<font color=yellow>This RP is open only to TJO and TNSO members.</font>





<font color=white>Jedi Academy
Theed, Naboo.</font>



“…My time is up, I must sign off before this transmission is intercepted and tracked. Please, at least consider our requests...”


Leia nodded to the fuzzy image of a rather weary looking man, which was being projected onto her desk via holovid. He in turn gazed back at her hopefully.


“I’ll do what I can.”


Without hesitation she reached for a control console built into her desk and flipped a switch, terminating the connection. There was a short moment of silence in the room as Leia stared blankly at the wall in front of her, until a man who had been quietly observing the exchange nearby moved forward, to stand in her line of sight. He was dressed in the crisp uniform of the Naboo volunteer guard, his rank insignia that of a captain.


“What do you want to do about it?”


The question seemed to jar Leia out of her thoughts, and she leaned back in her chair with a sigh.


“I don’t know, Braask. We are in a position to help them, but if something were to go wrong…. There’s just so much to lose.”


Braask raised an eyebrow skeptically.


“It would be a relatively simple mission. You’ve done it before, you know how to do it right… it’s not like you to hesitate on something like this.”


Leia fixed Braask with a glare.


“You don’t know that.”


His expression did not change.


“Do I?”


Leia frowned and hunched over in her chair, studying the man in front of her closely. She had first met Braask during the Sith invasion of Theed, he had been a mere common soldier then, part of the detachment that had followed her in battle. Since then his skills had seen him promoted to Captain, and Leia often found herself working in tandem with him on various affairs to ensure the security of Naboo. As such they had come to know each other on a friendly basis.


Leia closed her eyes, and reached down for her gut feeling. She wanted to do it…. It was what she did best. Besides, it would be a great opportunity to get one of the more inexperienced Jedi some action without being in any imminent danger…


“See what you can’t quietly rummage around for and find for me, would you? I can take care of the rest…”


Braask nodded, and turned to leave.


“With pleasure”


He was reaching for the door release as Leia suddenly came to a decision.


“Wait…”


He paused in the doorway and looked back at Leia questioningly.


On your way out, could you find a Padawan by the name of Gorvn and send him to me? He shouldn’t be that hard to find; a really tall bug in Jedi robes. Tell him I need to speak with him, he should be able to find me right here, since I don’t really have anything else to do…”


Braask nodded an affirmative response, and left to conduct his errands.


Leia rose from her chair, pulled on her heavy dark brown Jedi robe, and began to pace the small confines of the room. Her restlessness eventually led her out of her office and into the hallway, where there was more room to move about. The halls were dark, empty, and quiet, as usual. Her office was located on the 5th floor of the academy, generally deemed the administration floor, where all Jedi affairs were dealt with. However there had been a notable lack of affairs to deal with for some time besides the inactivity of the Jedi, and the floor was isolated and barren. Leia couldn’t even recall the last time the doors to the high council room had been opened….


She stopped at a nearby window and gazed out at the bustling city of Theed. She hadn’t checked the time recently but it seemed to be high noon, from what she could tell.


If preparations went smoothly, everything could be set in motion as early as tomorrow….


Leia felt her stomach churning.


Was she doing the right thing?

Xa Fel



The five students were huddled in an older wing of the crumbling temple structure off the main causeway. The walk had taken Perrin a few hours but he hadn't minded.

He had seen that the students had set up all sorts of detection equipment for a mechanized approach.

Fools!, he allowed briefly.

Their sophisticated equipment being defeated simply by walking..


Apparently, the students had thought to keep their actions a secret but when he had learned of the theft from the curator there were only so many people to check.

It was foolish to think one could hide anything from a Sith..

Perrin's lips turned into a grin at the tiny boast. It was, in fact, possible to fool force-users.

Jedi were fooled all the time..

He felt the excitement coming from the old building as the students were inspecting their prize..

An ancient amulet of Sith origin had been found a few years ago in a trinket shop on some drift settlement. A person loyal ot TNSO had seen it, recognized it and forwarded it to Sith stronghold.


And now, it was in the possession of a few stupid students.


So intent they werre that they did not notice him step into the building through an opening, the young ones putting their faith in their equipment.


"Berra, let me see it!" hissed one of them when Perrin finally caught their attention.

One nearly dropped the amulet, not that anything would have happened had he.

"Stand back, Perrin Descartes!" a young female warned, holding up the artifact. "You have no power here!"

Perrin stopped and looked inquisitively at the others. Surely they did not believe that. "How do you figure that?" he asked, genuinely interested.

"This is one of the 'Nodes of Exar Kun's Soul'. One more step and I activate it!" her voice rose a pitch higher.

The others looked gravely serious and Perrin's eyes moved from one to the other and startled them when he barked out a laugh.

"Exar Kun.." he said through lips of disdain. "You would follow the example of a failed Sith." Almost in an aside, his voice asked, "Why do we put so much devotion to the creations of past failures?"


He opened his loose fitting jacket and pulled out a black sphere with strange markings on it.

"What artifact have you there?" one of the students asked warily.

Perrin grinned sorrowfully, "This is not an artifact. This is something...new. While your Sith Masters have you dig around in the dirt for the instruments of failed Sith, I work on creating new instruments."


"but.. but it is a lost art.." the girl stammered in confusion.


"You haven't even tried!" Perrin quipped back. "But now, you will. In fact, I did not come to take your amulet. In fact, I will leave it here."

The other's shuffled in confusion. "Then what are you doing here?"

"I need your help." Perrin admitted. "There are missing components for my... my creation.. and I need you."

"To do what?"

Perrin's hand casually reached behind as his other hand dropped the sphere. The students eyes watched the sphere hit the ground.

"Specifically, I need your life energy. Preferrably... charged with emotion.. so the stronger the better.."

The students barely registered his words when his arm swung back around igniting his saber.

Some hesitated, some moved, and another simply froze..

Still, Perrin did not kill them outright.

Their screams were heard throughout the night and in the morning, amid a macabre sight, he left stepping over the blood soaked ground where the amulet lay half buried.



Still, it was not enough...


I need to get away from this dreary planet..




And six days later he found himself on a transport bound for Corellia, the seat of power for the leader of the Naboo Sith Order.

He was seated near a rather skinny man who talked nonstop about the old code of the defunct Jedi Order.

"The Jedi took their positions very seriously... adventure forbidden, excitement forbidden-"

"How utterly boring of them.." Perrin merely commented falling asleep. The Jedi were old news and probably still had not ventured from their safe cocoon on Naboo content to hide behind their books, holocrons, and intellectual banter.



In any event, the Jedi left his mind as he was awakened by their arrival.


He had never been to Corellia.


I will probably have to schedule an audience with Lord Lupercus.. thought Perrin. Unless he went the way of Darth Poreon, Darth Snack, .. hell, even Darth Zeta had been scarce.


The Sith Knight grinned.

Wait long enough and they'll make you head of the Naboo Sith Order..

He laughed at the thought.

The first thing I would change is the damned name.

The transport cleared the clouds and Perrin's eyes took in the expanse that was the heart of the Corellian Protectorate.


Impressive..

Gorvn was sitting in the library, like usual, when another apprentice approached him. "Captain Braask told me to find you, and tell you that Master Leia wishes to speak to you," said the apprentice. Gorvn nodded in reply. Although he had not looked up, he could still see the expression on the apprentices' face. The enormous eyes which often frightened people gave him a bug's eye view of the world, an almost complete 360 panoramic display. "I think you should go now, Gorvn," continued the apprentice. He looked worried.

"I will, just let me finish this passage," he replied, the slight buzz that was always present in his voice increasing in frequency slightly. "Did you know that the Alterian Zoidicet has six hundred and twenty-eight legs, each of them covered with five thousand tensile hairs, each of those hairs capable of sustaining the weight of seven Zoidicet's? They're also super-conductive, with a natural insulator that's stronger than most military turbo-laser power inducer insulator, making them ideal for high-voltage power-lines.


"Uh..."

"It's fascinating, really. The Zoidicet is hunted for these hairs, each of them longer than you are tall. A single Zoidicet catch by a farmer could make him a rich man, with no need to work again. Let's see..." Gorvn began to calculate out amount of hairs a single Zoidicet would have. "At seven hundred credits per hair, multiply that by five thousand hairs per leg, that's three point five million credits per leg. With six hundred and twenty eight legs, anyone who caught one of these monsters, who are over a thirty meters tall, by the way, would have over two billion credits in his pocket! That is, if he survived ..."

"Survived?" replied the apprentice.


"Yes. As you can imagine, there is quite a black market on Alter for these hairs. It says here that the local gangs killed the few farmers who had managed to kill a Zoidicet, six days being the longest one man survived. He burrowed into the Zoidicet shell, and they didn't bother looking there."

The apprentice scrunched his face up. "Ewww..."

"My sentiments exactly. You say Master Leia wants to speak to me?"


"Yes. What did you do?"

Gorvn stood to his full height, and replaced the book he had been reading on the top shelf. He looked down to the human apprentice below him. "Nothing, I hope." The buzz behind his vice chitted slightly, and he moved out of the row of shelves.

"Leia, look what I got!"


Leia turned away from the window to see a young girl of about 5 running towards her excitedly, carefully clutching a small flower as if it were gold. The girl skidded to a halt on the slippery tile floor in just enough time to avoid colliding with Leia, and she proudly (though a little breathlessly) presented her prize to the Jedi Master.


Leia smiled warmly and knelt to take the flower from the girl. Upon closer inspection Leia deduced that it was only a flowering weed that commonly grew among the grass out in the courtyards, but nonetheless she stared at it admiringly.


"It's a very beautiful flower, what are you going to do with it?"

The girl suddenly looked bashful, but she looked Leia in the eye as she answered.


"I picked it for you, don't you like it?"


Leia smiled again.


"Yes I love it. It's very pretty, thank you."


For a moment the girl said nothing, and just beamed at Leia, who returned the smile reflectively as she realized just how much the little girl had changed since she had first met her.


The girl was not force sensetive. Rather, both of her parents had been killed in a bad speeder accident a few weeks ago. Directly after the crash the girl had refused to speak or have anything to do with anyone, and an exasperated social worker had been attempting to coax the girl into speaking when by chance Leia happened upon them while on an errand.


The girl had strangely taken right to Leia when she had curiously approached the two and gently asked the girl for her name. Upon seeing this the social worker had pulled Leia aside and asked her to look after the girl until a foster family could be found. Leia had taken heart and had agreed, and the girl had been taken to the Academy that day.

It had been three weeks since then. After a lot of time on Leia's part, the girl had blossomed again and usually happily played around the Academy under the collective eye of everyone. She seemed to be coping better with her loss, and was certainly much brighter again. Her name was Anara. Leia hated to admit it openly, but she would be sorry to see the girl go when the social office finally found a foster home for her.


The sound of someone approaching caused Leia to look up and see Gorvn walking towards them. She reached out and gently squeezed Anara's shoulder.


"I have to get back to work now sweetie, but I'll see you later. Run along, now."


The girl hesitated a moment as if she had something she wanted to say, but then abruptly smiled airily and skipped off. Leia nodded in greeting to Gorvn as he reached her, and then glanced down the hall to make sure the girl had gone, and that nobody else was around.


She had to crane her neck to look up and actually address Gorvn's head instead of his abdomen.


"Gorvn... what would you say to a trip to Corellia for me?"

Xa Fel was turning into quite a lonely place now. Sith roamed the halls less frequently. Many traveling abroad, while others were elsewhere on the planet. Malice though always seemed to find his comfort zone within one of the temples. Being a priest Malice would often sit for hours, sometimes days on end meditating on the dark force. Sleep had no longer become an issue.

But something else had. Malice was getting bored of doing this day in, and day out. True he basked in the power of the darkside, and longed for more, but one could only go so long with these cravings before something else caught his attention. And something did.

Standing up, Malice walked out of the meditation room, and headed out of the temple. It took but a few minutes before he had reached the hanger bay, and then into hsi shuttle. Malice would take a trip to go see Lup. He had never taken interest in politics and what not, but they had always held a slight case of interest with him.

So, he would go see Lup, and watch how he rules without using his sith powers....much. The sith within the galaxy were fading. Nothing major had happened since the assault upon Naboo. Eventually as the time passed from those delightful days, the sith were slowly driven out of the peoples minds. But Malice soon hoped to change all that.


The sith would be remembered again.

Dolash closed the dusty tome he had been reading, and placed it upon the others. He had heard the dull clicking made only by Gorvn's distinct footfalls. It had not taken long for him to memorize the names, faces, and personalities of the Jedi Order. He had been surprised to find them a small, peaceful organization, care-takers of knowledge and arbiters in matters of law and life.

Stepping lightly into the corridor, he saw Gorvn heading towards where Mrs. Solo currently was residing. He was curious, but not too curious as to eaves-drop. However, he made a mental note to ask Gorvn later on what it was about.

At the moment, however, he had a most important lecture to attend on the philosophical concept of modern morals in the galaxy, and after that another several hours of meditation and deep thought. After that, however, he may yet have a chance to speak to Gorvn. No, wait, dinner. Perhaps after that-

Dolash decided not to ask.

Once a healthy man in his mid-twenties, Darth Xion now resembled only what one could describe in its plainest terms, as a walking corpse.

One too many silent nights conversing with the voices in his head had taken its toll on the body and mind of the Sith who was now disturbingly content in his decomposition. Sheathed in a thick black robe, Xion grumbled quietly to himself like a senile old man waiting for death to trundle along and pick him up.


Leaning upon a bone-like cane waiting for his transport, Xion sat perched on the edge of a bench across from a café in the waiting area of Mos Eisley Spaceport. Dragging the edge of his stick along in the sand underfoot, he aimlessly drew elaborate shapes, before violently rubbing them out and starting anew.

As he sat facing down, a fleck of freshly peeled skin floated gracefully like an Autumn leaf to the ground below.

Touching down to earth with the softness of a small child's touch, the calmness of such a landing was ruined by the harsh and swift downstroke of Xion's black cane, creating a satisfying crunch as the skin crackled into dust.

"Heh heh, that makes ten!." He wheezed to himself.

The skin flake had been the last straw for the owner of the café across the road, who had been holding his nose for the last hour at the rotting pile of rags sat on the bench across from him.

"Hey!"

Xion offered no response.

"You. You've been sitting in the sun for over an hour. You stink worse than a dead bantha carcass. You're scaring all my customers away. If you don't move I'm going to have to call for Assistance.

You don't want a stormtrooper over here, do you?

Well?

Answer . . .say something you old fool."

A hand, previously conealed under the robes of the Sith outstretched in front of the man in a wave.

"Why don't you just toddle on now?" came a rasp from behind broken lips.

"Why don't I just toddle on now?" was the cold, robotic reply that came from the Café owner as he turned and wandered back to his establishment.

Bringing his weight down to bear on the cane, Xion shifted his cumbersome frame up onto its feet and began to move.

"Good little Zombie."

Frakutsk Opened his eys and stood up, clubsily dusting dirt off his Jedi robes. He regarded the serene training grounds around him, his period of meditation over.

A smug smile spread itself over Frakutsk's face, he walked inside, intending to go to the library before it was time for dinner.

As he neared the library, the door swung open and out came Gorvn and an apprentice. The apprentice was a mostly normal humaniod... and was in great contrast with Gorvn. Frakutsk could not help but think of Gorvn as the Bug-Jedi, though he most certainly would never say that outloud.

Frakutsk entered the library and casually skimmed the shelves. "The Force for the Forcefully inadept" hm.... no "Why they dont belive... And how to make them" definately not. "Interesting Theories on the training methods of the sith- Be Prepared" That looked interesting... but probably a little boring. "The Intricacies of Sith Temples, what to look out for"... Huh, sure, that sounded like a nice bit of light reading.

Frakutsk took the book off the shelf and began reading....

Chapter 1- An overview of the achitechture...

Tec had been “home” for quite some time now, though he had done very little. Having taken an incredible beating, and coming within an inch of death, he had yet to heal completely in the intervening time between making it back and now. His head felt like a balloon, he had a black eye that had the color of bruising left, though the colors were faded now; his arms had been broken, but a resetting and trip to the bacta tank had taken care of that. It should have taken care of the bruises, but for some reason had not. His body ached, but that was to be expected after going through almost the exact same ordeals one right after the other, and not even in the same place in the galaxy!
Thankfully enough, his beating had been over the course of time, and, embarrassingly enough, some of his bruises and aches were his own fault. Life was good, but sometimes a bit too exciting for a Jedi, who was not supposed to crave or be in a position of excitement.

Standing up from the side of his cot, Tec grabbed a robe and slowly put his arms into it, tying the belt of the many pocketed robe tightly. He attached his lightsaber to his belt and left his room. He heard a few snap-hisses and the crackle of lightsabers from the training grounds, but that was not where he was headed. In truth, he was headed to the administrative offices. He needed to talk to Leia, but about what he wasn’t exactly sure. It was a…gut feeling, though he hadn’t followed many of those lately.

His heels clicked on the marble/stone floors as he walked, nodding at some of the students as he did. It took him more than just a few minutes to reach the administrative area of the Academy, much longer than normal, but his injuries—regardless of the bacta tank and Jedi healing techniques—were rather slow in working. He wondered if it was some sort of chemical reaction within him, considering his rather…unique…DNA and family history. Oddly enough, he doubted that was part of the problem, but it was quite possible.

About a minute later, he reached the door he was looking for, but heard voices from inside.

“Gorvn, I want you to understand…”

It sounded like Leia, and she sounded busy. He wasn’t about to leave, though. Taking a quick look around, he knocked on the door and awaited a response.

"A... trip?" echoed Gorvn. His voice buzzed slightly, as if indicating a slight bit of excitement. Trips were usually reserved for advanced padawans, or so the other apprentices had led him to believe. But then, Gorvn had yet ot master the human habit of sarcasm, and frequent practical jokes.

"I would be most honored," he replied after a moment. He looked down at Master Leia, wondering why she would want him to go on a trip for her.

Twenty minutes later, Gorvn stood from the small chair (relatively speaking) that he had been sitting in. His mind was racing quickly, all the neutrons firing at full steam, the words "Imperial-held world" had sent his brain into a tizzy.

Master Leia was speaking, but Gorvn hadn’t been listening for the last two minutes. "I’m truly sorry,"he said hurriedly when she appeared to ask him a question. "I missed that last part."