Kashyyyk - Through Passion I Gain Strength

Deep within the Shadow Lands of the Kashyyyk surface a few men armed themselves in search of artifacts they could perhaps bring back for a few more credits. Though they had grown desperate in search of these treasures, and while their research perhaps brought them to the correct worlds. They just weren't necessarily good at their path in life. Fueled by motivation to not get a real job, yet held back by mere cowardice. These five men all wielded blaster rifles of various choices, yet not a single one had truly been the cause of death of something they met along the way in their travels. The captain of this team often referred to simply as Sir was currently over-looking some loot he found on a corpse just a little way back. While that was odd enough, the fact he didn't take into account what made that corpse was just slightly more.

While many things in these lands could slay these adventurers, and most likely would there was one thing that didn't quite belong. Yet existed regardless. But this thing wouldn't make the first move as it knew these parts well, and it had almost become a pattern now. The local Wookiee tribe had an odd tendency to breed madclaws. Not necessarily on purpose though but some repeating occurrence in the tribe led to many eventually going 'mad' and using their claws. Perhaps the loss of their children to the abnormal organism that was known to stalk these lands lead to it, or maybe just some other reason. It didn't matter as yet another exiled Wookiee preyed upon these men like simple meals. But what hunted this Wookiee wasn't bigger or stronger, nor did it really know these lands to the same extent, it had one thing over it. True passion for the prey's death.

Unknowingly the men continued until one man at last spotted an abnormality, perhaps a sign that venturing this place probably wasn't the greatest idea. Of course they would see it differently.

Man: "Sir..."

Captain: "Not now."

Man: "Sir..."

Captain: "Not now!"

Though despite the captain's unwillingness to pry his eyes from the few things he found earlier, he was soon forced to by the excited man. Though these treasures were soon meaningless as he stared forth to what hung from the tree. No, it wasn't some mutilated corpse or anything. But exactly what they desired. Hanging from this tree was a fairly large traveler's bag most likely stacked with resources such as credits, medpacs, and whatever else. A great find for when traveling but not a single one questioned why it was without its primary owner. Sending one of their men up to bring it down to them the madclaw exile quickly made its strike. Though not the swiftest or most silent creature to exist it managed enough to quickly use its claws to tear into the back of one the men's neck. Pretty much tearing the life from him with one strike.

The Wookiee seemingly shrugging off any blaster fire he received he continued to quickly dispose of his prey. The swiftness of his claws was almost exciting as the large beast simply smacked each one down. Aiming at vital areas such as the throat and heart it did not seem to be interested in making it’s enemy hurt. But merely in the fact that they were falling through his means. It didn’t point to anything other than the joy of the hunt, as it did not intend to use them as food. Just play-toys for the maddened beast as it turned away satisfied with its work.

Crouched within a tree high above this scene she stared down towards her own prey. Leaping out like a hawk lowering to grasp it’s dinner she landed a few feet behind it and in a swift motion along with the assistance of the Force she out-stretched her right hand and released a direct force push into the creature’s stomach. Pushing it out and onto its stomach she quickly grabbed a knife from her waist and plunged it down into the beast’s back. Followed through with a swift Force-assisted step onto the neck of the creature successfully paralyzing it.

With it unable to move she smirked lightly as she took her dagger in hand once more, and sitting down on it’s back she took it with the other hand by the fur on the top of it’s head.

”I wonder…what is running through your mind right now…”

Swiftly the blade ran through its throat and she stood once more, looking around. Sensing something abnormal, something that she had never sensed before. She looked around her surroundings silently trying to figure out what it was. Whatever it was though she kept her dagger drawn just in case.

Man and his faithful ethics
Intoxicated by the fruits of the earth
Diabolical fanatikism, so cold and grim
The perfect perversion, bestiality incarnate

Quietly, like the shadow of a rat, the Dark Lord made his way throughout the Shadowlands. So strong was his Aura of Uneasiness that no creature - not even the notorious mosquitoes of Kashyyyk - dared approach him. His sinister eminence was so malign, that the most feared creatures in all of this hellish jungle feared him as they feared the machines of these scavengers.

The child Dark Lord had landed on this planet, to seek a holocron supposedly left behind by Exar Kun. But... as the screams of creatures caught his attention, he at first suspected some wild creature killing one of these scavengers, but then... he felt a dark presence. At first, he thought it was Darth Lyllith, but... it felt not quite as developed. Premature, even, like an embryo of the Dark Side. This piqued his interest quite a bit, and he started in the direction.

And there she was... a young girl, about as old as he was physically. His glazed red eyes stared at her, examining every contour of her body... she was the spitting image of Desra. Her daughter, maybe... she had told him about Athena once.

He simply stared at her, without a word. He only wanted to look at her, and take in her thoughts... trying to analyze what it was he was looking at.

What drove a man to willingly venture within this endless struggle of a forest? What drove a boy no less to simply approach one surrounded by corpses and just stare? One that was certainly not new to this sort of scene. However that speculation wouldn’t lower her guard any, but rather encourage it. Within these lands it was very rarely not a situation of kill what you meet for they have the same desire of survival as you do. Though in a way this common desire created a sort of society among them. Where the weak die and the strong are killed by the stronger.

With her right hand she tossed her dagger out towards him aiming for the throat, and with a simultaneous force push from her left hand the dagger was launched quite quickly and with some power behind it. She wasn’t about to hold back on something that possibly wanted her head.

Though she wore an emotionless expression on her face, she stared at him with yellow eyes that were corrupt with the darkside. Yet she remained untrained in the arts. But she knew enough to keep her alive in these lands, and hopefully that would remain so.

Belial simply smiled as the first thought of such a craven attack entered her mind. Literally an inch from his face the dagger would halt in midair, completely still, as if suspended by an invisible thread. Instantly the force behind the dagger would be broken, as Belial simply snickered underneath his breath. Suddenly, though, the blade would compact in on itself under the might of Force Crush, being compacted and bent into iteself, until it resembled a small cube, that simply fell to the ground. Belial took another step forward, his eyes full of a mischievous glee.

"Surely you did not expect to kill me with such an amateur trick." Belial taunted, as he continued his advancement. "You know, you look just like your mother. You two share the same fire in your eyes, the contempt for life itself, and the same rebellious flair."

Continuing his advance, he would stop a good three yards away, staring deep into her yellow eyes with his false, red orbs. "It is a shame you are stuck down here, forgotten by the Galaxy, a mere speck of a memory in the mind of your mother... and less than half the size of a thought within the Jedi. Does it displease you, little Athena, that you were cast aside like the toy of an aging preteen?"

She was taken off guard by the mere ease he had destroyed her weapon, however she wouldn’t make this obvious physically. But that soon became irrelevant at the very mention of her mother. Who was this being? That appeared to know so much about her without her knowing a thing about him. However this too was soon replaced by anger and became nothing but an ignored truth to reflect upon later.

”Y-you…don’t know anything about me.”

The force slowly built up within her palms though she did not with this yet but rather speak once more.

”How dare you…”

Belial slowly laughed under his breath, his face twisting into an expression taking pleasure in her anguish. "Do you feel it?" he asked suddenly, sensing her anger. "The anger... the tool you have used to kill so many creatures. The feeling of the Dark Side merging its pulse with yours... it feels refreshing, doesn't it?"

Belial then took another step forward. "You like it. You like being angry... you like the feeling of the burning hatred in your heart. But that is all you know - the feeling. You do not know what to do with it, how to harnass it into an unstoppable force that would give you what it is you crave so desperately now, to kill me, and take pleasure in the taste of my death." He was now close to her, keeping his thoughts one with her to make sure that she didn't try anything.

"Your mother is alive, Athena. Alive, and well... she is serving under me, as a Sith Lord. Ironic, isn't it? She left you here, alone and afraid, as a Jedi... and then becomes the very thing she was going to raise you to fight. I would call it..." he said, bringing his hand to her cheek, in a sick way of adding to dramatic effect, "...poetic."

“For one who knows so much, he knows very little…”

Her anger had built up until the point into when anger was no longer truly anger, when that hatred building within your chest soon manifested into a sort of odd pleasure. Something that you would feed off and use to it your advantage until the very thing you desired destroyed was utterly annihilated. Though her eyes lifted into they met his own, it was not his death she truly desired. Merely a favorable side dish to the true meal she had in mind.

”I crave not your death, but my moth-…Desra’s.”

She couldn’t bring herself to refer to that woman as her mother, it simply felt wrong to her. One who merely abandoned her daughter for a life of something she enjoyed. It was just maddening to her.

”She never intended to train me to fight the Sith. The man who adopted me instead did.”

Belial chuckled, silently. Reverse psychology; by playing ignorance, she told him, herself, what she wanted. Of course. "Yet your thoughts tell me you do want to kill me... but Desra is the true target you have in mind. You are in no position, in your present state, to kill her, much less me. You do not even grasp the basics of the Dark Side, aside from anger, and the lust for death."

Belial lowered his hand from her cheek, and took a few steps to the side, staring down the path in the Shadowlands. "Look around you, Athena. You are just as much of an animal as those beastly Wookiees... you feed like they do, you fight like they do, and you live like they do. Tell me... what would you do to be free?"

"Almost whatever is necessary."

She was not the type to completely dedicate herself to someone she did not know, especially since he was the first person she had truly talked to in a great deal of years now. So making sure to specifically state she wouldn't necessarily do anything was simply natural in this case. Though she disliked the fact he apparently knew all about her, yet she knew next to nothing about him. Other than the fact he was the Dark Lord and that he was desperate enough to recruit Desra.

Belial nodded beneath his hood. This was exactly what he wanted to hear.

He turned to face the girl, and lowered his hood, revealing his thin face, with his dilated, glazed eyes, and pointed features - a staple of the Nagaian race. The ravages of the Dark Side were present in the form of an extremely exhausted look to him, and the fact that he looked like he hadn't eaten in weeks. His black hair was thin, with veins just faintly visible in his scalp. His cold, blue lips curved into a smile, almost like that of a brother to his sister. "My name is Belial... I have known your mother for years. Come with me, Athena... swear your allegiance to me, and I shall give you what it is you seek: The power of the Dark Side... with your hatred and anger, you will have the power to strike down your mother, and take your place at my side... a Sith Lord."

Using a telepathic message, an Imperial Lamda Shuttle lowered into a nearby clearing. Belial turned, and started heading towards the clearing, his cape trailing behind him. "Make your choice quickly, my dear."

She stood still for a moment watching his back as he left. Turning she looked back at what she would be leaving behind, and if she was prepared to start this new life. It had been a long time since she had been near civilization. She had lost touch with the Galaxy and what was occurring, though recently she felt a sort of burning in the Force. Not like the Force itself was being attacked, but something within the Galaxy had taken a large turn. Perhaps it was about time for her to face life once more. The half-human turned back to the Dark Lord and soon followed him. Letting her actions speak for her. Yet at the same time making no true deal. It was too early after all.

And so it begins.

The two got into the shuttle, which made for the Serpentine. Shortly after, the World Devastator gated for hyperspace. Her training - and indeed, her new life - would soon begin.

((CLOSED))