The cool night air of the forest region swept over the temple, cooling off the stone which had been basking in the sunlight all day long as night fell on the planet of Xa Fel. With the sun down, the predators came out to do their hunting, and the prey retreated into their burrows for the night. This would be a perfect time to begin the apprentice's training, thought Darth Necros. Now emerging from one of the entrances atop the ancient structre, the Sith Knight wore his typical cloak and helmet, and as he stood there atop the structre, he used the power of the force to send a summons to the apprentices that their very first training session was to begin, and that they were to meet him on the roof of the temple.

With the summons sent, the Sith Knight stood and waited on the roof of the temple for the apprentices to arrive. A beeping sound on his belt drew his attention away from the darkened forest. He answered his comlink. Listening to the message being spoken to him from one of his contacts off-planet, he replied briskly before putting the comlink away, and then smiled. Even if the training didn't go according to plan, at least something would be going right, and soon.

New to the Sith, and to the planet of Xa Fel, Itron was feeling more than a little disconcerted by the evil, the darkness that seemed to permeate the air here. Yes, he wanted to destroy the Jedi, yes he believed that passion was the only road to power, but still. He knew that just as a small bubble of air taken into space will expand and explode, causing untold damage, any doubts he took into his training would be seen, would expand and would overcome him. He told himself to put them aside, as he walked through the forest with his the cool breeze blowing through his hair.

Hard to believe it had been only a few days ago when he arrived.

There seemed so much more power in this place than in the Jedi Academy, he had thought on arrival. At the Academy, he had felt patience, a sense of waiting. Power, certainly, but not immediate power. Here, the very stones of the ancient temple seemed to crackle with the energy of the force. Energy he could harness. Energy that could be his! As he had thought this, he had been met by a Sith, a knight, whose name he could not recall, nor did he remember being told. He had been told some rules, told where his accomodation was and given some artifacts to keep close to hand. When he had asked about the training, the Knight simply told him that he would know, and had then left.

And he had known. He felt a powerful presence through the force, and knew he must make his way to it. He wondered what would happen if he was wrong, if he stumbled across a meeting of masters and found his life was forfeit.

Smiling wryly as he pushed through the vegetation, he realised that that was another doubt that needed to be put aside.

I'm close, Ithron thought, as he cleared the forest and started to climb the stairs that led, eventually, to the roof of the Temple. He's here somewhere...

Necros perked his head up and watched as one of the apprentices strode up one of the flights of stairs leading to the balcony where he was currently awaiting. There were two already present, so this would make the third apprentice to show up. He could also sense a fourth one approaching. To help break the tension that he could feel ebbing among the apprentices, he decided to make conversation with one of the new arrivals. Pulsing gently through the force, he probed the mind of the newest arrived presence, and found his identity and a little outward knowledge of him from within.

"Thank you for coming. And I say thanks not because I needed you here, but as a form of celebration, for by choosing to be here, you will not only find your true destiny, but you will also become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, although," Necros added slighly, "it may not come in the form that you would think."

"Ithron," said Necros, addressing the new arrival singly, "If you could have all of the powers of the universe, I ask you, what would you do with them?"

As Ithron stepped onto the balcony, he saw first that he was in the right place, and second that there were some apprentices already here. He had seen them before, but had never actually spoken to them. Inclining his head towards the apprentices, he turned towards the one who was evidently in charge, and bowed deeply. His Force signature showed up strongly, but Ithron got the feeling that that was only because he had wanted it to. Ithron put him down as someone to watch - someone he could certainly learn from.

Broken away from these musings by the question, Ithron had to think for a minute before answering. What would he do with "all the powers of the universe"? Several things came to mind; make the jedi pay for abandoning him, manipulate his way to being the governer of a star system, gain a fleet of ships to obey his every command. But then he thought back to his time as a mercenary; living and working just to get the next meal with no guarantees about the one after that....

"Master, I'd use them to..." he faltered. "Well, i'd make sure that I could never be betrayed by the Jedi, or anyone else, ever again."

He paused, then, as the bitterness grew inside him, started speaking again. "I'd use it to make sure I was the one making the decisions! With the comfort and security that goes with it..."

If he had told the truth, that may have been what he wanted, but whether that's what he would have done with "all of the powers of the universe", he couldn't say. He'd never had any more power than any other hired help, and the Jedi had taught him not to want things for himself. Even now, free from the Jedi lies, he found it difficult to think of any power, like the Force, working "for" as opposed to "through" or "with" him.

"May I ask, Master, why you asked that of me?" he asked, in a voice he hope showed respect, and not too much fear.

Darth Necros listened to the answers that his apprentice had provided in response to his question, and then nodded accordingly. When the apprentice asked a question in turn, Necros merely responded, "Oh, to make conversation, more than anything else."

"Come," Necros now said, "It is time to being our lesson. Now that you all have arrived, we will begin our exercise with a little fitness test. Fifty kilometers west of here is a wide open clearing in the middle of the forest. Using your bare arms and feet as your only modes of transportation and self defense from the predators in the forest, I want you to meet me there."

With that being said, Necros took off, jumping off of the temple, using the force to cushion his landing. Legs and arms working, he jumped over fallen trees, dodged around rocks, and took off running through the forest, subtley using the force to discourage any nearby predators. Of course, it is probably not fair that the apprentices wouldn't have the same advantage, but then again, who said anything about fair?

With thoughts of all the powers of the universe pushed out of his mind by the Master's sudden order, Ithron began to run down the stairs, pushing his way past the other apprentices, trying to get a good start. An athletic looking would-be-Sith hurtled past and into the darkness of the forest, as Ithron panted his way along the same path.

Having forced his muscles to run for perhaps a kilometer or two, Ithron was breathing and hard. He was worried about coming in late, looking bad in front of the masters. They'd send him away, he thought, banish him. Or maybe even kill him, to keep the planet a secret. I can't be late. I have to get there.

I'm not built for this! he thought. He couldn't understand why the Sith would have him run? For the sake of it? No....doing pointless things for the sake of it was a Jedi thing.

The Master's words came back to him ... "using your bare arms and feet"... With a flash of inspiration, Ithron remembered the Force. The powers he had that he hadn't used since leaving the Jedi Academy. He remembered his training, and disregarded it. He knew it was his sheer determination that would get him through. Channeling energy from the force into his legs, he managed to keep running, but not fast enough. He wanted more.

As his desire and need for power grew, he started to draw energy from the Force more hungrily. The Force had always seemed "blue" to him, but now it seemed Red, he was using it actively, not passively. He was making it go where he wanted, so it would serve him. With the power of the Force flowing through him, he ran on.

His speed, while not great and out the reach of a professional humanoid runner, was certainly more than he could have managed normally. As he ran,he seemed to hear his Master's words again....."self defence from the predators"....What predators?

At that Ithron tripped, and slammed into the ground hard. Winded and bruised he looked up...

Necros stopped running for a moment and watched as the other apprentices made their way through the forest. One of them seemed more promising than the others, more eager to achieve this goals and claim the dark side of the force as his own tool. But, just as you can control the dark side, so can the dark side control you. As this particular apprentice, Ithron was his name, as making a headlong rush through the forest, Necros observed him trip and fall. Such an embarrasing accident, particulary in front of the other apprentices which now passed him. And to add insult to injury....

One of the larger predators of this forest was a mammal, some two meters tall when standing on his rear legs, normally a four foot creature, however his forward feet can be used as hands to claw an prey to shreds. He also has sharp teeth and great strength. He doesn't mind a battle, and he is commonly called in hunting circles a bear. However, this brand of bear is more ferocious than most, tainted as the dark side they are. As Necros watched, he felt the presence of another bear, the mate to the one confront Ithron, come up behind him.

These bears do have one weakness through. Commanding Ithron's presence to him, Necros stiffened two fingers of his right hand, then drove his right hand into the neck of the bear as it was standing up, compressing the bear's windpipe. The bear staggetered, then fell backwards and was gagging for breath. Necros tossed a glance back to Ithron, consider this a free pass, young apprentice, a reward for your enthusiasm. You'll only get one. Then Necros was off again, heading to the rendezvous.

As he looked around, the first thing Ithron was aware of was an enornous animal of some kind, looming over him. Almost as fast as he was aware of it, he saw it fall back to the ground, and he wasn't sure how. He was damned sure he hadn't done it, but he wasn't one to question why an enemy fell, the fact that it fell was enough.

However, with one of these creatures disabled by forces unknown, there was still a second one nearby. As this new one...(Its mate? Do these things mate? thought Ithron, and then decided that zoology was lower down his priorities list than staying alive)...approached him at high speed, almost in a charge, Ithron noticed a faint red glow around the edges of the animal. Then he realised he wasn't seeing the glow with his eyes, he was sensing it through the force. As his nearly-forgotten force-skills reawoke, it slowly dawned on him that the animal had a force signature!

It didn't surprise him; everything here seemed so full of power, so why should the flora and fauna be any different?

Allowing the Force to control him once more, he allowed his anger to filter through to his actions. He allowed his resentment at having been floored and winded to be like a red fire, filling his mind.

It here he noticed how powerful the darkside could be. It filled his mind, if he let it control him, the rage would destroy him - the dark side would devour him. He had to focus it. He focussed his mind and forced the red rage in his mind to intensify but become more controlled until it was blue again; and then white; the white of an intense flame, when the colour has long been burned away.

All this took place inside Ithron in a fraction of a second. Channeling this anger to his limbs he reached out, and grabbing a large branch that had fallen to the floor in recent wind, he threw it at the animal. Stunned, the animal staggered, and then lay still.

Breathing hard as the strenuous activity caught up with him, Ithron had time to notice that the branch must have weighed a hundred kilos at the least. And he had thrown it, with the dark side. It was then that he realised that what he had done was what all Sith do, in some form or another. Some were just better and more experienced than others. He wondered how good his Master must be at it, and realised the level of power that Sith Lords must control.

Shivering now from the thought, and from the cold, Ithron felt the Force, more gently now, and ran on to the clearing, and the rendezvous.

It was about twenty minutes from the encounter with the animal, and the going was slower. The terrain had become a swamp, and running was impossible. Not only that but the smell of decaying biomatter was so strong that breathing deeply was rendered impossible. Even breathing as little as he could, Ithron felt as though his lungs were being defiled.

Hearing a shrill shreik that tore through the air, Ithron jumped and looked above him, where the sound had come from. He saw a leathery black shape flap away over the trees. Only a bird, he thought, but his gaze didn't leave the trees. Mind you, looks more fun up there than down here.

Walking to a nearby tree, Ithron drew his cloak to round his back and attempted to find some footholds on the slime-covered tree. Luckily, it was old and gnarled. The odd shapes of the branches made it easy to climb, and as he got higher, the smell got less as well. At this height, the tangle of branches that was the forest canopy could be seen to extend in all directions.

Slowly at first, Ithron started to make his way in the direction of the clearing. But as he carried on, he moved faster. Idly practicing with the Force, he made jumps that he could not have managed before, and used the Force to balance him as he ran along long thin branches. The freedom and lack of restraint he needed energised him. As a Sith, he felt far more in touch with the universe than any Jedi could be.

Fools. He thought. Master Cole and the rest. They never knew the force. Tey just played. I've taken the next step.

Suddenly, as he ran, his musing on the philosophies of Force-users was broken by the branch he was on snapping. Falling through the air, his reflexes weren't fast enough to save him.

He fell through what must have been twenty metres of twigs, branches and other bits-of-tree before he came crashing to a halt. The undergrowth that had accumulated over years broke his fall, but it still smelt of the swamp.

"You. Stay where you are. If you even think of moving, i'll have your head off." Ithron heard a voice shout.

Groaning, he started to pull himself up, wondering who that was and why they were speaking to him that way.

"And how will you manage that? You don't have a lightsaber any more than the rest of us. Hah. Even if you did, I doubt you'd know which end was which. You'd burn your own frelling hands."

The reply made it clear that he'd stumbled into a private argument. Looking up, Ithron saw two of the apprentices. One of them was a tall non-human with green scaled skin. He was wearing a long dark robe, so it was difficult to make out any more detail. His was clearly the first voice, because looking across, Ithron could see a second apprentice, lying on the floor, clearly having been put there by something. The second one was human.

Ithron stayed low, and hidden as the first one started to speak in his hissing voice.

"Perhaps not," he began, removing a blaster from his belt. "But we'll see whose hands get burned..."

Ithron had heard enough. He wanted to jump out and challenge the scaled alien, but he couldn't. What would he say? He wasn't some peace-loving jedi. He was a Sith. Besides, their Master would know what happened, he was sure of it, and by judging what happened to the alien, Ithron would know what the rules of the game were for their training, and how much was allowed.

Silently, Ithron stood up and continued towards the clearing that couldn't now be far away. As he ran off, he tried to ignore the screams of pain, and the hideously vicious laugh of the apprentice-turned-torturer.

What have I let myself in for? he thought.

Vance stood silently, his form concealed within the darkness provided by the swamp foliage, as he watched the display between the two Sith Apprentices not far ahead. They were clearly at odds with one another, one attempting to seemingly kill off the competition, as it were; and while Vance did applaud determination in his students, it was a wholly different matter when there was simply wasted potential out of spite.

While Sith do ensure to watch out for themselves, it is not acceptable that they forsake the sense of brotherhood and companionship.

Not far away, there was another Apprentice. Vance could sense his uncertainty at the situation, and did not judge him on his decision to simply allow things to progress as they would. If anything, Vance thought with amusement, it is the safest option for personal survival... Sith Apprentices can, after all, be so needlessly competitive.

None-the-less, as the first blaster shot filled the jungle, Vance stepped from his viewing place. Reaching out with the Force, the Sith Master wrapped the invisible grasp of power around the weapon held by the alien Apprentice. With a thought, nothing more than a passing whim, Vance crushed the cast metal, reducing it to a crumpled pile that was dropped to the ground in surprise.

"Ke'shak," Vance spoke, his voice low as he closed the distance with the two Apprentices. "You will hold your hand, or have it removed." Coming to a stop in the clearing, the Sith Master looked down at the human who lay on the ground. The boy had a series of blaster burns across his torso, and his eyes were wide with both panic and pain...

...Vance doubted he would survive.

"The Sith are a brotherhood, Apprentice," Vance said, addressing the tall alien beside him who now bowed his head in respect. "And you have violated that understanding. In your attempt to gain the advantage, you have begun down the path that destroyed the Sith Orders before... there can be no growth, no power, where all we do is destroy one another."

"As you speak, Master Jas," Replied Ke'Shak, a very audible swallow being heard. "I apologize for my ignorance, and I--"

Vance sneered. "I suggest you save your guilt, and instead focus on getting young Aliar to the temples infirmary... for if he dies, then you will fully discover the meaning of your misdeed. Go, now."

To which the Apprentice lifted the human, rushing into the jungle at a fast pace, and clearly intent on doing everything in his power to remain well and whole.

It dawned on Vance, though not for the first time, that in some ways both teachings offered by the Sith and Jedi were similar; as it was, if didn't matter which teachings were apparent for Ke'Shak, it remained that he would ensure that Aliar lived... whether for his own need at survival, or simply to atone for his mistake.

Yes, quite similar, yet with a clear line of definition between them...

Smiling to himself, Vance turned and continued making his way toward the planned meeting area. He maintained a casual pace, as he had no intention, nor need, to reach the destination by the required time limitation. Pulling his cloak tighter around his person, the Sith Master disappeared into the swamp, melding with the shadows...