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[Justin]

I'm reviving this little story with Raiha as my partner. Hopefully, you'll enjoy our efforts, and if you do, you'll find this story has a prequel here.


I highly recommend that you read that first.


I'm going to give official titles to these two installments now. The first will be called Star Wars: Dynasty Born. The second will be,


Star Wars: I, Skywalker




When he awoke from what seemed like an endless fall through a black abyss, Justin found the world around him a distorted vision of a medical lab in pale blue. It only took a moment’s time—and the sudden, rushing pain in his torso—for him to recall what had happened. Jenna had attacked him. Not only that, she had cut him down.



The world he’d known for the last few weeks was just a whirlwind. It was more than a waste of time on his part; it caused wounds that will leave scars for the rest of his life. And some scars are more than skin deep.



He’d began that time searching for a rogue Jedi. What he found was a hole; a wound in the Force. A Force-sensitive so fucked up that she drew on the life of the Galaxy around her to survive. And he loved her.



Hindsight is twenty-twenty, for humans. He didn’t rightly know other sentients expression for that sentiment. But he did see then why he wasn’t a Master. Though, he’d liked to have believed being a Master wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference. He wanted to believe Master Yoda would’ve fallen for her, too.



She had passion. She had beauty. She was intelligent. She was gifted, and a far more powerful being than he. The worst part was that he wanted to believe she could be saved. He wanted to believe he had that kind of influence. And more painful still, now that he knew he’d been wrong, he wanted to believe there was good enough left in her that maybe, one day, he would be able to come back for her.



He’d be lucky if the Order would even have him back. No, he hadn’t fallen off the slippery slope yet, but he’d come damn close. He’d seen the pit of existence, and he knew now what few Jedi would ever know: There are places in the Force no soul should ever see. He could now say that he’d seen two examples of exactly what the Dark Side can do. He’d loved one. She’d loved the other more than him.



Yoda would have him working in the Temple for years for this. After that, they would assign him as a member of a lesser Council on Dantooine, or somewhere. He’d never see action again, or get an apprentice. He would spend his years teaching others, at arms length, the lesson he learned, but never got to apply again.



He wanted to persist in loathing himself, but he couldn’t. He remembered her face just as she cut him down. In one moment, it had been cold and emotionless—controlled. The next, she fell with him. He knew that, while she’d failed to kill him, she’d succeeded in what Exar Kun designed. Justin knew that when she cut him down, it was her that died. The pain of what she had done, along with her already blackened heart, destroyed all that was good inside her. One moment of mourning her lost soul, then a lifetime of murder, decadence, and power-mongering would follow.



And he knew he’d never see her again. The Council would see to that. He was glad, too. If he ever saw her again, he’d give in. Maybe he’d join her, maybe he’d kill her. Though, he was sure he’d have no choice but to kill her. She made her misgivings about their romance all too apparent. Some high-strung philosophies about “dooming their offspring to follow a dark path.” Bullshit, as far as he was concerned.



He barely had time to finish the thought. As soon as he thought about children, something struck him in the Force. There was a child. Not yet, of course, but she would notice soon enough that her cycle was late. Then, she’d know too. While he was falling through the abysmal darkness of broken-hearted unconsciousness, he’d seen it. It had only been in flashes, but he had seen it. Not just one child, but two; twins. There would be a boy and a girl. He even knew their names: Seth and Sarah.



Recalling the vision, he realized he hadn’t been swimming in a void of emptiness at all. It had been one big flash of two lives he created, but would never be a part of. They were doomed. He saw them, not clothed, but enveloped. Their bodies were covered by the blackness that flowed from their mother, a woman whose face was vaguely familiar, but wholly unknown to Justin. It was the face of the woman he’d once called Jenna.



Now, in this shifting world of aqua hues and distorted monitors, a name was whispered to him: Darth…Darth…Darth…Darth Panthes. The mother of his children would be a Dark Lady of the Sith. The only father they’d ever know, a Dark Lord. They, dark heirs to a throne destined to crumble.



This time, his sleep was too deep for visions and dreams. When he awoke, he had decided, he would awake a Jedi no more. This was too much.


-Justin

Edited by Justin, 25 December 2010 - 12:56 AM.

[Raiha]

Justin Justin Justin...Oh how the good old days have faded into memory. Fortunately, while I'm definitely older than I was when this was first produced, I'm not yet senile.

That and poor Jenna will never come back to OB. Curse facebook for giving me hope. But seriously, I always wished Body Language or that titleless rp she, you, and I did years back would make a miraculous resurrection.

[Raiha]

Well her boyfriend won't let her get back on OB. I think her rabid fanboys had something to do with that. And since I'm not a miracle worker, or an assassin, it's highly unlikely she'll ever be back.

Tragic though, but then again, I'm not Jenna. Even if I am a creative one.

[Justin]

The Council, and especially Master Yoda, had been unexpectedly supportive. They didn’t coddle him, by any means, but they had been positive in their criticism. Nor were they surprised (at least they hadn’t shown any surprise) by his announcement that he was leaving the Order.

Justin could tell that there was some mental deliberation going on in each of the councilors’ heads, but they showed little expressive reaction to his declaration. It was in this moment, he thought, they’d elect to strip him of his Force sensitivities. He knew the protocol. They would blind him to the Galaxy.

But they hadn’t. He was walking the streets of Coruscant now, for the first time he can remember, no long tied to the Order. That, and he was still open to the Force;
to follow it, or not, as he saw fit. This couldn’t be real. He approached a corner café, still clad in his Jedi robes, and strolled in for a short meal.

“Two nerf strips, Corellian-cut, pink in the middle, and a beer.” He told the server. It’d been a long time, but he could get used to this.

Now, he hadn’t walked out totally untouched. They did take his lightsaber, placing it in the column of the Lost Jedi. Jedi had a funny attachment to those things, one Justin had never shared. He could make another without much effort.

His thoughts wondered back to that small obelisk that had emerged from the council chamber floor to swallow his saber, “The Lost Nineteen, now, I guess.” He thought aloud. He woofed down his meal, the way he always did, paid the barkeep, tipped the server (a rather attractive human female), and decided to ramble on out of there.

Coruscant had never fascinated him before. He’d lived there most of his life, so it was home, but only in that filthy, noisy, smellily familiar kind of way. But now, he had no obligation to be here. He owed these people nothing. Not a damn thing. He suddenly felt the liberation of self-reliance.

He kept his thoughts away from that jungle moon almost all day. He kept his thoughts hovering comfortably somewhere between the café and the faux forest five kilometers away from the Senate Hall, just about all day. But that damn forest, with its synthwood tree trunks and its plasteel birdfeeders shot him right back, clear across the Galaxy, to Yavin 4.

He choked the memory of what had happened there, now two weeks passed, out his mind. He saw a bar, and he headed straight to it. “Time to just ******* let go, old fella’.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------

“I don’t agree with letting him go like that. He’s just too volatile. He’s seen too much in the last few months, and he hasn’t had time to recover. We should’ve at least detained him.” A cross armed Jedi said, with a furrowed brow.

“In the Force, our trust lies. Watch him, we must. But lead us to much greater evil than Jenna, I think he will.” Yoda spoke without looking away from the window.

“There’s a dark shadow in every corner, and beneath every rock. We can’t chase them all.” The Jedi replied.

“But shine a little light on them, we can.”

[Raiha]

The first shuttle from Tatooine landed without any untoward happenings, and the spare, slight form of the female Jedi went virtually unnoticed. Making her way through the streets to the stronghold she knew she'd been summoned to was a simple affair. And they'd asked very politely.

Then again, how could she refuse so polite a request? She'd been too long out of the world anyway. Her apprentices could manage the temple without her.

The younglings were very polite to her, pointing across the halls to the chamber where the council was waiting. She drew her hood up deep across her face and padded silently across the stone floors, barefoot, enjoying the feeling of the cold against her toes. Such a simple luxury, and worth savoring beyond all others while she was here. Quickly enough, her feet brought her to the chamber, and she knelt quietly within the circle, feeling six pairs of eyes rest upon her.

"Shahrizai of Tatooine. We thank you for traveling so far at Yoda's behest."

"To herd a wayward Jedi? I would travel as far as you asked."

Yoda leaned forward slightly, his hands curled across his staff.

"Sense him here did you?"

"I haven't forgotten him. And I dreamed of him as I did of Jenna and the others while meditating these past several years."

"If you could shadow him, speak to him, merely observe him, it would be a great help."

"I can do all of those things. I'll report back if anything untoward happens."

Everyone present besides Shahrizai nodded gravely. She slowly rose to her feet and inclined her head to everyone present. Then she turned and left without another word.

Securing her chambers in a nearby hostel was simple enough, as was ordering the clothing she knew she'd need. Most Jedi never shed the robes of the order, but then again, most Jedi didn't typically tie themselves to one temple their entire life. Shahrizai had done so willingly, if only for the sake of her gifts. On Coruscant she was obliged to close off some of her ability to sense through both the Force and her own abilities. The noises and smells were almost overwhelming at times. Even so there were compensations. Enlightenment through simple service to her friends was one of those compensations.

She smiled wryly to herself while pulling on thigh high boots, a black leather skirt, and a form fitting top that left her back wide open, revealing long lines of tattoos. With a brush, she began to braid her hair into a variety of strands, securing each with near invisible threads. Setting down her light saber, she turned and left the building, keeping only her knives and cards with her, tucked into a fold in one of her several belts.

"You will probably find him in a bar, eying up the girls."

Thracia had passed Shahrizai on her way out and given her the same sort of sage advice she'd come to expect from that rakish lady. Then again, both weren't precisely typical female Jedi. Thracia had chosen the way of the mother and wife as well as the healer. Shahrizai had chosen the way of the Visionary in the Desert. Setting those thoughts aside, Shahrizai turned her obsidian colored eyes to the city at large, and she narrowed them slightly, then opened them again, letting the sensations of Justin flood her mind. Drawing a bead on his location, she let herself move slowly towards him, taking her time, not in any particular rush, drawing stares as she went.

Near human with tightly furled ears, black eyes, almost white blonde hair, and dark skin. She could see why they didn't understand her. Catching a speeder headed for his direction, she dropped down on the roof leading into the bar and slid through the door. Not too many people noticed her right away, not until she sat down on a barstool, asking for a glass of water as she did.

[Justin]

"It's been some time since I saw your kind around here."

Justin was startled out of a day dream by the surly bartender. It'd been two weeks since he left the Order. A couple days of that he spent in transit here--Tattooine. The rest, he'd spent somewhere between drunk and hammered. He was listing toward the drunk side today.

"What the hell are you talking about old man?" Justin snarled over his empty glass, adding a oppressive edge to his voice with the Force.

"Exactly." And that was all the old bartender would say.

Sensing no danger, Justin rather rudely, refilled his own drink. He'd move on to a different cantina tomorrow, just to avoid the apparent awkwardness in this one. He didn't like to be noticed.

About the time that thought crossed his mind, he suddenly became aware that he was being noticed. Not only that, but he was being encouraged in that loving Jedi fashion not to notice that he was being noticed. His drunked rage began to stir.



Shahrizai immediately sensed Justin's rage. He had sensed her. He was better than she'd thought. His time with Jenna had broken him, that she'd known. But clearly, he'd begun to rebuild his damged mind. Perhaps, though, not as the Order would like to see it.

He wouldn't see her. He could sense her. But she could evade his attention, if she wanted to. Dressed so outlandishly, even if he saw her, he wouldn't take her for a Jedi. It was time to make her move.

"Hello there, stranger. New to the desert?"


Justin didn't restrain the irritation in his voice. He hated being interupted. "Hello, darling. No, this isn't my first trip to the sandbox, thank you."

"Hmm. Could've fooled me, sweetie."

There was more to this girl than met the eye; and that was a lot at the moment. She appeared to be coming on to him, but he wasn't looking for a good time. "Hey, old man. Get the the lady a drink on me." Justin turned to face the lovely lady, "Miss, I'm afraid I didn't come here for a vacation. But you enjoy yourself. Good day."


The desert suns always, always seemed to glare just to spite Justin's drunkedness. But even their unbearable gaze didn't purge him of his dreams. Dreams within dreams within visions of dreams. Dreams of two lives gone far from their beginning. And then rage filled his heart.

"Seth...Sarah...Jenna. Seth...Sarah." Children chant in unison the words of the shadow they called 'father'. Their mother becomes a whore to the galaxy, and the unfaithful bride of power. Bright red hair grays prematurely, and green eyes seem to wither into that sickly yellow that only the most consumed souls can see through.

All the while, Justin's self withers in silence and exile. One moment, the bitter man he is--the next, a half crippled old hermit by the age of 50. Hatred consuming what is left of himself. His life is darkened by loneliness, not lust for power. And when death recieves him, it is into an eternity of the same.

"Peace..." An echo seemed to float listlessly across the universe and struck him with the sound of a trickling waterfall. It was once his favorite sound. It was a sound of overwhelming power; but of a powerful peace. A peace that, when necessary, could swell to drown out war.

"Peace...all is well with you. For you have loved and been loved. Weep no more. Dream no more. I have seen your heart, and all is well with you, though you don't yet see it."

And laying in his small bed in the small desert hostel, Justin slept in peace for the first time in weeks.


He awoke from a dreamless peace with a burning sensation of danger. He awoke, as he so often did, groping for his saber, and finding only a vibroblade. A poor substitute, but he had little love for blasters.

Whom-or what-ever had set off his dangersense had apparently left. He reached out with his senses, and found his room empty except for a single other sleeping occupant. But wait...not quite.

It was faint. Not living, but the trace of something living. A pattern scratched into his bed. Old pictographs, vaguely familiar. He reached into his mind, looking for a matching pattern.

The mood of the message was certainly dark, and it's author had scratched it in slowly, but deeply. The work of something possesed of a slow and burning hatred. It wasn't of any kind of blatantly menacing origin. Not Sith, nor any larger schismatic sect. But still, this was craven death. The tone could not be missed. The closest connection he could make in his mental datum was the semi-runic language of the Dimari cult.

But who or what the **** would be scratching something like into his bedpost as he slept? The message was illegible with his knowledge, but there was more to be deduced here.

Whomever did this clearly was gifted of the Force and of stealth. He'd woken up when they wanted him to, and not before. And in this way, they were telling him, "I know things you do not, and you are subject to me because of that."

However, he'd not been harmed that he could sense. Nor had his sleeping roomate. They were dangerous, but not eminently so...He was virtually snatched out of his observative mode by a new detail: A distinctive burn on the floor. Only lightsabers make such burns. This could be easily brushed aside, but this too was a message. "I am like you in many ways."

-----------------------------------------

"This is the other side of the looking glass, my love. This is the far side of reality. This is the wasteland between love and hate. I am you, reborn. Reborn in the dirt of that jungle moon, far from here. You need only push away the after-birth, and awaken anew."

"Dreams. ******* dreams. Peace has passed over me, leaving behind my dreams. Lifeless dreams. The accursed suns of this accursed planet shrink into hot balls of white death, then go super nova, then all is silent.

I am the reaper."

Seven months he'd been on Tattooine. He was the captive of Tusken raiders now. Nomadic, loud, and smelling like bantha ****; much like Justin himself.

It'd been a month that he'd been on the move; "captive" of these people. He was no captive. This was just his next step of the ladder of total annihilation of his former self. And the raiders were beginning to notice.

"Hey, smelly. Mind giving me some water, I'm getting a little dizzy here." The fact that several of these Sand People weren't Sand People at all didn't surprise Justin. Many were tales of Outlanders gone native. He figured that type of thing was as old as colonization.

The Tusken knelt beside him cautiously. "You know, friend, we don't like you anymore than you like us." He obligded him the water.

"The problem is ,friend, you don't know what to do with me. The natives are terrified of me, and they're starting to question you non-natives about me. Problem with that is, you don't know anymore than they do; and you're just as scared."

"Why did you let us take you without a fight?"

"Because I want to be lost."

"Here? Ha, you'll be like me before long then."

"I wouldn't count on it. I hate this planet. I hate you. I hate these people. And that is exactly why I am here." The spark in Justin's eye made the Tusken step back.

"What the **** is your problem, ****-eater?"

"You. Them. Maybe even me." Justin drank his water, and rolled back over. He was asleep again in seconds.

"This is my weapon. This weapon is my strength. My strength is the beginning of my freedom. My freedom is the beginning of my power. My power is the means to order. Order is the method of achieving peace. The peace of the sword."

The prayer resonnated across space, and Justin felt it was being uttered right then. Right then, on the lips of a hundred young minds; some of them dying, some of them believing they would soon.

Two of them were faces he'd come to expect. There was no sadness this time. No pit to fill with booze or self-destruction. He'd found the bottom of the hole. He felt his heart as ice. Hot ice. His eyes snapped open.

It was fast. Had anyone he once knew seen it, they'd have been as shocked as his captors. He was totally unarmed, and utterly deadly. He moved like a storm, cracking a spinal cord here, the tearing off a bottom jaw there.

He went airborne and came down so hard on the shoulders of one of the non-natives that it turned his shoulder blades into shards, along with his neck. Next he grabbed a raider by the left arm and tore it from its socket, then double back hand spring and kicked the throat in of another.

When he stopped moving, none were left alive, and none had fired a shot. He had brought death to the dead. This had been their fate, he said.

"I am the reaper."

-------------------------

"I saw him, my lover. As clear as I see you now. He is lost." Smiling lips betray a false confidence. This isn't unnoticed, but it is left be.

"He has always been lost. I swam in his mind, and found it full of self-hatred and weakness. He is a weeper." The scars along the face of darkness twist like a living vine with the scowl. There is nothing hidden behind it.

"A trait his seed did not carry." A inflection of hope that no one less astute could've caught.

"We will see. I have many children. And many more that no longer breathe. I can see through you as easily as anyone, my dear. You call me lover. You cannot love me unless you hate me. And you cannot hate me unless I betray you. You're too useful for me to hurt you myself. But I will make you love me, because I will make you hurt yourself."

"I--I don't understand." Nearly grovelling.

"You are a ruthless killer. You've become a cold teacher of my children. But you are still weak. You have felt hate, but only because you seek love. You found love, but because you seek power, you crushed that love.

Power is the truest love. And now, like a fool, you lose sight of power. You will kill someone for me. You will not want to. But you will, because you know if you do not, I will take all love and power from you as easily as I gave it to you."

"I have no fear."

"Wrong!" The spectre suddenly grew to an oppressive, choking cloud. The scarred face at its heart. "Do not presume to tell me what you have and do not have."

"Forgive me...I didn't mean to be--"

"Wrong again!" The walls of the ancient structure shook with the hate of his voice. "You do exactly what you mean to, exactly because you are weak. And I will burn this from your soul."

"Mother." A young boy, about 5 years enters the chamber. His eyes speak of many more years than his body.

"Yes, Seth?"

"Who is the man who walks on the sky?"

A whirl of red hair surround her as she turns to face the shadow, but he is not there. A soft breeze fills the chamber, and cold.

"Kill for me, my love."

She turns back to the boy. "He died, son. He died because he was foolish, and weak. He died alone and in pain. And I killed him."

"Then why do I see him when I sleep? I can't sleep anymore, Mother."

"Does your sister see him?"

"No. She says it's because I'm weak."

"That is not true. You're stronger than you know, but we have to teach you how to kill your dreams. You shouldn't lose sleep for the dead."


-Justin

[Justin]

By the time the stories began reaching what, on Tatooine, passed for civilization, you could've believed the Raiders' desert god had come to life out there. Whole caravans, slaughtered. Piercing wailing all night reported by those caravans and traders left otherwise unmolested.

Big news, for a small planet.

Then one day, the storm passed. Tatooine sank back into routine, and forgot about it. Sandstorms, Krayt dragons, Tuskens, and outlanders all took a share of the blame. The storm passed.

-------------------------------------------------------

The boy was now nearly ten-years-old. The dreams never, ever stopped; but his speaking of them did. He saw through the eyes of a being much older than himself, and with an anger stored deep in his mind from which he would never recover. He hated his father. He hated his sister, who was his father's favorite. And above all, he hated his mother.

Oh, he knew Exar Kun wasn't his father, in the biological sense. The man in his dreams was his father. He hated that man, too. It was the fault of that man that he could've ever sleep. But Exar Kun was the only male of his species he'd ever known. He was 'Father'.

"You're weak, boy. Just like your mother." That his mother was present in no way curbed his father's venom. "You think I don't know your mind? I do. Oh, I do. I knew your mind before your mother knew you existed. I should've killed you then, and would have, but for your lovely sister. She is the strength that saved your life then, if only to be the strength that will end your life later."

The mother, red hair still brilliant, stood silent. Not aghast, nor defensive. Simply silent. The daughter stood notably closer to the ethereal father, also stoicly silent.

"Boy." The spectral father called.

"Yes."

"Pray." The word trailed into an audible growl, like distant thunder.

The boy ignited his small, red lightsaber. The words seemed nearly in tune with the humming blade. The room resonated with their resolve, with their sorrow, and with their dark power. "This is my weapon. This weapon is my strength. My strength is the beginning of my freedom. My freedom is the beginning of my power. My power is the means to order. Order is the method of achieving peace. The peace of the sword."

"I am the reaper."

"What did you say, boy?" The room seemed to close in around the child, suffocating him.

"I...I don't know, fath--"

"Don't. Don't call me that. You spoke. What is it that you said?" The menacing face was the eye of a hurricane.

"I.."

"Speak, damn you!"

"I am the reaper." The boy stated, and with some resolved. He looked his father in the eye.

"The reaper, you say? And what possessed you to add that to your prayers?"

"My dreams. I heard it in my dreams."

Exar Kun audibly laughed, "The Reaper. How cute."

"What is to be my punishment, then?" The boy asked, passively.

"None. No, not today. Not today, my little Reaper."

The spectre faded from all but the fainest perception, and the air in the room became breathable again. The mother did not rush to check on her son. She simply waved the sister away curtly, and then dismissed herself without a sound. The boy turned off his lightsaber, and the room fell into the darkness of a crypt.

"I am the Reaper."

-Justin

[Justin]

The swirl of hyperspace no longer had its calming effect. It reminded him now of the swirl of a sandstorm. Only bright and blue, rather than dark and red. A juxtaposition not unlike Jedi and Sith, in some aspects. A difference only in color, but two characters both equally annoying to him.

The desert years had changed him. He had lived not unlike a force of nature so long, reassuming the identity of a civilized being seemed a bit silly. He wanted to rage. To ebb and flow, with the wind. They were gale-force right now.

The dreams could not be silenced. They could only be drowned out by the storm. He didn't hear the children murmuring if he was howling. The mysterious visitations didn't vex him so long as he was swirling across the wastes like a dervish with a hangover.

He didn't know where he was going. Random course. He didn't know what he'd do when he got there. Random violence. He didn't know why he left the desert. The wind was blowing.

He did know some things: He was being hunted. Been that way for years now. He had found an old HK droid stowed away on this ship, with an order for his head. That was strange, he'd stolen this ship at random; but it was still here. It lay in so many pieces now, all over the ship.

He knew that Exar Kun--the very definition of the word 'enemy' in Justin's mind--knew he was still alive, and was waiting for him. 'Pleased with his progress' might be the best description, but that mattered little.

He knew that Jenna was aware of his condition, as well. She wouldn't be aware of anything, should they ever cross paths again.

He knew he and his son were somehow linked together. Their dreams were only different in perspective, but most of the details were identical.

Above all, he knew that he was going to kill them all. Exar Kun, Jenna, Seth, and his dauhter Sarah, too. Exar Kun would be the most likely to stop him, being ethereal and all, but he would not succeed in saving his unlife, either. He wasn't ready for the storm. He wasn't ready for the Reaper.

He would have all the revenge he could want. But not yet.

-Justin