She was safe. Her tight bundle of vibrations faded away. She took a deep breath, looking up to hold Breha's worried gaze, trying to stabilize her frantic heartbeat.

She felt herself pulled into a tight hug the moment their eyes met. Warm arms wrapped around her tightly and refused to let go. She melted into the touch and let the steady mechanical ticking of Breha's heart wash over her, grounding her back in her own body. Here. In this time. In this universe.

The surgeons kept Breha awake for part of the operation after her accident as a child. She'd watched them put instrument after instrument inside the gaping wound in her chest with a morbid, disembodied fascination, despite their insistence that she didn't actually have to watch them cut into her. When they'd brought Daisy in, she found that she couldn't. One glimpse of PFC Molnata striding ahead and clearing the halls with the rest of her guard pushing Daisy's battered body along on a gurney had been enough for the image to sear into her mind forever.

She withdrew from her council meeting when the first report of Daisy's health came in. It was worse than she could have imagined. The amount of fractures and... And shear bone loss that the doctors couldn't even explain said she shouldn't have been able to move. The ruptures to her blood vessels and massive tears in organ tissue said she shouldn't even be alive. No one could give her an answer as to why.

Breha remembered her mother's teachings. Alderaan long believed in pacifism, as Queen, it was her duty to represent her people's desire for peaceful intervention, and yet, know when to act to preserve the ability to remain pacifist. Only now did Breha understand how someone would deliberately want to cause pain to another.

Someone tortured Daisy. How? Her doctors didn't know. Nothing they knew of could cause the sheer amount of damage to Daisy's body without a single sign of external force. And now, they were trying to play with her mind. If Daisy found out how they used her against Bail... Breha ordered the news deleted the moment it reached them. The curious crystal the doctors dug from underneath Daisy's skin hidden in her vanity drawer.

But now, she had Daisy in her arms. Safe. Healed. They'd worried the bacta tank might not heal her, or cause complications. It was hard to say without knowing exactly what Daisy was. Her genetic markers were nigh indecipherable at a certain point. Mostly human, but what if that small percentage of other rendered her allergic? In the end, they decided to take the risk. Daisy's... Panic attack for lack of a better word, surprised them. She never spoke much about what happened before she arrived, but the pure fear in her expression as she wrenched herself through the glass of the tank, shattered the whole thing with a wave of vibrations that sent the nearest doctors stumbling back... She shook her head and gently pried the mask, no longer connected to the oxygen supply, Daisy wrenched the tubes out of their socket in her fight to escape, from Daisy's face.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

Breha's heart stopped in her chest. She gripped Daisy's biceps, keeping her from shrinking on herself and pulling away, she'd given up on appearing decent long ago. This level of touch wouldn't raise more of an eyebrow than sitting on the floor in a sopping wet, bacta stained dress. "Do not apologize."

"But-"

"No buts. None of this was your fault, Daisy."

She nodded, but her eyes found the space between her eyebrows instead of her eyes. Breha squeezed Daisy's arms tighter. "It wasn't your fault," she said more firmly. "You ensured Padme's safety. You made sure she returned to the Senate in time to call for peace." Daisy's eyes finally slid back down to find hers. "I... I hated every minute you were gone," she admitted softly. "I couldn't stand the thought of what they were doing to you. But you survived. You kept everyone safe. And I am so, so, proud of you."

Daisy's throat bobbed, and then she was the one pulling Breha into a desperate hug. Breha's hands found her back, rubbing gentle circles as she squeezed her just as tight.

"Oh good, you're back."

Daisy smiled as she looked up from her data pad. That blunt vaguely disinterested voice could only belong to one person. "Sup."

"I would have been very angry if you died before I got answers from you," Sialvi Tos said briskly, dropping herself on the foot of Daisy's bed and tossing a small satchel at her.

Finally, someone who wasn't treating her like she was liable to keel over any second. The bacta tank had worked wonders, even after her impromptu escape from it... She was basically fine. That didn't stop Breha from posting Molnata outside the door to her room to monitor her. It rankled in an uncomfortably familiar way. Like quarantine post San Juan all over again, but something in Breha's face when she'd snuck out the first time had her grumpily complying. Something happened while she was gone, and it had Breha on edge. She didn't have the heart to make it worse just yet. Not that she didn't try to snoop in a way that wouldn't give her heart palpitations. She'd never been one for sitting idly.

Snatching the satchel from the air, Daisy dug around inside. She found another data pad, some chandrillia tea, sweets, and... Right. She should've seen this one coming. "Who forced the tea and sweets in?"

Sialvi sniffed indignantly. "I did that on my own, thank you. Just because I do not care to expend my energy playing to social niceties does not mean I am entirely unaware of them." She paused, tilting her head. "I've also noted an increase in your productivity when plied with caffeine and sweets."

She couldn't help her grin. Sialvi might try to deny it, but they were totally friends. She took out the small vial and set it on the nightstand beside her bed without looking at the silvery bead inside. It felt disgusting enough as it was. The data pad followed. "Then you should know that sweets and caffeine come first."

"Of course."

Sialvi got up to make the tea in the little kitchenette in Daisy's suite. When she returned her face was much more considering. "I fail to see why Breha won't allow you to join me in the lab. You are aware and alert."

Any chance of getting answers to Breha's stress from Sialvi went out the window. Not that she expected much. For anyone else, it would be downright hard labor to avoid as much palace gossip as Sialvi managed to. For her, it came as natural as breathing.

"I'd like to see you try to convince Molnata to let me out."

Sialvi made a face. Daisy just snickered and sipped at her tea. "How's the droid project coming? Have you managed to route the if statements for pain dependencies?"

Sialvi opened her mouth and... Paused. She dropped her laser-like eye contact down to the tea in her cup. "Yes."

"Okay," Daisy groaned, sitting fully upright. "That's some bullshit. Just ask me what you want to ask me."

Her eyes snapped back to Daisy's. "The substance in the vial, what is it?"

Sighing, Daisy reluctantly reached over to snag the vial she set on her bedside for later. A single silvery bead hung suspended in nothing inside. "This... Is Gravitonium. Native to my home planet. I actually don't think it's been found anywhere else..." At least, she assumed from the Confederacy's desperation they couldn't get it anywhere else. Maybe other planets with Gravitonium were too powerful to strong arm into a deal like the one they made with Earth.

She twisted he glass tube between her fingers observing the small bead inside as it hung unnaturally still. She swallowed. The first time she'd seen it, it thrashed and whirled on itself, a dangerous ball ready to swallow anything near. The last...

"It's dangerous," she warned, careful not to outright demand to lock it away. She knew scientists. They'd treat danger with a healthy level of wariness. They'd treat locking a potential scientific advancement away to rot as challenge. She hoped Jemma could feel her side eye across the universe. Or wherever she was. "I small quantities like this? I've seen it flip..." She searched for a second for the nearest equivalent to an 18-wheeler, "like those big domestic cargo speeders? I've seen it send one flying. And in large quantities... I've seen it eat people."

"Eat people? Elaborate." Sialvi didn't shy back an inch from the awful reality of what they were working with. In fact, she leaned in, propping her chin on her hand.

"Don't ask me how it works, I don't know. But the last scientist who ran tests on it got... Absorbed. A part of him is in this little bead. So is the man who almost killed me." She swallowed thickly. Maybe that would enforce a heavy suspicion. Maybe. She didn't care. She just needed enough to convince Sialvi to bury it forever. Something in Sialvi's face darkened. "The others who it took were part of experiments. Their consciousness is in there too. Four of them total, that I know of at least."

"Experiments to achieve what? I infer these experiments took place after it ate the first scientist. Why throw more bodies to feed it? Did they not think of using rats?" Her voice dripped with disdain. Oh, Daisy didn't doubt Sialvi might go too far with her science one day. Breha would stop it once she noticed, and Sialvi obeyed her Queen, but she likely wouldn't realize why she needed to stop. What she did care about was resource efficiency. Why jump straight to trials on sentients when rats would do.

Daisy realized she'd been silent for too long when Sialvi reached out to prod her leg. "Well?"

"They wanted to create a world killer..." she admitted, finally letting her mind settle on the topic she desperately wanted to avoid. A broken laugh ripped from her throat and something in her gut twisted. "Turns out… I didn't need the Gravitonium for that."

Breha's fingers trembled. "What…?"

"The Destroyer of Worlds," Lead Mechanic Tos repeated. She looked squarely at the floor. "That's what she said her title was."

"Daisy…" she breathed. Her head fell forward into her hands. They were in the privacy of her study now, she could allow such a visible response. Lead Mechanic Tos found her deep in the weeds of an education council meeting. She'd nearly turned her away, but the look in the woman's eyes and the realization that she must have just come from seeing Daisy told her she couldn't delay. The meeting continued without her, and they retreated here.

"Gravitonium, is what the material is called. They were using it to make someone as powerful as her. A world killer." Tos produced the vial containing the silvery bead and rolled it between her fingers. "A material capable of altering gravity and absorbing matter. She claimed four people's consciousnesses were trapped inside of this bead."

An awful roiling feeling burrowed deep in her gut. She felt like she might puke. What had Daisy done to earn that title? What had she had to do to make sure no one else could? Her hands shook as she pulled them away from her face, trying to compose herself. "Destroy it, if you can," she commanded quietly. "If you can't, lock it away. Hide it. Just… make sure no one can find it again. We'll keep our eyes out for it in the galaxy, just in case, but no one is to know that it exists. No one can know what it can do."

"Yes, your majesty." She clutched the vial tight in her hand. She started to leave, only just remembering to bow at the last moment, leaving her in a half leaned over state mid-scurry before disappearing through the door.

Breha took a shaky breath. She'd given the Republic a world killer, sent her right into the heart of a corrupt system that wouldn't think twice about using her to end this war by whatever means necessary. And now, the Separatists held her too.

What had she done?