Xireon stumbled another step through the endless cold of Ziost, a fierce, bitter cold which burned him to the core. He cried out through the endless bizzard, not in pain, but in anger. "Where are you, Tirion!?"

The Sith's mind flashed back through his life, the turmoil which had encompassed it constantly since his conception. Perhaps, not conception, but inception -- he was never born, but created, to be the perfect Sith soldier, the perfect warrior, the perfect murderer.

Gash Jiren, his "father", had created him from a combination of his own DNA, and that of a Jedi by the name Nomi Sunrider, and many other Force adepts. He'd been engineered to be faster, stronger, smarter, and to possess all of the memories of his creator. In every effect, he was a perfected version of Gash, bred to kill without compassion.

And he had.

He'd joined with Recon Klain's Ziost Empire, then with Grand Admiral Thrawn's Chiss Imperium as it invaded the common galaxy and nearly crushed the Republic -- and, more importantly, the Jedi organization headed up by Xireon's father. He'd assisted in the creation of a legion of Force-sensitive warriors, called the Achrions, using Galak Fyarr's technology derived from the Valley of the Jedi.

He'd become the true mastermind behind Thrawn's invasion, taking control of the Achrion armies and forcing his will upon the Chiss Imperium. But at that final, critical battle on Ruusan, Gash Jiren had taken command of the Valley of the Jedi's power, and pulled down the Tachyon -- an Executor Star Destroyer filled with Achrions -- upon the Valley.

Xireon had been on the dusty fields surrounding the Valley when it fell.

He'd nearly died; he'd nearly been destroyed, as had his father. Yet they'd both emerged -- Gash unscathed.

Xireon was not unscathed.

Brutalized and pummeled by the blast, and by the expulsion of the great Force Energies swirling around the battle over the place -- from the Achrions, to the Valley itself -- Xireon's once shock-white hair (the mark of any true son of Asthentia) faded to a dull black, his glowing red eyes had dulled, and his body was crippled.

All that had kept him alive was rage. Rage, which now drove him.

"God damn you, Tirion! I'll kill you... I'll kill your family..." He gritted his teeth, reaching out in the dark side. He let the anger flow through him, feeling out through the storms. "Fucking son of bitch..."

A glimmer to his left flashed through his mind, and he pulled his lightsaber in front of him. He slashed blindly, and the laser sword met resistence. Xex Tirion had blocked it with the Blade of Klain.

The Blade of Klain was the sword created when Gash Jiren used it to kill and resurrect Recon Klain. It had inheireted not only the ability to bind the living essences of beings to the physical world, but a strange, warped semisentience. It had been used to resurrect Thrawn, and after the fall of the Chiss Imperium, had been stolen by the Achrion Commander, Xex Tirion, who now stood before Xireon.

"You won't... take me, Xireon." Xex pushed away Xireon's lightsaber, and slashed at his chest, a movement which was promptly blocked. "I'll kill you. The Blade... will take you..." Tirion was more winded than Xireon.

The Son of Jiren's pursuit of Xex Tirion had begun at Coruscant, and had stretched across the galaxy, all the way to a crash-landing on Ziost. "The Blade is my last hope, Tirion." He brought his lightsaber back, leaping away from his opponent. Drawing deep down at the last simmering core of dark side power within his evil soul, he fired a jagged blast of lightning at Xex, striking him in the chest and sending him flying back from the impact.

Xireon lept forward as Xex crashed to the ground, hacking down at him. The Achrion futiley threw up the Blade of Klain in defense, but the Sith's sheer strength, fueled by his phenomenal hatred, broke through the weak defense, the Blade clattering from his hand. Finally, the Sith stabbed down his lightsaber through the bottom right of Xex's stomach -- a purposely non-fatal wound.

Nonetheless, the man screamed in agony, as Xireon shut off his lightsaber.

"You brought the Blade here because it is the strongest on this, the world of its birth. But you failed, Xex Tirion," Xireon smiled darkly. "The Blade of Klain has a will of its own. A will which defies yours. It concerns itself with only one thing; its survival! It has chosen the strongest of it."

"Then?" Xex said, still gasping in pain. "What are you planning, fiend? Bastard? What do you think the Blade can offer your wretched, damned existence?"

Xireon chuckled. "If you only knew. The Blade is my last hope. It will let me live again, with the full power of a Son of Asthentia, and a True Sith." He picked up the sacred sword, still smiling. "You and I have much to do."

Xireon dragged Tirion onwards, through the continuous storm, leaving a dark trail of blood across the snow. In front of them loomed one of the great, dark temples of Ziost, built thousands of years before by the Sith Empire.

The Sith smiled. His time had come.

Asthentians were a species unto themselves, blessed with an extraordinarily long life -- nearly three times that of a normal human -- and innate Force sensitivity, owing to the multiple species which had joined in the melting pot, including Zabraks, Chiss, along with the predominant humans. Their white hair marked the sons of Asthentia, immediately identifying them.

Asthentians who were critically wounded -- who approached the edge of death, to the point that only the Force could keep them alive, but survived, often exhibited a strange alteration. Their hair would fade to black, their once-glowing eyes would fade to a dead, monotone shade. Xireon had heard of this before; it was called "noc'tural", a Krick word for "dark pain".

Xireon had been a victim of this noc'tural, after nearly dying in the blast on Ruusan. His body had changed before his very eyes; he had lost the vitality and strength which had before marked him, the dark side expanding within him like a living being, taking control. It warped him, twisted him, crippled him to the core.

Asthentians had a different word for noc'tural: half-life. A cursed existence, shortened and without the power of a true Son of a Asthentia.

They were inside the stone temple, now, going deeper and deeper through its caverns. Finally, they came to the massive main chamber, with what would look to any other man as a large, ornate table at the center. Xireon knew what it truly was, though; an altar, one of sacrifice.

He reached out in his senses, feeling the cold presences of long-dead Sith Masters flow through the temple. He knew they waited for him. Hoisting Tirion up, he placed him gingerly on the altar, smiling gleefully down at the terror on the wounded man's face.

"Don't worry, Tirion. You're dying; if I left you here, you would be dead in hours. I am going to give you eternal life."

Tirion spat at Xireon's face. "I don't want anything from you."

Xireon gritted his teeth in rage, his fist flying down to strike Tirion in the face. The blow, accelerated by the Force, was powerful, but not nearly as much as it should have been, a clear reminder of his crippled form.

No more.

Xireon gave a shout of rage, clenching his fists and reaching deep inside of him. He drew out that simmering core of perpetual rage, of dark side infused hatred which had kept him alive when he should have been dead. It flowed through him, down his arms and out his hands, out of every part of him, a black shadow creeping through the ancient Sith temple.

The powerful dark energies around him aided his powers, and the stone chamber about him began to shake with the sheer force of it. The shadows and darkness around him conjured by his rage began to turn to fire, errupting with the burning strength of the anger inside of him.

Xireon pulled the Blade of Klain from his waist, bringing it up above his head. He was acting on impulse, now, allowing the ancient Sith spirits to guide him, just as Gash Jiren had when he'd first used the Blade. He screamed one more time in rage, and Tirion echoed the sound with one of panic -- yet he was too wounded to move, or avoid the blow. The sacred sword sliced down, cutting into his chest, and Xex roared in agony.

The chamber shook more, and the fires amplified. Xireon pulled the blade -- which bore not a spot of blood -- from Tirion's chest, raising it above his head again. This time, when it arced down, it cut into the Sith's chest, and he screamed, somewhat in suprise at what he'd done. He pulled the Blade from his chest, keeping a firm grip on it through the pain.

Suddenly, within him, Xireon felt a stirring of pain, a pain more intense than that of a self-inflicted stab wound. His skin began to burn with agony, as it warped and solidified into a shell. His body grew exponentially, doubling, then trippling in size, his face warping into that of a great demon; a Sith demon.

Xireon, the perfect creation, the perfect Asthentian, had been created with one flaw, one imperfection. Or, perhaps it wasn't; Xireon would never know. But in times of most critical anger, the Sith clone warped in form, changed from his normal self into an uncontrollable image of the darkest heart of the dark side.

Though a mouth which was not his own, he struggled out the words he knew he must say:

"Dark spirits of the Sith, give me what I desire, from the hatred in your hearts of unholy fire."

The Blade in his hand once again instinctively found its way to the chest of Xex Tirion. And then, the swirling shadow in the rumbling chamber exploded in a fiery blast.

And Xireon knew nothing.

He'd never know how long he lay there, but when he awoke, the chamber was in ruins. Rubble lay all about him, and he lay upon the altar. His body immediately felt different; he wasn't sure how. Stronger? Certainly...

Xireon brought one of his hands in front of him, looking at it. What he saw made him recoil.

It was a dead blue, the skin hard and almost-scale like. The hand itself had warped into a claw, with long, sharp talons jutting from it. He stood up.

The body of Xex Tirion was gone, as was the Blade of Klain.

Xireon stalked across the room, his limbs responding quickly and powerfully, his muscles stronger than ever before. He bent down, picking up a piece of broken glass from the ground in his claws. He looked into it.

"What creature of darkness and death have I become...?" He said, staring into the small mirror. His hair was still black, but short and flecked with silver. His eyes glowed pure white, imbued with an essence of power within him. His cloak had torn. His abdomen was thin -- sickly thin, like a corpse, but not frail. In fact, he very much looked... dead.

"This is not what I had asked for!" He screamed, looking about him, as if questioning the Blade of Klain and the spirits which had granted him this new form. He looked at his teeth in the mirror; they had morphed to fangs, just like those of his Sith demonic form. Before his very eyes, they reverted to normal teeth, as if they'd been altered by his rage. Xireon wrapped his torn cloak about his mouth, like a scarf.

He could feel the essences of the Blade of Klain and the beating heart of the twisted Achrion Xex Tirion within him.

He was... a wraith.

Xireon stalked through the cold again, outside of the temple. It was noticably easier than before, his strong muscles pulling him with ease through the storm.

He turned around, taking one last look at the temple. Almost on impulse, Xireon reached out his hand, and a blast of pure Force Fire shot from it, blazing out through his hand and launching itself at the stone structure. As it struck, it detonated, and the temple crumbled in a blaze of fire.

Xireon smiled, and turned away.

He was the cursed. The living dead.

The Wraith of the Blade.