My first confrontation with Garsh was…unexpected. Rather than me ambushing him in some dark hallway, he sought me out, catching me in a quiet corner of the archives.
I had been reading through a fascinating text on Alchemical mutations when I felt a presence in the seat opposite of me. Gaarurra startled from his position leaning against one of the bookshelves and reached for his sword but stopped when I raised my hand.
"Finally deigned to speak to me again, Garsh?" I asked, doing my best to keep my tone level while being quietly frustrated at his choice of location, "Or are you here to screw with my head again?"
Had we been somewhere more private, I might have been able to get away with trying to kill him right here and now. But the archivist on duty was only separated from us by a few shelves, so anything too loud would quickly draw unwanted attention.
Darth Rictus hadn't said it outright, but I doubted that he wanted me to get caught murdering the other acolytes.
"I know what you intend. What you have been ordered to do." The Shadow stated simply.
I wanted roll my eyes, but I decided that it was a better idea to keep them on him instead, "At this point, I think it's rather obvious. If that was all you sought me out to say, you wasted your time."
"You truly hate me, don't you?"
I was going to be generous and assume that was a rhetorical question. Because if that was a serious question then he was a blithering idiot that I would be doing the galaxy a favor by killing.
From the day I first used the Force, there had always been a little cauldron of rage simmering in the back of my mind. It was my fuel, carefully contained to keep from exploding out. For the first time in months, it was threatening to boil over.
He dared to ask that?! After what he did?!
"I abandoned you. Left you to them. To the darkness." He kept talking, either ignorant of the rage building inside of me or willfully ignoring it.
"Oh, do keep going. Tell me what else you did." I thought I heard something cracking, like glass that was gripped too hard.
Give me more reasons to hate you. To want to rip you apart with my bare hands. Keep pushing the buttons and see what happens.
"I gave you hope that things might not have been so bad. That you had allies on your side." He looked physically pained as he continued speaking, "I did nothing as you spiraled further and further."
Put everything on the table. I want to hear it all. Every little dark, secret thing you've done to me.
Garsh twitched, his voice strained, "And then, I…I twisted your mind. Forced you to forget. I'm so-"
"Enough." I snarled.
The Quarren's voice cut off with a gasp, his eyes going wide as he gasped for air. On his neck, invisible fingers were pressing indentations into his throat, cutting off his ability to breathe completely.
I stared at it for a moment, not quite comprehending how they got there. Only when I looked down did I realize that my left hand was curled into a loose fist.
I was using the Force to choke him.
Once I'd processed that, I gave honest thought to simply finishing it here. It would be one less dangerous enemy to confront and I'd managed to surprise him. Right now, he was helpless. All I would need to do was close my hand.
But as my rage gave way to more rational thought, I had to accept that it would be a poor decision. There were too many witnesses. Too many that saw him come this way, that had seen me come this way.
Reluctantly, I released my grip and the Jedi gasped in a breath of air, a hand flying to his throat.
"Not like this. And not here." I muttered, just loud enough for him to hear it.
Garsh, or whatever his name really was, was in no condition to speak.
"Look at me. What I've become." I gestured to it all. The yellow eyes. The pale, corpse-like skin. The cold machinery that made up half my face, "You could have stopped this. But you didn't."
I wouldn't absolve myself of my own involvement in my path. After all, I was the one who had chosen it in the first place. But I couldn't ignore the possibility that another path had existed without my knowledge.
And I couldn't ignore that I was angry about it. But I was too far along now, had invested too much to go back.
He could have said something. Done something. Anything!
He didn't move. Didn't say anything.
"Get out." I spat at the Jedi, glaring at him and daring him to contradict me, "Go back to your "disciples." See if you can fail them too."
Garsh fled without another word.
Coward.
I watched the spot he had occupied for few moments in silence. I heard the plodding footsteps before Gaarurra woofed a question.
"Yeah. I'm fine." I replied, my voice level again, "But they won't be."
I stretched out my will to the Shadow Demon, forcing open a telepathic channel between us, 'Is it done?'
'Your message has been delivered, Sorcerer.' The creature answered. It had been visibly and vocally insulted at being used as a messenger.
'Good. Return to me as quickly as possible. Things will be coming to a head soon.'
...
"That was…unexpected." Olia cautiously watched the spot where the Force Entity had vanished. In its place, there was a single datachip, "What was that thing? And how did it find us?"
"A Siqsa, or Shadow Demon. A creature conjured by Sith Sorcery," XoXaan commented as she reappeared. The ancient Dark Jedi had sensed the creature's coming before her student had and had concealed herself to avoid detection.
"As to how it located you, I must confess to a lack of knowledge. Sorzus Syn employed several of the monsters, but kept the fine details as closely guarded as she did with all of her other research."
Olia's gaze shifted from the datachip to XoXaan's sarcophagus, her eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion. The Shadow Demon's attention had lingered on it a touch longer than necessary to simply be searching the room for threats.
"Perhaps it possesses some manner of ability to track its targets through the Force," She proposed, "Like the Vornskr of Myrkr."
"Perhaps. Or its master has some means of locating you." XoXaan countered.
Olia acknowledged the point, resisting the urge to be contrary. Whatever the means, it was clear that she was no longer quite as hidden as she thought she had been, if she ever had been.
Picking up the datachip, she plugged it into her datapad and opened the only file present.
"Hello Olia. Having fun in the tombs?"
She very nearly threw the datapad across the room when Aldrex's grinning face appeared on the screen. A brief surge of anger at the kneejerk reaction forced her to keep hold of it.
"Jokes aside, we have a problem. One I believe you would be very interested in, given your former affiliations." At this, his smile widened slightly, "A little piece of information that I'll give to you, free of charge."
The urge to just shut off the datapad was rising, but the former Jedi strangled it. She would at least hear what the message said, if only to see if it was something that could be used against him.
"There's another Jedi at the academy. A Shadow."
A trill of fear went down her spine and she went ram-rod straight. A Jedi Shadow. Here?!
Olia wanted to dismiss it as a lie almost immediately, before rationality overrode instinct. It was a possibility that she had been dreading since she had run from the Temple. As much as she despised the man, he had gone well out of his way to get in contact with her.
"I don't know if he's here specifically for you or for some other objective," Aldrex admitted, "He's already managed to co-opt two acolytes to work for him. Well, only one really. The other is iffy."
'He? Two other acolytes?' The acolyte furrowed her brow as she considered it. It didn't take her long to connect the dots.
"That pathetic Quarren?" Olia muttered aloud with mild disbelief.
Apparently, Aldrex had given her a pause to think as he had stayed silent for a few moments, "You're crazy, but not stupid. So I'm going to assume you've figured out who I'm talking about." He clasped his hands before him, "I'll put this plainly: He's a threat to both of us. What I propose is a truce."
She wanted to reply, but it would do little. Instead, she waited in sullen silence. She didn't appreciate being called crazy.
Olia wasn't crazy.
"Temporary, I assure you. I have no desire to extend an alliance between us any longer than absolutely necessary." The entirely-too-smug man continued, "We deal with the Jedi, then we can go back to trying to kill each other."
She scowled at the datapad.
"If you need more incentive, you should probably know that Kalista disappeared about…a day and a half ago. So she's probably dead." Aldrex informed her, the smile never wavering, "So if you refuse, you're on your own."
A chill went down Olia spine as she registered that comment. Did the Shadow kill her minion? Or had Aldrex?
The man's grin took on a savage edge, "And if you come after me instead? I'll sic him on you before killing him myself. And you if you're still alive."
The tomb was deafeningly silent as he paused.
"I found you once, Olia. I can find you again."
The screen stopped as the message ended, freezing Aldrex's face in that threatening smile.
"Oh, I like him." XoXaan chortled, entirely too amused, "He is less refined and certainly mouthier than Sorzus ever was, but she would have found this little plot of his endearing. He has potential."
"So it's definitely a trap." Olia stated bluntly.
"Of course it is." Her ethereal mentor agreed readily, "But it is a trap that you are aware of."
"And that makes it better?" The former Jedi raised a delicate eyebrow.
"Indeed, dear girl." XoXaan admonished, "The trap you know of is more easily survived than one that catches you unawares."
"So how do we-," Olia paused and corrected herself, "How do I deal with the trap?"
"Spring the trap, of course." The spirit explained simply before elaborating, "This plot serves to benefit him no matter what you choose. Accept his help and he has one more ally, temporary as it may be, to combat this adversary.
Accept the truce but refuse to fight, and he only has to deal with one of you at a time. Refuse altogether and he will have a convenient scapegoat to serve as a distraction for your other foe."
Her student thought on the matter for the moment, "Which of those would benefit me the most with the least drawbacks?"
The ancient Dark Jedi smiled, showing too many teeth for it to be friendly, "Now you are thinking correctly."
Her wispy form flowed around the younger woman as her gray eyes took in the face on the datapad for a moment.
"I would advise accepting the truce and his help." She held up a clawed finger to shush Olia before she could interrupt.
"From what you have seen fit to inform me of, he is rather cagey with his abilities. Take the opportunity to study his strengths and weaknesses and those of his allies. Your former Master taught you of such subterfuge, did he not? You simply have not deigned to make use of it."
Olia grimaced but nodded in agreement. She hadn't made much use of Master Xhal's training beyond her combat training.
A shortcoming she now acknowledged.
So be it. She would play his little game for now.
But first, she was going to need her lightsaber.
...
It was the dead of night when Olia returned to the academy. She did not announce her return as she had in months past. This time, she was quiet, stealing into the Overseers' offices.
The former Jedi hacked the lock on Iren's door, causing it to open with a soft whoosh. Like the hall, it was dark inside, nearly pitch-black.
But she could sense her lightsaber, the crystal inside all but calling out to her.
She paused, extending her senses for the man who had taken it from her to begin with. She found nothing.
With a quick tug of the Force, the silver cylinder sailed across the room and slapped lightly into her palm. As her fingers wrapped around the hilt, she felt more complete than she had in months. But she didn't have time to relish the feeling.
She quickly closed and relocked the door before making her way back to her quarters.
The acolyte was unaware that Iren had been watching her through a camera, himself in another wing of the academy.
The Pureblood smiled as he watched the girl retreat from his office, revealing pointed teeth, "Just as predicted."
Aldrex may have had his support in this little contest, but that didn't mean he was going to make things easy for him. He did believe in making things fair, after all.
====================
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